Eager to positively and continually transform the patient experience, the CHRISTUS Physician Group recently made a huge move transitioning from manual patient intake to Epion Health’s integrated digital check in platform, using iPads to check patients into their appointments.  The move represents a significant step for CHRISTUS, impacting all of its clinic locations across Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana.

The Epion Check-in^TM solution provides bi-directional integration with athenahealth, CHRISTUS Health’s electronic health record (EHR) provider, 100% data security and a robust rules engine. EHR integration empowers patients to review and edit existing personal health information already in the system, while adding information to the record appropriate for their scheduled appointment, saving significant time at check-in.

“We were eager to transform the patient experience and outcomes with Epion’s leading-edge technology,” said Bob Karl, CFO of CHRISTUS Physician Group. “As a not-for-profit, we had to make certain we would reduce costs as well. Epion Health’s platform proved itself in a matter of weeks.”

“Before Epion, we experienced many challenges” said Karl, “both for the patients and staff. There was a lot of paperwork, and a lot of time spent entering patient data into our electronic medical record system. ”Since completing the full implementation, CHRISTUS is reporting several significant operational improvements, some of which include:

An increase of nearly 3.5% in collections per encounter. “That alone is a five-time return on investment,” adds Karl.

Collections of outstanding balances and copays at the time of service have almost doubled since deploying the Epion solution, addressing one of CHRISTUS’ top organizational priorities for 2017.

Additional improvements reported:

• a 600% increase in email collections
• a 300% increase in patient portal sign-ups
• collection of over 53,000 consent documents
• over 21,000 patient opt-ins for text messages

CHRISTUS selected Epion after conducting head-to-head pilots.  According to Karl, “After extensive review, Epion’s superior product, outstanding client support and extensive knowledge of the clinical workflow made them the clear choice.”

Epion Health has over 250 clients, ranging from single-provider practices to large enterprise organizations, and boasts a 97% client retention rate since launching their check-in product over 3 years ago. “We have the best team in the business and we are hyper-focused on client satisfaction and delivering a crystal clear ROI,” said Joe Blewitt, CEO at Epion Health. “We developed the Epion Check-in platform to replace legacy check-in systems, while delivering immediate and sustainable operational benefits.”

“As an organization, maintaining uninterrupted service to our patients was a significant concern of ours when considering the move to digital check-in,” said Laurie Lindsey, Director, Training & System Support at CHRISTUS, who headed up the implementation of Epion. “Epion trained our implementation team which assisted in the rapid deployment of the digital platform across all of our practices. They met every deadline.”

Based on the built-in patient satisfaction questionnaire, 92% of CHRISTUS patients report to be either satisfied or very satisfied with their experience using the Epion platform.

“At CHRISTUS,” said Karl, “we seek partners that understand the complexities of our business and support our organizational core values; Epion has clearly demonstrated both. For us, the move to Epion has been transformational.”

In 2017, CHRISTUS Health earned its third consecutive Most Wired Hospitals designation from the American Hospital Association’s (AHA) Health Forum.  One of the many reasons CHRISTUS earns designations like this is because of high tech moves to optimize the delivery of care.