Today’s healthcare market has become increasingly challenging due to ever-changing government regulations and payment responsibility shifting to patients as a result of the growing prevalence of high deductible health insurance plans. As more and more patients are responsible for a higher portion of their healthcare expenses, it puts an increasing pressure on healthcare facilities to approach financial communications strategically.
Apex Revenue Technologies is the leader in patient financial engagement solutions, offering both printed statements and online payment options that help providers to improve revenue cycle results while also strengthening patient relationships. For the 11th straight year, the Apex Revenue Technologies name has appeared on Inc. 5000’s fastest-growing private companies list. Currently, the company services over 16,000 healthcare locations, including hospitals and physician groups, across the United States.
“Apex sends out approximately 15 million pieces of mail per month, which is not an insignificant number. It was critical for us to invest in a printing platform, which is stable enough to consistently produce that volume every month yet still be able to personalize healthcare financial communications,” stated Hollingsworth.
Originally, Apex dealt with over 600 different pre-printed shells in its Nashville and St. Paul facilities combined. These materials not only were a huge investment, but also, they were difficult to warehouse, move around, and manage. Plus, the ever-present risk of choosing the incorrect pre-printed shell for a particular job was a concern. To alleviate these issues, Apex moved to color inkjet printing, which provided consistency and personalization more cost effectively.
“By using white paper, instead of pre-printed forms, and printing color digitally, Apex now has a more streamlined process to dynamically change messaging, resulting in better communication with customers and shorter pay cycles. For example, Apex customers, on average, realize a 10 percent reduction in billing related costs driven by actionable messaging,” said Christine Schoenwalder, Director of Production and Facilities at Apex Revenue Technologies.
The transition to the inkjet process occurred in the St. Paul facility first with the purchase of the Xerox Impika Compact, the Tecnau Stack 2020 system, including Unwinder, Cutter c20, Stacker s20 and Merger m20, and the Tecnau TC 1550 PLUS 1 Dynamic Perforator. “We chose Tecnau solutions because they were certified with Xerox and other OEMs, and their ability to accommodate a roll to cut finishing line. Apex chose this configuration so it would not affect the whole process and be disruptive to the inserting team,” said Schoenwalder. Hollingsworth added, “The initial Tecnau system worked so well for us that we decided to purchase the same one for our Nashville facility.” In the fall of 2017, the Tecnau solutions were paired with the Ricoh InfoPrint 5000 to offer consistency between the Nashville and St. Paul operations.
“Consistency is extremely important, and to help ensure it, we use one workflow platform to feed both the Nashville and St. Paul facilities. It was critical that we could easily shift work between the two locations, and these new solutions have allowed us to do exactly that,” added Hollingsworth.
The inkjet printers operating in conjunction with the Tecnau solutions ensure much more than just remarkable consistency. The Stack 2020 system offers Smooth-Web™ technology, which reliably supports a broad range of media without sacrificing production speeds, operating up to 450 feet per minute. It is an ideal solution for the millions of documents produced and mailed every month by Apex. Furthermore, with its intuitive, touch‑screen control panel, operators can make adjustments easily and quickly. The learning curve has been minimal for the operators.
The Tecnau TC 1550 PLUS 1 Dynamic Perforator has worked ideally for the single horizontal perforations needed for the payment stubs used by Apex clients. Higher quality output is now possible, dynamically only perforating the pages that require it. Cutting, perforating, slitting and merging occur exactly the same way every time for documents.
Tecnau’s solutions as well as its team have proven to be invaluable to Apex. Working in collaboration with partner vendors, the Tecnau team is always there to answer questions, help with any system glitches and ensure print service technicians are properly trained.
“Now Apex experiences efficiencies throughout the whole production process thanks to Tecnau and our printer partners, Xerox and Ricoh,” said Schoenwalder.
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