Physicians have a mission to provide the best care for patients. However, when medical staff are stuck dealing with inefficient business operations, patient care can suffer.
Enter Quatris Healthco, which supports medical practitioners across the U.S. through a mix of software and consulting products that simplify the management of electronic health records (EHR) and optimize practice operations. The company has over 120 employees in 45 states and services over 10,000 providers, including primary care physicians and surgical offices.
Quatris Healthco had to scale its financial system and adopt industry-specific accounting practices to support its growing roster of practitioners. Cari Thomas, CFO, relies on NetSuite ERP(opens in new tab) to handle the company's evolving financial needs.
COMPANY SNAPSHOT: QUATRIS HEALTHCO
Industry: Healthcare software/services
Founded: 1988
HQ: Bedford, Texas
Employees: 120
Customers: 10,000 medical providers nationwide
‘A Soup-to-Nuts Solution’
Quatris Healthco “uses NetSuite as a soup-to-nuts solution,” Thomas said. This includes for financials, accounts payable and receivable, lead tracking, customer contracts and sales orders. NetSuite's ERP platform offered greater detail for audits and better segregation of financial information than Quatris Healthco’s previous system, QuickBooks(opens in new tab), Thomas said. It also resulted in smoother order processing.
The company also had specific needs, including a way to consolidate separate business units due to a recent merger, intensive deferred revenue tracking and customized ERP functionality for adherence to HIPAA regulations.
1. A simplified merger
In 2018, software and database solutions provider Quatris merged with HealthCo Information systems, another software firm with an aim to make medical office operations more efficient. Both organizations implemented NetSuite before the merger, which simplified the process for the accounting team.
"Within a short period, we were able to produce consolidated financials” as the merged Quatris Healthco, Thomas said. “It only took us six months to transact out of a single system. Having a shared ERP made the transition much more efficient.”
2. Automated revenue recognition
Quatris Healthco’s sales of both software and consulting services requires close tracking of deferred revenue, which was impossible on QuickBooks.
“Deferred revenue was one of the largest components on our balance sheet,” Thomas said. “We needed a system that allowed us to track revenue at the customer and contract level.”
NetSuite’s revenue recognition functionality(opens in new tab) allows Quatris Healthco to segment software and consulting services and automatically defer revenue under predefined rules. The system creates, updates and posts all revenue records automatically, eliminating manual entry errors and assuring compliance with accounting standards such as ASC 605, (opens in new tab)ASC 606(opens in new tab) and IFRS 15.
3. Customizations for HIPAA compliance
HIPAA, the federal law that sets strict standards around protecting patient health information, requires businesses like Quatris Healthco to store and share patient data in very specific ways. For example, “we’re not allowed to store any protected patient information within NetSuite,” Thomas said.
To satisfy these demands, Quatris Healthco uses NetSuite customizations: The company built a feature that strips attachments with patient information and automatically links them to a third-party storage platform.
“We go through HIPAA audits on an annual basis, and we never have issues because of that functionality,” Thomas said.
Looking forward
In the coming years, Quatris Healthco will continue to provide cutting-edge solutions in the fast-changing healthcare space. Most recently they have expanded their already robust product selection through a partnership with athenahealth, which will allow Quatris Healthco to offer telemedicine services and expand its cloud-based business and service offerings. NetSuite ERP will support the expansion, offering reliability and business intelligence to help delight and retain Quatris Healthco’s growing customer base.