Category Archives: oud

One way to win a big contract is to persuade existing customers to buy your companion products. Another way to win is to buy your rival and sell your products to your ex-rival’s customers. Cerner ( CERN ), one of the largest makers of software for the health care industry, did it both ways when it persuaded the second-largest publicly traded hospital chain in the U.S., Universal Health Services ( UHS ), to upgrade from its Siemens ( SIEGY ) Invision revenue-cycle software to Cerner’s new Millennium Revenue Cycle suite. First, Cerner took out the competitor, Siemens Health Services, for $1.3 billion in February 2015. Then it went to work on Siemens’ revenue-cycle client Universal Health, which was already a Cerner customer in that it used Cerner’s  electronic health records (EHR) and health information management (HIM) software on the clinical side of the medical profession. But for the business side — to handle patient eligibility, co-pays, coding claims, tracking, collections and following up on claim denials — Universal Health was using Siemens’ Invision. Cerner’s new Millennium Revenue Cycle product handles both the medical and business sides, while integrating with the federal government’s push toward electronic health records (EHR) and PopHealth analytics to inform medical and administrative decision makers, as well as regulators and policymakers. “The size of the deal is unknown, and considering UHS is switching from one CERN-owned platform (Siemens’ Invision) to the core CERN Millennium platform, the contribution will not be as large as if it were a completely new customer,” said Canaccord Genuity analyst Richard Close in a research note Thursday. Hey, money isn’t everything. “Just as important as the size of the deal, however, is the signature nature of the Siemens conversion to Millennium Revenue Cycle for Cerner,” said RBC Capital Markets analyst David Francis in a Thursday research note. “While the clinical side of Cerner’s Millennium offering has been highly regarded for some time, there have been pockets of questions recently about Cerner’s revenue-cycle capabilities for large enterprises. “The UHS decision to replace Invision … is a major conversion and should help Cerner in convincing other Siemens financial users to strongly consider not only moving their clinical platform to Millennium, but their financial solution as well.” Cerner announced the Universal Health deal after Wednesday’s market close. In the stock market today , Cerner shares rose 1.4% to a two-month high of 55.98, 26% off an all-time high of 75.72 set nearly a year earlier, April 13, and down 12% for the year. Universal Health stock fell 1% to 123.04, 17% off  its record high of 148.57, set Aug. 5.