Sam Khashman, ImagineSoftware President and CEO: ‘We Combine Voice-of-the-Customer with Forward-Thinking, to Create a Comprehensive Billing Product Roadmap’

“We spend a considerable amount of time during the implementation phase of new clients and on-going management of existing clients to understand their processes, capture feedback, and/or make recommendations on best practices we’ve seen or used in the past.”

The environment around medical billing has never been more complicated. Providers and billing companies are continually having to evolve and adjust to meet patient demands, reimbursement changes, regulatory changes, etc. Manually doing this work is time-consuming and expensive.

By utilizing an automated platform for medical billing, some of that complexity can be stripped away, and organizations can focus their staff on items that involve higher levels of thinking. Automation also allows organizations to grow and expand their business without the constraints of hiring or retraining staff. As organizational growth continues, complexity grows with it. However, using software that learns and scales with the organization prevents operational deficiencies and maintains high-performance levels.

In light of the foregoing, we’re thrilled to present ImagineSoftware — the leader in automated medical billing software and revenue cycle management applications.

The company was incorporated in 2000 and is headquartered in Charlotte, NC with additional offices located in Daytona Beach, FL, San Diego, CA, Delmar, NY, and Dallas, TX.

Sam Khashman, ImagineSoftware President and CEO, spoke exclusively to The Silicon Review. Below is an excerpt.

Q. Explain your services in brief.

ImagineSoftware offered design operates as a complete healthcare billing software and revenue cycle solutions. Our products offer the technologies and tools needed to enhance practice management. We automate the process of collecting reimbursement throughout the entire lifecycle of a claim and patient payment process. We’ve overcome challenging and unprecedented government regulations, balancing the management of rising patient consumerism, and falling reimbursements. Over the past two decades, our teams’ efforts have diversified ImagineSoftware’s suite of products and services. These efforts have contributed to multiple innovations and numerous customizable features that aim to serve our customers. We never forget who we work for. Without our clients, we are just a software company. They are the reason we’re successful.

Our cutting-edge technology lies within the software’s ability to learn from existing practices continuously. This drives innovative development and creates intelligent automation that helps clients achieve optimal performance and measurable results. Our suite offers advanced technology and automation and seamless connectivity for a fully optimized management experience.

Q. How is medical billing automation software different from normally automated billing software?

The medical billing space is extremely complex. The process of capturing patient information, accurately coding, and submitting clean claims to an insurance payer has multiple failure points. Many healthcare organizations are using antiquated solutions that rely on manual processes. Medical billing automation is the process of taking manual tasks and removing human intervention.

When considering automated medical billing software, there are certain must-have features: Workflow configuration, scale, real-time data analytics/intelligence, security, and efficiency. The removal of human intervention speeds up claim processing, reduces marginal error, and identifies billing errors before the claim is submitted. Payments can be posted automatically and re-filed for insurance claims to expedite the billing lifecycle resulting in faster payments and reduced days in Accounts Receivable. This optimization in automation increases the chance of a successful first pass. With the right data analytics/intelligence, providers can identify untouched revenue streams that may have been unintentionally missed and target areas for improvement. Medical billing software must be up-to-date with federal regulations and deliver HIPPA compliant access to clinical data, financial transactions, and insurance information. Secure record keeping prevents the negligence of patient information.

Q. Coding inaccuracies are still a significant challenge for many providers. How do you manage to deal with this issue?

ImagineSoftware is committed to intuitive RCM solutions and focused on helping our clients achieve peak performance while providing measurable results. Our suite combines a variety of approaches ranging from traditional coding practices to artificial intelligence. This feature allows clients the ability to build a workflow that is most conducive to their unique workflow.

The rise of artificial intelligence presents a notable opportunity to improve the coding process’s speed and accuracy. While this progression is significant, we will likely never truly be replacing the human component. The ImagineTeam approach has been able to provide multiple options to drive the right workflow for each practice. Innovations in the medical coding space are occurring every day. We spend a considerable amount of time during the implementation phase of new clients and on-going management of existing clients to understand their processes, capture feedback, and/or make recommendations on best practices we’ve seen or used in the past. The combination of this ‘natural intelligence’ with some of the new artificial intelligence technologies creates a best-of-breed approach.

Q. Medical billing involves a lot of personal data. How do you ensure data security?

As the leader in medical billing software automation, we recognize our responsibility to protect patient data. On an on-going basis, we audit policies and procedures using internal resources and third-party validation organizations to ensure we are operating at the highest level of certification. By nature of our business, ImagineSoftware is subject to numerous laws, policies, and procedures to ensure patient data is secure.

Internally, we have a department specifically dedicated to enabling the success of our clients as well as our employees through technology. They create procedures and standards that minimize vulnerability to threats and security risks by determining appropriate security measures that protect private information and our infrastructure. This part of the ImagineTeam provides continuous monitoring for anomalies, access control focused on password security, data encryption stored or in transit, multi-factor authentication for data access, and cybersecurity training to keep our employees, clients, data, and property safe and secure.

Unfortunately, the healthcare sector is an easy target for cybercriminals because of the vast network of information. There are many interconnected individuals externally that have access to medical and billing records – patients, dependents, specialists, physicians, hospitals, billing service providers, health insurers, etc. Medical records are the highest valued credentials on the dark web at $20-$70 per record – that is at least 90 percent higher than the value of someone’s credit card information at $5-$7 per record.

Q. How do you gather insights to update your offerings?

In healthcare today, everything moves fast, and organizations that remain stagnant do not last. That is a simple fact of the world we live in today. As a company, we cannot settle for small improvements. We must take considerable leaps to stay competitive. To achieve this, we regularly need to undergo performance transformations to make sure we remain agile in our market. Clients are our best avenue to gather insights that help us stay ahead of these changes and distinguish ourselves from the competition. We combine voice-of-the-customer with forward-thinking, to create a comprehensive billing product roadmap. Our willingness to tackle any issues and fill any RCM gaps earned a statement by one of its early clients: “If you can imagine it, they can do it.” Our clients drive our success, and we take their needs to heart. They are the foundation behind what we decide to include in the Imagine suite.

In addition to our clients, we recognize that in some cases partnering with other forward-thinking organizations may be the best approach. By leveraging our partner network, ImagineSoftware can develop a new product by interfacing with existing technology solutions and integrating it into the existing workflow. This provided approach allows us to remain nimble in the marketplace and prevents the client from adopting a solution that sits outside of their core software application.

Sam Khashman: An Emotionally Intelligent Leader

Sam Khashman, President and CEO of ImagineSoftware, established the company in 2000 (as mentioned above), with the vision of workflow-centric computer systems. He applied his industry experience in manufacturing, financial, insurance, and operations with high volume transactions to develop ImagineSoftware’s Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) system. He is recognized within the healthcare industry for combining complex processes into efficient, single system solutions. With over 25 years of executive leadership, he has directed the development and commercialization of more than 20 software products. These products are utilized by thousands of unique users and clients, serving more than 200 million patients across all 50 states. Mr. Khashman leads as a firm believer in servant leadership and consistently uses this as the foundation of his leadership and ImagineSoftware’s culture.

“We’re committed to intuitive RCM solutions and focused on helping our clients achieve peak performance while providing measurable results.”