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Cerner (News - Alert) Corporation and SearchAmerica, a part of Experian and a major player in financial clearing services for healthcare, have entered into a master agent agreement that allows SearchAmerica's suite of financial services to be integrated with Cerner's revenue cycle offering, a part of the Cerner Millennium platform.

SearchAmerica's services, including Address Checker and Payment Advisor Suite, are used by hundreds of hospitals nationally to assist with the automated segmentation, prioritization and collection of receivables so as to improve cash flow while simultaneously providing ways to lower overall costs.

"We are pleased to work with SearchAmerica and to provide additional revenue cycle capabilities to our clients," said Bill Wing, vice president, revenue cycle at Cerner, in a statement.

Wing said that the embedded SearchAmerica capabilities will provide the company’s clients with actionable information to ensure they have the appropriate demographic and financial information to bill their patients.

Officials with Cerner said that benefits of this agreement for the company’s clients include-Address Checker that verifies patient demographic information at the point of registration or pre-registration; Payment Advisor Suite, which allows classification of patients to predict the likelihood of payment and it also provides the ability to screen patients for charity care, medicaid, other government programs and uninsured discounts, assisting in creationof proper documentation for enrollment as well as calculating discounts.

According to company officials, Cerner is transforming healthcare by eliminating error, variance and waste for healthcare providers and consumers around the world.

Company officials said that Cerner solutions optimize processes for healthcare organizations ranging in size from single-doctor practices, to health systems, to entire countries, for the pharmaceutical and medical device industries, employer health and wellness services industry and for the healthcare commerce system.

These solutions are licensed by more than 8,500 facilities around the world, including approximately 2,300 hospitals; 3,400 physician practices covering more than 30,000 physicians; 600 ambulatory facilities, such as laboratories, ambulatory centers, cardiac facilities, radiology clinics and surgery centers; 700 home-health facilities; and 1,500 retail pharmacies.