ORLANDO, Fla., July 18, 2007 – Caritas Christi Health Care, New England’s second largest health care system with six acute care hospitals throughout Massachusetts, has selected Craneware’s Chargemaster Corporate Toolkit™ suite of products to automate and manage the system’s charge description master (CDM) across the enterprise.

The software will replace Caritas Christi’s current manual methods of managing CDMs on an individual level at each facility. The Chargemaster Corporate Toolkit will allow managers to access the CDM from one central point and create a corporate standardized chargemaster.

“Managing the CDM manually makes it very difficult to keep codes current and to meet compliance standards,” said Miles Coverdale, Caritas Christi’s chief revenue officer. “Finding software that would allow us to automate and centralize the process was necessary to improve efficiency and optimize revenue. Craneware’s Chargemaster Corporate Toolkit provides the solutions we need to address these problems and to begin standardizing our revenue cycle management across the enterprise.”

Chargemaster Corporate Toolkit is scalable, enabling large multi-hospital systems to develop a customized approach to fit their corporate needs. The software will help Caritas Christi:

• Automate and maintain a master CDM for the entire enterprise, while accommodating coding variations from different facilities based on individual hospital needs;
• Optimize legitimate revenue by keeping codes up-to-date and reconciling what a department meant to charge with what they actually are about to put into a claim
• Deploy mandatory changes across the enterprise;
• Support compliance standards; and
• See the immediate impact of every line item creation or modification, the potential issues each may create elsewhere, and how to correct any such problems.

The system includes an Active Code Book feature and Craneware’s Online Reference Toolkit™, a browser-based, easily accessible cross-reference tool that allows users to research coding, regulations and pricing information. Both products will allow multiple staff members to access resource information, ensuring that all individuals who need to be involved in the coding process are kept up-to-date. The integrated system also keeps hospital personnel abreast of changes and provides a complete audit trail, making it easy to review the decision process behind any changes after they are made.

“Using Chargemaster Corporate Toolkit to merge the system’s six existing CDMs to reside under one corporate chargemaster will simplify current management processes and streamline compliance,” said Jim Wilson, Craneware’s executive vice president. “Additionally, the ability to make changes locally and at the corporate office will provide Caritas Christi with the flexibility needed to manage such a complex process.”

About Caritas Christi Health Care

Caritas Christi Health Care, the second largest health care system in New England, is an integrated health care delivery network providing exceptional care to more than one million people annually. Caritas Christi operates the following acute care hospitals throughout Massachusetts: Caritas Good Samaritan Medical Center, Brockton; Caritas Norwood Hospital, Norwood; Caritas Carney Hospital, Dorchester; Caritas Holy Family Hospital and Medical Center, Methuen; Saint Anne’s Hospital, Fall River; and Caritas St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center, Boston, the system’s tertiary care referral center. Caritas Christi also operates a 400- physician group practice, an academic medical research institute, a health sciences college, a clinical laboratory network, a community-based human services agency for women and children, centers for hospice and home care, and an international medical services agency for the poor.

About Craneware

Craneware is the leading market supplier of financial software solutions that empower health care providers to improve daily operations, optimize revenue, encourage compliance and use information more efficiently to drive business decisions. Craneware’s Chargemaster Toolkit™ solution is HFMA Peer Reviewed and ranked No. 1 in the Revenue Management category of the “Top 20 Year-End Best in KLAS Awards” report, published December 2006. With more than 750 hospital customers throughout the United States, the company is known for excellent revenue cycle management solutions and proactive client support.