A Cloud-based, hassle-free Medical Billing and efficient Practice Management Software: CollaborateMD

“We consider each customer a partner and you can trust that we do everything in our power to make sure you are successful.”

CollaborateMD was founded in 1999 by Douglas Kegler, to help medical practices and medical billing services thrive in the jungle of ever-changing government and insurance payer regulations without having to spend a fortune on software, support, and hardware. Our mission was a simple one: provide a software solution where we handle all of the hardware and software components (software, servers, backups, clearinghouse communication, regulations, etc.) and allow our users to concentrate on their business, all at an affordable price.

The Odyssey of CollaborateMD

Douglas Kegler, the CEO, founded the company CollaborateMD (formerly XGear Technologies) in 1999 just before publicly launching the industry’s first Internet-based practice management and electronic medical billing software, ClaimGear.

In the mid 90’s Doug saw that the healthcare community was in dire need of an improved practice management and medical billing solution. With years of experience as a computer programmer and software engineer in the healthcare sector, he knew that a better solution existed.

Kegler had begun writing several DOS and Windows-based dental and medical billing programs in 1989, but found a common problem with system built by software companies: medical practices and billing companies had to install, maintain, and support their own servers, databases, and connections with the clearinghouse or insurance companies, which greatly increased costs. Moreover, software in the medical field was cluttered with hundreds of menus, making them difficult to navigate, impossible to maintain, and altogether too expensive for practices with less than 25 physicians.

As his interest in finding a better solution turned into a determination to design and develop the software himself, Kegler paid the bills with a “day job” that was still supporting a Windows medical billing application written in Pascal for a large billing service company in Syracuse, NY. Meanwhile, the rise of Web applications throughout the banking, trading, retail, and media industries in 1997 intrigued Kegler and undoubtedly served as the catalyst that drove him to choose the speed and flexibility of the Internet as the foundation on which he would later build his software.

Still, in the brainstorming phase, Kegler solicited feedback from both a well-known neurologist who had used a medical billing program Kegler wrote in 1993 called Quicfa and his Syracuse-based billing service client. Both expressed interest in the idea but shared hesitations about transferring data over the Web due to concerns about security.

Kegler turned away from creating a browser-based application in early 1998, fearing it would be too slow, as most users were on dial-up modems at the time. Instead, he chose a Java client/server application which enabled him to maintain the software, database and clearinghouse connections from his company. Making these changes would enable his customers to focus solely on medical billing, practice management, and patient care. The system would be designed with intuitive screens and easy-to-navigate menus, making week-long training sessions a thing of the past.

Continuing into 1999, Kegler worked non-stop on weekends and nights to design and develop his Internet-based system. As he neared completion of his first beta version, he contacted his two previous clients from Syracuse, NY, who both agreed to test the system.

Kegler distributed a press release in May 1999 informing the healthcare sector he would soon release the first Internet-based medical billing software. The official version publicly launched in January 2000. The Syracuse-based neurologist liked the system so much that he signed up as a client, and is still a client today. Once the system was built, Kegler realized he needed to make it affordable to billing services and practices of all sizes. He established a low set-up fee to cover implementation and a low monthly fee to cover the costs of system usage, software updates and maintenance, customer support, and clearinghouse fees. The end result was easy to use, affordable, accessible, and online medical billing and practice management solution for the healthcare industry.

Features Offered

Real-Time Claim Submission: Real-Time Claim Submission gives you on-demand visibility into your claim and enables real-time results. No more waiting until the next day to see claim acceptances or rejections!

Report Financials & Dashboards: View 125+ report templates and modify them with the ease of drag-and-drop fields, filters, grouping, and charting, allowing you to view the financial performance & health of your account.

Patient Processing & Payment: Streamline front office registration and payment processes with our integrated Payment Processing and Payment Portal, designed to help your office staff work more efficiently and accurately.

Claim Control: CollaborateMD medical billing software generates patient and payer collection worklists with automated, prioritized follow-up tasks that boost your collections productivity and improve financial performance.

Scheduling: Our appointment scheduler can be easily customized to fit your needs in addition to configuring scheduling rules that will help maximize the physician’s time while optimizing your front-office and back-office workflow.

Get Paid Fast: Our customers work less and get paid faster thanks to our 99% First Pass Claim Acceptance rates, 29% higher than the national average! You too can experience exceptional first pass claim acceptance rates (FPA) with CollaborateMD.

Mastermind Behind the Masterstroke

Douglas Kegler, CEO:

“When you join CollaborateMD, you will become more efficient, decrease rejects, speed up the payment cycle, and enjoy the freedom to access your data from any web-enabled computer.”

“At CollaborateMD we are obsessed with getting your medical claims paid fast. We are constantly enhancing our innovative and intelligent web-based medical billing software to make sure your claims get to the medical insurance payer as quick as possible and get paid.”