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Culbert
Healthcare growth fueled by new health guidelines
CityBizList.com
Culbert Healthcare Solutions, a health management and IT consultancy, saw its revenue grow by 77 percent in 2010. The Woburn-based company is benefitting from hospitals and physician groups scrambling to meet deadlines for implementing electronic medical records, and seeking to improve their bottom lines with better revenue cycle management tools.
The Woburn-based company grew to 70 workers by the end of 2010, up from 40 a year earlier. The company has already hired 10 new employees this year and plans to close 2011 with a head count of approximately 110.
President Rob Culbert said clients’ urgency surrounding the so-called “meaningful use” guidelines for implementation of electronic medical records is unlike anything he’s ever seen before. Doctors and hospitals must demonstrate they are using EMRs to increasing degrees, starting this year, in order to gain incentive payments from the federal government. Health care providers who don’t meet the deadlines will eventually start incurring penalties in 2015.
Culbert has etched out a niche as the liaison between the vendors of electronic medical records, such as Marlborough-based eClinicalWorks, and the hospitals or physicians’ groups struggling to adapt to a changing business model.
“None of the vendors have sufficient implementation teams that are boots on the ground,” said Steve Fiore, CEO of 10 physicians’ practices, including Norwood-based ENT Specialists PC. “They have to know how a physicians’ practice works, and many of the engineering and software people don’t know that.” Fiore said the biggest challenge in transforming a physicians’ practice is to ramp up new technology without dropping the number of patients doctors can see. Culbert Healthcare, he said, has been a key tool in overcoming that hurdle.
Fiore has hired Culbert Healthcare Solutions on a retainer basis for $4,000 or $5,000 a month to help implement new revenue cycle management systems at the Norwood practice. Fiore said the eight-doctor office has grown revenue to $9 million from $6 million over the past three years, doing the same amount of business, through better revenue cycle management. Fiore credits the deep expertise of Rob and his team.
“My typical employee has 15 years of health care experience, not just on the vendor side or the practice side, but both,” Culbert said. “I think that helps clients avoid common mistakes.”
Culbert Healthcare’s revenue was $14 million in 2010, up from $7.9 million in 2009. The company’s revenue remained relatively flat during the worst of the recession — 2008 revenue was $8.1 million. Culbert financed the company himself, with “a couple hundred thousand” dollars in 2006. The company has never taken a dime of venture capital money and never plans to go public.
“I like to report only to my customers and my employees,” Culbert said. “When the financial system collapsed in 2008, several of our competitors had to do drastic layoffs because of nervous investors.” The company has benefited by some of its competitors disappearing altogether during the recession. For instance, Global Works Systems Inc. was acquired by Ingenix Consulting in Nov. 2008 and the Bard Group was acquired by Navigant Consulting in Jan. 2009.
Culbert said he doesn’t think the surge in his business will slow down as more health care providers go digital, because hospitals and doctors will want to leverage their new data to drive down costs and drive up quality.
“I don’t expert there to be any dramatic change in the business over the next five years,” Culbert said. “Most organizations are just at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to using all the functionality of the technology.”
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