While it may be “that time of year” for e-filing your tax return, filing patient information at your practice is a year-round endeavor. As medical records experts, we chat with many of our clients on a regular basis about their medical records workflows, processes and challenges. One challenge many of our customers have is streamlining the process of filing incoming patient information using their EMR. Another dilemma is practices love the idea that they could use their EMR for remote records services like release of information, but wish there is a way to cover more duties of their medical records department with remote services.
It was from these observations that ScanSTAT’s eFiling service was born. If you aren’t familiar with this service, we hope some of the FAQ’s below will help you learn more. We also encourage our clients to contact a ScanSTAT eFiling service representative today to get more details on how this service works with your specific EMR, and how to get started.
What is eFiling?
eFiling is a 100% remote medical records management service designed to increase efficiency and effectiveness at your practice while helping you lower current overhead expenses.
How does eFiling work?
Using a HIPAA secure network connection, ScanSTAT will access all incoming information the practice receives throughout the day. Our trained technicians dissect the information and appropriate it within your EMR as needed, so you can focus on more patient oriented activities. What’s more, we file continuously throughout the day, customize the service to fit the specific needs of your practice, and charge one low flat rate per file (no matter the size).
Is eFiling more beneficial for larger or smaller practices?
eFiling can be beneficial for both large and small practices! Many smaller practices choose ScanSTAT because they are currently using nurses or practice administrators to input files into the EMR, and we can free up their time to focus on more important things, like patients. Large practices often choose to outsource their entire medical records department to ScanSTAT, getting rid of wasted time managing and recruiting records staff and saving on overhead costs, while increasing effectiveness of their EMR.
Regardless of your practice size, perhaps the greatest benefit of using the eFiling service is the way physicians can provide improved care for their patients. Since we file throughout the day, physicians can have confidence that their patients’ charts will be ready and updated with the information they need by the time they need it. This can make a world of difference for improving patient satisfaction at the time of their appointment.
Is this service really going to be cheaper than having a clerk do this in-house?
The pricing of this service was designed to cut the total overhead cost a practice pays to manage this activity in-house. There are many things that factor in to this such as direct costs (salary, paper, ink, toner, office space, etc), as well as the indirect cost of having to manage this process yourself and the HIPAA liability it brings with it.
So, by outsourcing eFiling and/or eROI, we will not need a medical records staff?
Your practice is still going to receive documents in “hard copy” format and would therefore still need someone to feed paper into the scanner. As long as the documents can be accessed electronically, then yes, we can essentially function as your medical records department.
If we decide that we would like to use your service, what are the upfront costs to get started, and what kind of contract or agreement are we required to sign?
We handle the IT setup for all of our remote solutions so the client is not responsible for this cost.
We have a policy here at ScanSTAT Technologies not to handcuff our clients to us in any way. We believe that if our client deems our service is no longer of benefit, they should be free to part ways. We do, however, have terms and conditions we ask the client to sign to show us that they are serious about moving forward.
How long does it take to get setup once we decide to work with ScanSTAT?
This answer is dependent on the cooperation of the practice and your IT staff. Barring any unique issues, the setup process shouldn’t take more than a week.
Do I have to use your eFiling service in order to get ROI free?
No. In almost all cases our Release of Information service is at no cost to the practice. This is possible because we bill the third party requestors (attorneys, insurance companies, etc).
Are we able to have ScanSTAT name documents the way we currently label them?
Yes, when we lay out the Service Level Agreement we will specify what you would like us to do with the documents and how the documents should be named. This can be changed at any time.
If we want to change a certain way a document is handled, will we be able to update that?
Yes, the Service Level Agreement is ongoing living document to which we will continue adding new document instructions. Any changes to the Service Level Agreement will need to be signed off by the practice administrator before they take effect. Once in place, we will honor whatever changes were approved.
What if we don’t currently use our electronic fax server?
You are still able to utilize our service if you don’t currently use an electronic fax server. This does, however, require that the paper documents be fed into the scanner in order for us to access them.