As vaccines roll out across the world and cities and countries begin to lift restrictions and open up, it may seem like the world is ready to move on. However, the healthcare industry in particular will continue to face new challenges and unexpected, long-lasting impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic that will take time and innovation to recover from.

In order to bounce back from such an unprecedented event, the medical industry is going to need to find ways to improve efficiency without cutting corners or lowering standards. Digital transformation technology offers a lot of opportunities for just that. By enabling automation of mundane and repetitive tasks, centralizing communication, and making information more readily accessible across vast distances, digital technology is revolutionizing the way business is done, and may hold the key to getting the healthcare industry back on track post-pandemic.

A full-scale digital transformation can be a massive undertaking, so it often helps to break it down into more manageable parts. Digitizing paper documents and paper-driven processes is an excellent place to start.

Efficient and effective management of documents and records helps any organization run more smoothly. While improving this function can make a big difference in nearly any industry, it can have particularly positive impacts when it comes to organizing medical records. Here are a few reasons to start digitizing medical records:

Paper Digitization Offers Better Security

There are a wide variety of medical documents, including many that are considered highly confidential. Hard copy paper documents can lead to unnecessary security risks that digital documents more easily avoid. Paper documents can easily be mislabeled, incorrectly filed, lost, accidentally destroyed in fires or floods, or accessed by unauthorized individuals without a trace. Digitizing documents allows you to put in place strict security measures that limit access and visibility to only those with proper authorization, while also facilitating easy document search and lookup. Digital documents also have the added benefit of being able to track everyone who views, accesses, or changes the document, creating a reliable audit trail.

Greater Accessibility with Digital Documents

When dealing with a large volume of records, even meticulously organized for optimized retrieval, locating and accessing the specific information you’re looking for will always be needlessly time consuming. Navigating a well-designed digital document management system is going to be easier and more efficient. You can store records, define a standardized naming format, and find files more quickly.

Paper digitization also helps with legibility - a particular concern for the medical community in which ensuring prescriptions and dosages are correct can be a matter of life and death. Advance AI-powered optical character recognition (OCR) and intelligent character recognition (ICR) software is capable of extracting data from even handwritten documents - or alerting user if writing is too illegible and may cause confusion.

Reduced Storage Space

One thing the pandemic made abundantly clear for many health networks is the true value and importance of floorspace in healthcare facilities. A single sheet of paper may not seem to take up much space, but when dealing with the volumes most medical facilities see, that space fills up very quickly. By digitizing historical documents as well as newly created ones, medical facilities can cut down significantly on the amount of floorspace dedicated to document storage and reallocate it for better, more productive use. Maintaining physical records also often requires full-time help. Someone needs to be there to retrieve files, move them from locations, and maintain their organization. Digital document management solutions automate this task, making it faster, more efficient, and more consistent.

The healthcare industry has been slow to adopt some digital technologies, and not without good reason. But in order to bounce back from the unprecedented hit it took during the global pandemic, it’s time for the industry to invest in long term solutions that improve efficiency. By creating a smoother and faster administrative function, healthcare workers can focus more time and energy on their core mission - providing excellent patient care.

Find out more about how Exela’s digitization solutions can help your healthcare organization.

One of the top challenges facing the healthcare industry and the revenue cycle is the medical billing system. The medical billing system encounters many obstacles due to the changes that occurred (and continue to occur) during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the complexity of the billing system itself. Along with increasing regulations and standards, healthcare providers need to find ways to streamline the billing system. Because the billing system is repetitive in nature, it makes the perfect process to implement digital transformation.

Business automation in the medical billing system increases efficiency, speeds up payment posting, and improves the revenue cycle. The medical billing system is often the first element to be automated in the revenue cycle, usually because providers may be using an outdated billing system or notice higher claims denials. Employing automation in the billing system helps providers to enhance the process, avoid surprise bills, and focus more on patient care while reducing spending.

Complex Processing of the Billing System

Rather than being handled by a single department, the medical billing process requires input from multiple departments including the billing department, administrative department, and clinicians. With so many seemingly unlinked departments working together, there's bound to be room for error, slow processes, and inefficiencies.

