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Colleges hire firm to manage training rooms, file insurance claims

In a span of a few weeks this summer, Vivature, a health care technology business, signed two new clients who on the surface couldn’t appear to be more different.

One was Penn State, a blue-chip brand in the power five elite. The other was Lindenwood University, a Division II school in Missouri.

New Vivature client Penn State will get a guaranteed annual payment from insurance claims.
Photo by: AP IMAGES
But there’s one thing both schools have in common: huge athletic departments, which sponsor 29 NCAA sports at Penn State and 27 at Lindenwood. That means the training rooms at both schools are among the busiest places on campus.

Software from Dallas-based Vivature helps schools manage their training rooms. That includes everything from secure record keeping to billing the insurance companies every time an athlete goes in for treatment or rehab.

When a school like Penn State or Lindenwood cares for the health of more than 1,000 student athletes on campus, simply keeping a roll of who’s coming and going can be a challenge.

Many insurance claims for these training room visits, according to Vivature, never get filed, representing a missed opportunity for the schools to recoup payment for the treatment provided.

Vivature’s software automatically files insurance claims for its school clients every time an athlete goes to the training room. It also verifies an athlete’s insurance on a monthly basis to stay current.

A sampling of Vivature clients

Auburn
BYU
Central Michigan
George Mason
Houston
Pacific
Penn State
San Francisco
Southern Mississippi
VCU

Vivature’s service is something it provides for health care centers across the country, but it’s just now moving into business with college athletic departments.

“For ADs, they see the training room as a high-risk area,” said Brad Wachler, Lindenwood’s athletic director who also has a background in athletic training. “We found value in knowing that there’s a secure system in place and that they’re handling the billing, which is complicated. Most places don’t have the resources to handle that.”

On many campuses, billing is either handled by an athletic administrator, the training staff or the athlete, or it’s not handled at all. But with Vivature billing insurance companies for each visit to the training room, it can recoup hundreds of thousands of dollars in reimbursement and share that money with the athletic department.

“We’re creating a new revenue line for our schools,” said Joe Giansante, Vivature’s chief marketing officer and a former college administrator at Oregon and Syracuse.

It’s admittedly taken Vivature time to sell schools on the idea that they’re missing out on thousands in reimbursement from insurance companies. Athletic trainers expressed skepticism about using the training room to find new money.

Vivature has brought on two former athletic directors — Jim Livengood (UNLV, Arizona) and Gene DeFilippo (Boston College) — to give its service more credibility and to refine the sales pitch for ADs.

The company appears to have hit stride over the summer, as Penn State and Lindenwood came on board in June, followed by Central Michigan and Jacksonville State. They joined a client list that also includes Auburn, BYU, Houston and Southern Mississippi.

Vivature’s business model guarantees schools a figure typically in the low six figures annually, and makes its money by collecting the insurance claims that previously weren’t being filed.

It’s modeled after the third-party rights holder relationship used by Learfield and IMG College, which guarantees a certain amount of revenue in exchange for the school’s marketing and media rights.

“Whether you’re an elite power five school or in the group of five [the rest of FBS], our daily efforts are centered on student athletes, and nothing is more important than providing the best medical care and service,” said Dave Heeke, Central Michigan’s athletic director. “What Vivature does enhances that. In 30 years, I haven’t seen anything like it that’s this turnkey.”

The recently signed deal with Jacksonville State, a Football Championship Subdivision school in Alabama, will pay the athletic department $750,000 over the next five years. Greg Seitz, JSU’s athletic director, touted the new revenue as money that will be reinvested into the athletes’ health care while also keeping the training room more organized and efficient.

Lindenwood’s five-year deal is worth $2.5 million total.

Typically, the dollar guarantee goes up based on the number of student athletes coming through the training room, so the revenue is based more on how many athletes a school cares for, not what division or conference it’s in. More athletes in the training room means more claims filed, and more revenue flowing back to Vivature, which says it has added about a dozen new school clients and has not seen any pushback from insurers.

Lindenwood not only sponsors 27 NCAA sports, but also oversees 28 student life sports, which range from billiards and bowling to table tennis, for a total of 1,200 student athletes in the program.

Lindenwood’s Wachler began vetting Vivature when he worked for Heeke at CMU. When Wachler got the job at Lindenwood earlier this year, he took the Vivature idea with him and negotiated a lucrative deal for the Division II school near St. Louis.

Wachler found the primary value in Vivature’s billing expertise and the peace of mind in knowing that his training room had its records in a secure and organized system. While several companies make and sell software for health care purposes, athletic administrators say they haven’t seen a turnkey approach like Vivature’s that handles record keeping and billing.

“Whenever a company like Vivature ventures into new territory like this, there’s going to be some skepticism,” Wachler said. “But I think there are enough case studies now to put some of those fears to rest.”

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