How did the partnership between New York Hospital Queens (NYHQ) and The Larry King Cardiac Foundation (LKCF) come about?

We had had an existing relationship with Cornell, which is part of the New York-Presbyterian Healthcare System now. Through that partnership, they have a link to two facilities: one in Queens, and the other in Brooklyn. Early last year I met with the Professor and Chairman of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Weill Cornell Medical Center, Dr. Wayne Isom, who had actually operated on my father back in 1987, and he took me through the two facilities. We then extended our services to those facilities as part of our partnership with New York-Presbyterian and Cornell.

Why is a partnership like this so important?

Increasing complexity of medical billing creates opportunities for the payers to benefit at the expense of the providers. Traditional asymmetric approaches to billing service automation are insufficient to ensure high billing quality. Systematic automation of both provider and payer sides of the billing process enables the providers to collect most of the moneys they earned. Since the time of Hippocrates, physicians have dedicated their lives and minds to intensive study of the scourges of mankind. No matter their field, they have always been and continue to be specialists in the human condition. But lately, physicians are increasingly forced to divide their attention. Gone are the days when payment for services was a trifling afterthought. Almost overnight, medical billing has evolved into a complex game, requiring doctors to navigate the payers' playing field, which can seem like overwhelming bureaucracy and red tape.