Value-based Pricing Analyzer™ Automates Price Modeling to Help Hospitals Evaluate and Adapt to Evolving Healthcare Market

ATLANTA, Jan. 26, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- With market conditions expected to fluctuate in the wake of healthcare reform, hospitals can now quickly and easily evaluate their pricing strategy with Value-based Pricing Analyzer™, a new offering from Craneware, Inc. (AIM: CRW.L, OTC: CRWRY), the market leader in automated revenue integrity solutions.

Value-based Pricing Analyzer simplifies and automates the price modeling process, providing the speed and flexibility hospitals need to adapt to dynamic market conditions. With Value-based Pricing Analyzer, hospitals can readily assess the potential impact of changes, such as revenue shortfalls, as well as ensure their pricing is transparent, defensible and competitive.

"As the healthcare marketplace evolves, new payment models emerge, and the payor mix shifts, healthcare organizations need to be able to deploy strategic pricing changes with the speed and agility necessary for competitive advantage and sustainable success," said Keith Neilson, CEO of Craneware.  "Sound healthcare pricing strategies need to balance a range of complicated factors. Value-based Pricing Analyzer enables hospitals to readily analyze opportunities by automatically factoring in the key metrics that affect value. With this new tool, hospitals of any size can efficiently establish consistent, transparent and defensible pricing strategies that address their unique situation and deliver financial performance improvement."

To enable strategic pricing, Value-based Pricing Analyzer integrates data from disparate systems and automatically generates pricing models that factor in regulatory, reimbursement, cost and market information. The solution enables hospitals to:

• Calculate payor mix and price sensitivity to access the impact of changes
• Create and compare multiple pricing scenarios detailed down to the service line or aggregate to the facility
• Measure pricing against current industry benchmarks and competitors in their market
• Evaluate and adjust pricing based on inflationary factors
• Provide complete documentation for approval among key stakeholders as well as for auditing purposes
• Create and maintain consistent, defensible and transparent pricing strategies

"Successful pricing requires a multi-faceted approach that integrates all relevant factors, including payor contract information, market analysis and actual costs to ensure that prices are set at defensible yet sustainable levels," said Patrick Halfhill, CFO, Madison County Memorial Hospital in Madison, Fla. "With Value-based Pricing Analyzer, we are able to complete pricing reviews much more quickly and frequently, which drastically reduces the time and costs associated with manual processes."

Value-based Pricing Analyzer is part of Craneware's Strategic Pricing product family, which helps ensure defensible and transparent pricing. In addition, the product family provides accurate patient estimates, which improves patient satisfaction levels, productivity and compliance. Value-based Pricing Analyzer integrates with Chargemaster Toolkit® to further optimize operational efficiency, compliance and financial performance.

With anticipated reductions in reimbursement and bundled payments, the time for healthcare to prevent revenue leakage is now. In an effort to further educate healthcare facilities on common sources of revenue leakage and best practices to achieving revenue integrity, Craneware launched stoptheleakage.com last year.

About Craneware

Craneware (AIM: CRW.L, OTC: CRWRY) is the leader in automated revenue integrity solutions that improve financial performance for healthcare organizations. Craneware's market-driven, SaaS solutions help hospitals and other healthcare providers more effectively price, charge and code for services and supplies associated with patient care. This optimizes reimbursement, increases operational efficiency and minimizes compliance risk. By partnering with Craneware, clients achieve the visibility required to identify, address and prevent revenue leakage. To learn more, visit craneware.com.

SOURCE Craneware, Inc.