Documentation takes up approximately one-third of a physician’s workday. With the implementation of healthcare reforms, HIPAA requirements and preparation for ICD-10, physicians are buried into piles of charts and billing forms, ending up with limited time for patient care.
The next generation HIPAA transaction standards (5010) have increased documentation challenges for physicians. The HIPAA Security Rule requires practices to document all policies, processes and procedures and these need to be revised and updated regularly.
Very soon, the shift to ICD-10 will also increase clinical documentation for physicians by 15-20%. The new set will include five times as many codes as ICD-9. Since the code arrangement will be different, physicians will be required to invest more time in documenting in order to meet the coding, billing and quality reporting requirements. Approximately 3-4% of a physician’s time will have to be devoted permanently for documentation once ICD-10 is implemented, increasing workload without any surety of increased payment.
Physicians turning tech-savvy-
Considering the rise in billing documentation, various practices have started using HIE (Electronic health information exchange) and EMR (Electronic Medical Records) to help improve the speed, quality, safety and cost of vital medical information. Physicians are increasingly becoming tech savvy, opting for HIE and accessing clinical data outside their own practice on a regular basis. By adopting HIE and EMR, virtual integration outside a single medical office has become possible.
A significant number of physicians in the US are improving their overall productivity by increasing their use of healthcare IT. Many have adopted healthcare IT for clinical tasks, receiving clinical results like lab tests directly in their EMR system. By using HIE, physicians in the US have not just reduced medical errors but also improved quality of data for clinical research.
Benefits from HIE-
Successful implementation of health IT can do wonders for practices; but the cost involved in implementation of HIE and EMR can pose as a hindrance. At times the limited awareness of state level efforts for enabling HIE can also be an issue. With physicians already busy with rising number of patients, not much time is left at their disposal to focus on the proper implementation of new technologies that can improve documentation, reduce denials and increase income.
Medicalbillersandcoders.com comprising of the largest team of expert billers has been handling medical billing, coding and documentation with accuracy for clients across 50 states in the US. Our billing experts remain updated with new regulations, like HIPAA norms, ICD-10 requirements, ACO needs, and follow all these norms accurately during medical billing documentation; hence strengthening your revenue generation procedure by offering error-free documentation.
MBC team also helps practices find loopholes in their documentation; suggests proper implementation of new technology and also finds and recommends areas in the practice which can benefit by adopting HIE. MBC experts working in this industry for more than a decade can even help guide you in setting-up or replacing and updating EHR software; best suited to your practice needs.
