According to Practice Profitability Index (PPI), the percentage of doctors spending more time on paperwork increased from 50% to 70% in 2014. In order to boost patient engagement, physicians need sufficient time to focus on providing care. But, with implementation of the long-anticipated healthcare reforms, they are spending more than one day in a week on paperwork rather than on patients.
Industry Facts :
| According to PPI, nearly 23% of physicians spend more than 40% of their time on administrative tasks |
| 40% physicians were of the view that patient engagement programs aimed at high-risk patients will hold great promise for the performance of their practice |
| Affordable Care Act requirements, transition to ICD-10 and MU requirements are the three main areas due to which paperwork has increased for physicians |
| 35% physicians spent approximately 10 hours per week on paperwork, in 2013 |
How is the Increase in Paperwork Affecting Medical Practices?
Doctors have to work for long hours due to the increase in paperwork. Smaller offices struggle the most because they have to balance between patient care and administrative requirements with limited staff. This also affects their reimbursements because they are left with less time to monitor the progress made by the in-house billing team. Increased workload leads to errors in documentation, creating more room for coding errors.
As doctors have to face piles of encounter forms, billing forms and bureaucratic permutation of health insurance companies, their professional morale has started deteriorating. Even the resident doctors have to spend much time typing, writing and dictating about patients rather than seeing them. Work hours have been reduced for them to end fatigue-related errors but, with too much to handle in a day, new type of errors are on the rise.
What Needs to be Done?
Practices can gain more revenue by seeing more patients; however, if the providers fail to enhance their level of patient engagement, patients won’t come back. This calls for outsourcing some of the paperwork away from physicians to support staff. For instance, the nurses can reconcile medications, admin staff can complete discharge paperwork and handle the scheduling of follow-up appointments. Scribes can be used to streamline note taking as they are more efficient in entering data into the computer.
MBC Helping Practices Strike a Balance
The above mentioned solutions require investment of time and money that most financially-pressured practices are not willing to do. MedicalBillersandCoders.com has been helping practices improve productivity and lift their administrative burden.
The company has a team of skilled billers and coders who are well-trained in handling complexities of billing and coding, and ensuring timely payments. As a time-consuming task like billing is handled by experts, doctors can balance their attention between paperwork and patient care appropriately.
| MBC Billing Solutions | = | More Focus on Patient Care | + | Reduced Paperwork |
