About AMHC
AMHC is a nonprofit Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC) in northern Maine. With more than 60 years of dedicated service, AMHC is the largest behavioral healthcare provider in the region, operating 27 service locations across Aroostook, Hancock, and Washington counties. The agency annually supports up to 5,500 clients, with a team of 350+ employees delivering a comprehensive range of services in mental health, substance use, crisis, sexual assault, prevention, brain injury, and programs for adults with intellectual disabilities. AMHC is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF).
Challenges
Meeting the Demands of a Growing CCBHC
As a growing CCBHC, AMHC needed greater visibility into how services were delivered, utilized, and reimbursed across the organization. At the same time, the organization was navigating significant change, requiring more comprehensive operational, financial, and clinical information to support its mission of helping individuals recover and improve their quality of life. But with its previous EHR, siloed services made it difficult to maintain the systems-level perspective required of a CCBHC while coordinating care across a large rural and remote region.
AMHC’s CEO Christy Daggett said teams across the organization relied heavily on spreadsheets and emails to piece together data, while late or missing documentation was hard to find. As a result, leadership struggled to quickly understand service utilization, identify revenue cycle issues, and provide the board of directors with a clear picture of organizational performance. They also lacked the real-time insight needed to make informed decisions.
Those challenges became increasingly difficult to manage as AMHC continued to grow. The organization’s previous EHR no longer fully supported the level of visibility and integration AMHC needed. Teams often relied on manual billing adjustments and workarounds to support revenue cycle processes, including manually billing some commercial insurance.
The administrative burden affected everyone from executives and IT leaders to clinicians and staff. Teams were stressed out trying to keep up with the volume of information, often spending valuable time tracking down and reconciling data when they wanted to be focused on delivering excellent clinical care. AMHC needed a solution that would reduce risk, improve visibility, and allow its people to focus their time and expertise on where they could make the greatest impact.
Solution
Creating a Single Source of Truth Across Operations and Care Delivery
AMHC chose Cantata’s Arize EHR to bring operational, financial, and clinical information together in a single platform. Designed specifically for behavioral health organizations, Arize helps providers adapt to changing programs, reporting requirements, and reimbursement models while maintaining a clear, organization-wide view of care delivery and performance.
This unified approach gives AMHC the system-level perspective needed to operate as a CCBHC. Christy said the dashboard showing system-level data helps leadership quickly understand key operational metrics that were previously difficult to access, including service utilization and census data. “I know to the minute how well our beds are being utilized and clients’ length of stay,” Christy said. “This helps us understand bed utilization and length of stay in real time, so we can support timely access for people who need care.”
Arize also helps AMHC streamline revenue cycle operations. With improved visibility into outstanding balances and denials, billing teams can quickly identify where attention is needed and take action before issues impact cash flow. The organization has also reduced reliance on manual billing adjustments and other workarounds that previously created operational risk.
On the clinical side, built-in client matching controls help identify potential duplicate records when individuals access services through different locations or crisis teams, supporting the “no wrong door” approach to care required of a CCBHC. Clinical teams can also schedule clients more efficiently and spend less time navigating screens to enter notes, allowing staff to focus more attention on interacting with clients as people.
In addition to the platform’s capabilities, AMHC valued Cantata’s collaborative approach throughout the selection and implementation process. “We’ve done a few software implementations in recent years, so I knew how important it was to have a team that was responsive, can turn things around quickly, and not abandon you after the sale,” Christy said. “Cantata has really delivered on all those things. The team has been great to work with.”
Financial sustainability is, of course, very important for our board of directors. They want to understand what’s going on with our revenue cycle and I can quickly produce that data for them. Making billing more fluid also allows us to prioritize our human capital, which is our most important asset. It frees our team to spend less time trying to keep up with the volume of information and more time to focus on meaningful, strategic work.
RESULTS
Turning Visibility into Measurable Outcomes
With real-time access to operational, financial, and clinical information, AMHC is transforming how it manages performance across the organization.
Financial Impact
Now that leadership has greater visibility into reimbursement performance and billing teams can quickly identify issues that need attention, one of the most significant improvements has been in revenue cycle management. As an example, AMHC reduced time-to-payment for one of its most challenging insurers by 50%, shortening reimbursement timelines from four weeks to two weeks.
Operational Visibility
The organization has also gained a clearer understanding of service utilization and program performance. Real-time census and utilization reporting gives AMHC leadership immediate insight into how services are being used, helping ensure resources are available where they are needed most. Rather than relying on emails, spreadsheets, and manual reporting, teams can make decisions based on current data.
That visibility has also supported AMHC’s efforts to expand access to care. By gaining a clearer understanding of service demand and capacity across the organization, AMHC has reduced its waitlist for adult behavioral health services from approximately 18 months to just 10 days. This dramatic reduction reflects how better operational insight can translate into connecting people with care more quickly.
Supporting Organizational Change
The timing of the transition was especially significant for AMHC, which was simultaneously implementing Arize and newly certified as a CCBHC.
“It was scary, honestly, becoming a CCBHC and implementing a new EHR in an overlapping way. I worried it was too much,” Christy said. “But because of the efficiencies we’ve found through Cantata, it’s made our CCBHC implementation that much easier. Cantata has given us the tools to weather a period of dramatic transition for us.”
Clinical and Community Impact
The impact extends beyond operations and finances. By reducing administrative burden and improving access to information, Arize has allowed staff to spend less time gathering data and more time focused on supporting clients. Clinical teams can devote more attention to meaningful interactions with the individuals they serve. “They have time to slow down and be in a space where they can focus on making sure that our clinical care is excellent,” Christy said.
Cantata has offered us a feeling that we can get our processes streamlined and our risk contained so we can just breathe and let staff be in their happiest place. They’re not constantly stressed and looking at emails and spreadsheets. They have time to slow down and be in a space where they can focus on making sure that our clinical care is excellent.
Conclusion
For AMHC, the value of Arize extends beyond efficiency gains and faster reimbursement. By reducing administrative burden and strengthening visibility across the organization, the platform helps staff spend more time focused on helping individuals recover and improve their quality of life. As CCBHCs continue to grow and evolve, Arize enables providers like AMHC to manage growing complexity with confidence, support their teams, and focus on delivering exceptional care to the communities they serve.