Also, healthcare providers don't typically receive payment upfront. They first work with payers for reimbursement before deciding if they need to bill a patient and, if so, for how much. Healthcare providers need to consider a patient's copay, medical coverage, and insurance eligibility. At the same time, providers need to confirm that claims are accurate with the proper medical codes to avoid denied claims.

Business Process Automation Improves the Revenue Cycle

When it comes to enhancing the revenue cycle, the medical billing system needs to be taken into consideration and healthcare providers need to consider how business process automation fits into their overall digital transformation and revenue goals. According to a 2021 CAQH report, transitioning to fully electronic transactions could save the healthcare industry 48% of annual spending. There are various customizable digital solutions that healthcare providers can rely on to make repetitive tasks more efficient, free up resources, and ultimately, reduce spending.

Fewer Denied Claims

Currently, healthcare providers report that claim denial rates are between 6% and 13%. A denied claim is lost revenue and many claims are denied due to minor errors. With business automation such as Exela’s Lockbox, healthcare providers would see fewer denied claims.

Exela’s Lockbox improves the first pass rate of claim submissions by identifying and flagging medical coding and billing errors before the claim is submitted. By increasing the number of clean claims submitted, healthcare providers receive reimbursement more quickly.

Along the same line, once a claim is denied, it requires the provider to decide if the denial needs to be appealed, the claim needs to be adjusted, or the patient needs to be billed. Business automation solutions such as Exela’s Lockbox increases the recovery rate on denied claims thanks to a tool that presents the original claim along with all the related information in a single view. This makes it easier for the billing department to decide the next steps to recoup the payment.

Mitigate Human Error

As long as there are manual processes in place, claims will always be prone to human error. With claims being denied based on the smallest inaccuracy, healthcare providers can easily lose revenue due to human error. Automation ensures accuracy, removing another obstacle toward streamlining the revenue cycle.

Digital Document Management

Paper systems are inefficient, tedious, and risk documents being lost. Healthcare providers are choosing to transition to digital documents and digital archives to store all pertinent data and information. Exela’s Lockbox converts paper EOBs into EDI 835 remittance files while also providing full support for paper and electronic payments.

Providers can also access information such as EOBs and other data through Lockbox’s secure web portal. With a simple search, a provider can find exactly what they're looking for rather than manually sifting through paper files.

Increase Speed of Payment Posting

Due to the different departments being involved in the medical billing system along with any outdated system that's currently in use, the path toward payment is going to be inefficient and significantly slower. By using automation tools, healthcare providers reduce the time it takes for payments to post, giving them faster access to deposited funds.

Let Business Automation Improve the Revenue Cycle

While the medical billing system is a great place to start for digital transformation in healthcare, healthcare providers can find a myriad of business automation processes that can enhance their revenue cycle, and encourage them to save money while increasing patient care.

There's no one-size-fits-all when it comes to a solution, which is why healthcare providers should determine what needs to be prioritized in their own organization. Whether healthcare providers start automating the medical billing system or automate a different facet of a healthcare process, it's high time that the industry embraces digital transformation.

Medical records management has evolved over the years as more healthcare organizations became interconnected and regulations changed, adding layers of complexity to the process. However, the importance of medical records management has remained constant, given that these records contain patients’ medical histories. With that being the case, proper records management is imperative to confirm that providers are giving the best care possible for their patients.

The Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) recommends, and in some cases mandates, that medical records are maintained within an electronic system. Many providers are experiencing a shift to storing medical records as digital assets. Where once providers may have owned numerous file cabinets filled with documents on each patient they saw, now they have the option of digitizing all these assets for a smoother records management workflow.

Defining Medical Record Terms

Medical records refer to documents that detail a patient's medical history, which includes any symptoms they experienced, clinical findings, physician notes, diagnostic test results, progress, various treatments, operations, medication, and the like.

Due to the number of patients many providers see and the amount of time needed to retain medical records as per federal and state regulations, physical paper takes up a lot of space and it makes sense to digitize these assets. Thus, many providers are implementing electronic medical records (EMRs) and electronic health records (EHRs). An EMR is a digital representation of the medical record maintained by a single provider whereas an EHR focuses on the complete health and broader view of the patient and can include information from multiple providers.

