Patient experience is at the center of medical care efforts, and your health information management processes directly impact this experience. Release of information is critical to a patient’s ability to receive the best possible care, and it’s important to understand how ROI can be prioritized to create a positive experience.
Whether you use a vendor or manage all release of information in-house, read on to learn more.
ROI and the Patient Experience
The release of information process is directly connected to the patient experience. Likewise, issues with ROI lead to a poorer patient experience. When a request is taking too long to fulfill, it may create a delay in the patient’s ability to receive care. If only a portion of the requested records are released, the patient’s provider may not have the right information to allow them to make the best decision regarding their ongoing care. This adds a new burden to the requestor to clarify which medical records are missing and again request they be sent. Additionally, if the billing process is not clearly communicated, this can lead to confusion for the patient and frustration when a surprise invoice arrives at their door.
On top of creating a poor patient experience, these challenges also translate into higher operating costs for the health system or hospital facility. Inefficient or ineffective release of information processes translate to more calls from frustrated patients, requiring the facility to maintain more staff to handle these complaint calls, and taking away from the HIM team’s ability to remain focused on processing requests.
The Good News
The good news is outsourcing is an excellent solution to support your organization’s efforts to provide an excellent patient experience. The right release of information partner can help your organization create standardization across multiple locations and, in turn, improve the patient experience when it comes to medical records. A vendor also lifts the burden from your clinical and administrative staff. Instead of all hands on deck for ROI, an expert vendor will enable your team to remain focused on greeting patients and providing direct care.
Turnaround Time Matters
Turnaround time is perhaps the most telling indicator of the quality of the patient experience when it comes to release of information. Time is of the utmost importance for patient care, and a delay in records being released could result in a delay of critical care.
A lengthy turnaround time means more calls from concerned patients wondering when they’ll have the records they need to get approved for a new procedure or when their information will be provided to a specialist for urgent treatment.
By outsourcing your release of information process to a vendor partner, you’re trusting an expert to streamline turnaround time in order to drive patient satisfaction. An optimal turnaround time to strive for is one to three days. Minimizing the time spent processing requests translates to better patient care and ensures patients and their providers have the information they need right at their fingertips.
Accurate Reporting and the Right Partner Make All the Difference
Accurate reporting for turnaround times, volumes, and productivity across locations is immensely helpful to understand how your ROI performance can be improved to better support your patients. ScanSTAT provides real-time reporting on all key metrics to ensure proper staffing levels and maintain high performance. In addition, ScanSTAT offers each partner a dedicated team including a client support manager, day-to-day operational manager, and staff to ensure a proactive approach to providing the best patient experience with ROI. With the right vendor, you’ll get the right reports to inform operational decisions and create positive changes.
Let’s Make This Easier For Everyone
If you’re interested in learning more about how the right release of information vendor can improve the patient experience at your organization, contact ScanSTAT.
It shouldn’t be this difficult. With ScanSTAT, it’s not. Let’s make this easier for everyone.