Situation
Health Information Management (HIM) is responsible for collecting medical records following the discharge of patients; ensuring records are complete and assigning codes for billing purposes. Without the benefit of an electronic medical record, HIM must manage their process while contending with a paper medical record.
On a daily basis, between 75 and 100 patients are discharged therefore the amount of work required to process medical records places strains on the HIM department including limited abilities to locate the records within the department that needed to be processed.
Additionally, the amount of time required to process medical records for final billing fell below management’s expectations.
Opportunity
- Gain workflow efficiencies.
- Make information accessible and available.
- Facilitate transition to the EMR system.
- Improve customer service.
- Reduce accounts receivable coding days to less than national benchmark of 5 days.
Results
- Inpatient Dollars outstanding decreased from $30.3M to $2.7M
- Average accounts receivable days in coding decreased from 10.3 to 1.1 days
- Delinquent records decreased by 62%