According to the CDC, 89.9% of office-based physicians use an EMR or EHR system. By using an EHR system, healthcare providers experienced many benefits including improved workflows, easy access to documents, and more space that was previously used for with physical documents.

Even with these benefits, providers still encountered challenges with EMR and EHR systems and this is where medical records management comes into the mix. Not only are medical records needed for patients, they may be needed for any malpractice lawsuits, medical billing audits, compliance issues, and licensing board complaints. Because of this, there's substantial pressure on hospitals and other healthcare organizations to improve, streamline, and create a satisfactory system for the management of their medical records.

The Importance of Medical Records Management

Medical records management encompasses the entire life cycle of the record from the creation to the digitization to the disposal. What's more, it requires procedures and protocols to affirm the security of the record.

A medical records management system streamlines management processes making it easy for providers to digitize, maintain, and search for health records. It can also make it easier to transfer information between offices and share between patients and physicians who need to access this information in a timely manner.

When medical records are mismanaged, it puts the patients and organization at risk. Some issues with mismanagement of medical records include:

• - Lacking easy access to patient records, requiring time for physicians and staff to find and obtain records.
• - Lack of organization can not only be detrimental to a patient's health, it may also slow down processes and increase spend due to the resources required to locate documents.
• - Without a standardized system in place, employees may create a non-standardized system that could cause issues in the long run. This can result in wasted resources, unnecessary spending, and expose the organization to compliance issues.

Best Practices for Medical Records Management

Medical records management is an imperative aspect of the healthcare administration process to ensure that physicians and staff are delivering the best possible patient care they can. To help providers better manage their medical records, there are several best practices to follow:

Create a Standardized Procedure for Records Management

The first step is to define and notate policies and procedures for employees to follow when it comes to managing records and maintaining security. According to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), healthcare organizations need to have written security policies and procedures along with "written records of required actions, activities, or assessments." Given that retaining medical records is an important part of patient security, organizations need to create clear guidelines for managing records.

Utilize Healthcare Automation Tools

Due to federal laws, state laws, and compliance mandates, there is little room for human error when it comes to medical records management. Unfortunately, humans make mistakes. Automation, on the other hand, is much more accurate and by automating tasks, organizations can improve accuracy and consistency while freeing up resources to work on less repetitive and time-consuming tasks.

Enhance and Standardize Employee Training

Healthcare records are accessed by various employees in the organization so it's critical for all staff to understand the proper way to manage records. Providing detailed guidelines as mentioned before is part of this, but another important part is ensuring that all employees are trained in managing records properly. Writing guidelines and hoping that employees know where to find them and follow them isn’t enough. Employees need to be trained in these standardized procedures to ensure compliance.

Audit Medical Processes

To confirm that your organization is up to date on all compliance standards, it needs to perform audits. This can prevent costly fines or investigations. If there is a reported violation by an organization, it can trigger a HIPAA audit where investigators will need to comb through all policies, procedures, and processes to ensure that everything is in compliance with HIPAA regulations.

Looking into Medical Records Management Solutions

Medical records management may seem like a cumbersome process, but the good news is that our solutions help providers make managing records easier. Exela’s Medical Records Management solution aggregates and transforms physical and digital documents into searchable digital assets. This provides an efficient path to downstream processing including coding, auditing, and accelerated reimbursement decisioning.

Given the likelihood of regulations changing, Exela’s Medical Records Management solution remains flexible and ready to adapt to any new requirements and customer needs. Speaking of flexibility, this solution can operate onsite, offsite, or as a combination hybrid, giving more control to the organizations. It also has the capability of integrating with major EMR and EHR systems that providers may already have in place.

Exela’s Medical Records Management service offers a cloud-based document management system that allows organizations to maintain medical records and documentation in a single, user-friendly, HIPAA-compliant solution. With its enhanced search functionality, it provides a highly efficient process for auditing medical records and offers multiple search options. With the web portal, organizations have full visibility into the management process.

Conclusion

Healthcare digital transformation solutions like Exela’s Medical Records Management show organizations just how powerful automation and digitization can be. Given the importance of medical records management, providers need to do all they can to ensure that their compliance guidelines are in place, their records are secure, and their processes are streamlined. By using automation, healthcare providers improve workflows, enhance security, and rid themselves of the burden of tedious and inefficient manual tasks.