Revenue Cycle Management Essay

Technology is being used everywhere in the world. For example, technology is used to make cars, clothes, eye glasses, to teach and now it is utilized in health care every day. Technology plays a major role in the health care reform Act to reduce costs, improve access, and save lives. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act , and its constitutionality ruling by the United States Supreme Court last June 28, 2012, mandates requiring all electronic medical records for all health care agencies in 2014 ( Jha, 2013, p 1628) . David Blumenthal (2009) surveyed all acute care hospitals in the American Hospital Association and found only 1.5% of U.S. Hospitals have comprehensive electronic medical records system. Also included in the Patient

The use of the EMR has improved the Nation’s health and economy (HealthIT, 2016). While I

Despite the attainability of secure electronic data transfer, many healthcare providers continue and prefer to store medical information on paper, making it difficult to share information among doctors

Over the past decade, virtually every major industry invested heavily in computerization. The heath care industry was no exception to the rise in the use of technology. These technologies are starting to allow health care practitioners to offer faster, and more efficient patient care than ever before. No doubt this is the right direction we expect health care to follow.

The U.S. Healthcare delivery system has been impacted with increasing administrative costs and a recent survey by Casalino revealed that physicians are spending about three hours each week working on the health plans they support. The time is being consumed on many administrative tasks that include confirming that the medication being prescribed is covered, checking if specialist is in the plan’s preferred network, and managing the preauthorization of medical forms for specific care.

A powerful IT infrastructure is necessary to advance healthcare quality. Among countless other advantages, an effective IT infrastructure generates accurate and accessible performance data, allowing monitoring of results. However, Hill absorbed the cost to physicians which encouraged their physicians to adapt to the new system. Similarly, they made sure the system was user friendly which lessened frustration and resistance.

So much so that our political leaders and President Barack Obama have created a stimulus package called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Within this legislature, improvements to our healthcare industry and systems have been made with long-term financial savings in mind. As technology and uniformed data was becoming the standard in healthcare, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act has accelerated the speed. “The number of certified EHR vendors in the United States has increased from 605,6 to more than 10007 since mid-2008” (Sitting and Singh, 2012). Healthcare organizations now have no choice but to invest in a new

Making the switch to an electronic medical records system will help to bring forth health care advances with the systems data quality and availability. This research study uses focus groups and surveys to get the opinions of different health care providers and some patients on what they think EMR will do for the health care industry. Literature related to EMR was reviewed to get a better understanding of the benefits and barriers of electronic medical records. The study uses data from

The healthcare industry is in the midst of a major change from paper based medical record keeping to electronic medical record keeping. As part of the American Recovery and Investment Act of 2009, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act was passed (Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, 2014). HITECH is the U.S. Government’s first major contribution to the change from paper to electronic health information technology by setting meaningful use incentive program for Medicare and Medicaid providers that met certain requirements. Healthcare professionals that meet the meaningful use criteria will be awarded financially, and those that don’t meet the 2015 guideline will be penalized. We live in an electronic world of instant access to information and by adopting health information technology we give providers better and easier access to more information which in turn allows them to make a more informed diagnosis and treatment plan for the patient. The electronic health record (EHR) is part of the new information technology. According to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (2014.), EHR’s provide many benefits such as improvement in the quality of patient care; improvement in the coordination of patient care; more accurate diagnosis and better outcomes; a higher level of patient participation in their own care; and cost savings for the practice

To improve healthcare in America, the Obama administration passed a law under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, to encourage the widespread use of Electronic Health Records (EHR). Under this act, Clinicians and hospital would receive incentives and reimbursement for the effective used of EHR in their practices. Electronic Health Records is an electronic version of a patient’s medical history that is maintained by the health provider over time. It includes relevant clinical data that is pertinent in improving quality of care, reducing medical errors and potential health care cost. For the purpose of this paper, two functions of EHR will be discussed: Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) and Clinical Decision Support (CDS) tools. These two support tools have the potential to greatly improve quality care and to reduce health care cost.

We live in a digital age where everything from photos to important documents is saved or stored online. This includes the use of electronic medical records. The electronic medical record (EMR) is useful in assisting physicians to have a complete and thorough health history of the patient. The EMR serves as a continuity of care from one hospital to another within the same organization (Hsieh, 2014). Consulting physicians also have quick access to recent diagnostic imaging, progress notes, and lab results. EMRs can help manage patients with chronic disease states, aid in data collection for use in research, and prevent adverse drug events (Hsieh, 2014).

Implementing to electronic medical records has many benefits such as reducing medical record errors, accuracy, having medical record access immediately, reducing medication errors and improving patient care. Monetary incentives are given to providers who demonstrate meaningful use. For those who do not, they face reduction in reimbursement amounts. “In 2017, reduction in reimbursement is 3%.” (National Center for Medical Records, n.d.)

While HPMG utilization of health information technology in three distinct manners certainly puts them ahead of many healthcare providers back in 2007, with ARRA and ACA, healthcare providers are required to implement electronic health records in some form. By 2013 over 63% of physicians in the United States adopted electronic health records and another 28% have a system partially implemented or plan to implement one in the next two years (The Commonwealth Fund, 2015). With 91% of physicians either having a system implemented or planning to implement, electronic health records are certainly a system that was replicated throughout healthcare in 2014.

Unfortunately, physician's perceptions are not objective outcome measures (Schenarts and Schenarts, 2012). It’s very dangerous the fact that providers rely on the electronic system to catch our errors. Furthermore, some of the most notable benefits of EHR include providers’ ability to access patients’ medical history almost anywhere, at any time. Nonetheless, the heavy reliance on health information technology is a major concern. It has the potential to cause harm to patients instead of the intended purpose of patient safety. Some examples of this include latent errors that do not manifest until they have already caused harm to the patient, or system failures which can cause a delay in time for healthcare professionals to review records thus, causing a delay in patient care. In addition, patient orders can be lost or miscommunicated. Healthcare providers rely on with confidence that the computer system will seamlessly promote the quality care of patients. According to Fiercehealthcare.com (2017), because of deficiencies in the eclinicalworks software, patients could not rely on the accuracy of their medical records. In addition, one patient was

Columbus, Ohio Memorial Hospital (COMH) has implemented an electronic medical record (EMR) since 2010, which has clearly demonstrated great improvement in patient care. During my work experiences, one of the concerns the physicians voiced were they were unable to communicate patient information to other providers or staff without having access to electronic medical records (EMR) in front of them, at that given time. The concerns expressed were that there was countless times that a physician had to wait on lab results to base their decision on patient care, while located at another facility. Physicians have experienced the frustration of inconvenient, slow or missing communication in their facilities when caring for their patients. In addition,