LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)–James Schlueter, President of J A Schlueter & Company, announced today the divestiture of all non-technology consulting activities as well as a new name for the company, Effective Health Systems, (www.effectivehealthsystems.com). Its sole focus now is to build on its record of introducing game-changing technologies for the workers compensation medical management marketplace.
“Smart-UR clients can rest assured that the newly invigorated Effective Health Systems will continue to support Smart-UR and client staff who use it. However, our clients can also look forward to several more powerful and far-reaching technologies being released in the very near future.”
“Since the launch of Smart-UR in January of 2009,” Schlueter said, “our energies have been drawn to the problems created by the highly segmented and fractionalized nature of the workers compensation medical management market. A lot of technologies out there offer various efficiencies, but do little to improve the overall effectiveness of the individuals tasked to process claims, reduce costs, get injured workers into effective healthcare and ultimately back to work. It seems most technologies today are single-function, vendor-driven vehicles aimed at business development rather than what the ultimate goal should be.”
Schlueter noted that the company’s introduction of Smart-UR, a ground-breaking technology in the Utilization Review market, demonstrated how a technology aimed at a lower cost and lower margin business could help reshape business processes to deliver both efficiency and effectiveness. “We have reduced the operating costs of UR for payers by 40% – 60% and almost tripled the productivity of workers engaged in the process of UR. In so doing, we have cut literally thousands of days of unnecessary delays in getting injured workers into needed medical treatment and back to work.”
“While our technology has proven itself valuable in its own right in the national marketplace,” Schlueter commented, “we’ve found that it also helps clients get more value out of their other systems. Simply, we add the capability to automate, manage and audit.”
Schlueter said, “We intend to deliver a multi-functional system to address the entire workflow process. It will handle all the bureaucratic paperwork, deal effectively with the routine decisions, and deliver just the right information managers need, when they need it and in the format they require. This will let professionals charged with managing a complex claims process truly excel at what they want to do, and can do best – manage claims and injured workers efficiently and effectively.”
Gregg Bernhard, the company’s COO, said the decision to divest the other consulting activities and rename the company was needed to eliminate internal business distractions and align the company’s resources with the company’s primary commitment. Bernhard commented, “Smart-UR clients can rest assured that the newly invigorated Effective Health Systems will continue to support Smart-UR and client staff who use it. However, our clients can also look forward to several more powerful and far-reaching technologies being released in the very near future.”
Source: BusinessWire