By Matthew Holt

AthenaHealth has announced its rankings on the best and worst payers in health care. Athena CEO Jon Bush discussed the PayerView rankings on the CNBC Squawkbox with Ron Williams, CEO of Aetna, the No. 1 ranked fastest payer. Williams pontificated about how great it will be when all the stuff Aetna is putting in motion is up and running.

Then, he got a tough question about the pressure that high-deductible health plans have put on physicians by making them figure out payments from consumers and insurers. This is a real problem for doctors and getting worse. The amusing thing is that the question came not from the journalists but from Bush.

After Williams’ somewhat waffly answer, Bush said that he’s looking forward to announcing real-time claim adjudication with Aetna any time now. I’m not sure if Bush intended that as a slam or a promise (maybe both), but it seems AthenaHealth has had it with Humana and United Healthcare for a while.

Here’s the video and here’s the press release. New York’s Medicaid program is the worst payer, as if you were surprised.