Category: news

Wayne, PA and Alpharetta, GA Jun 5, 2012 – Precyse, a leader in Health Information Management (HIM) technology and services, announces it has entered into a software interface license agreement (SILA) with 3M Health Information Systems. The agreement licenses the interfacing of precyseCode™, Precyse’s computer assisted coding (CAC) solution to the 3M Coding and Reimbursement System.
“We are pleased to announce this agreement with 3M,” said Chris Powell, president of Precyse. “According to a recent KLAS report, nearly half of providers are looking to purchase a CAC solution in the next two years, and this agreement is one of our many efforts to better serve the healthcare community as it prepares for the ICD-10 transition.”

Wayne, PA and Alpharetta, GA Jun 1, 2012 – Precyse, a leader in Health Information Management (HIM) technology and services, announces that it has received the highest scores for provider perception that its precyseCode™ computer assisted coding (CAC) solution will meet their needs. In a KLAS report titled “Computer-Assisted Coding: A Glimpse at the Future of HIM Technology,” Precyse was “praised for [its] strong technology and … received the highest scores of providers’ perception that their solution will meet their needs,” wrote Graham Triggs, author of the KLAS report. “These providers have liked what they have seen compared to competing vendors.”
According to the KLAS perception report, a Precyse client said, “We chose Precyse because we wanted to help our coders be more efficient and enhance our productivity. We knew ICD-10 was going to create an even bigger deficit in their productivity. Precyse had a nice way of showing us the difference between ICD-9 and ICD-10 so we could know what documentation we might be missing for ICD-10.”
The ICD-10 implementation deadline has been pushed back to a proposed date of Oct. 1, 2014, but many providers are still looking seriously at purchasing inpatient CAC solutions within the next two years; 33% of providers who don‟t currently have a CAC solution plan to buy one in 2012, and another 15% are considering a CAC purchase in 2013. Providers understand that solutions aimed at improving clinical documentation and coding will lead to productivity improvements and enhanced reimbursement. They are not waiting, despite the delay.
“While ICD-10 readiness, increased productivity and improved efficiency are major forces behind the interest in CAC, Precyse believes providers should also focus on the clinical and quality implications of CAC,” said Chris Powell, president of Precyse. “Precyse’s CAC has solid science behind it, with a well-designed Natural Language Comprehension™ (NLC) engine and supporting applications to effectively support the ICD-10 transition. Precyse also has a large group of experienced coding and clinical documentation improvement (CDI) professionals to support CAC and CDI during the ICD-10 transition.”
PrecyseCode offers the combination of NLC-enabled computer assisted coding with intelligent workflow for clinical documentation improvement and coding. PrecyseCode provides a single, comprehensive platform that unifies the clinical documentation improvement workflow to optimize coding processes. This combination is the single best solution for providers as they face the imminent challenges on the horizon for the healthcare industry.
The Baptist Health System (BHS), which includes four hospitals in the greater Birmingham, Alabama area, saw immediate improvements when it began working with Precyse’s expert resources and implemented precyseCode. BHS experienced a 20% increase in coding quality, 5% increase in DRG based revenue through more accurate coding and improved Case Mix Index (CMI), 10% reduction in voluntary auditing and an overall reduction in audit costs, coder productivity improvement, and a revenue increase due to better information and more accurate coding.
“Not only were we pleased with Precyse’s team of experts, but we’ve also found their technology solutions to be instrumental to our coding department. Using PrecyseCode, we’ve seen a significant improvement in our coding department’s quality, productivity and accuracy,” said Chloe Phillips, corporate director of HIM, BHS. “They are, truly, a partner for life.”
Geisinger Health System (GHS) of Danville, PA, is also seeing positive results from precyseCode. “We’ve already seen 20% increases in coder productivity with precyseCode, and we expect that figure to climb as high as 50% as the system ‘learns’ from its earlier coding assignments,” said Sue Trewhella, senior director of coding for GHS.
“We made the decision to partner with Precyse because we shared in their vision about how Natural Language Comprehension could be applied to computer assisted coding technology to significantly accelerate the revenue cycle,” said Barbara Tapscott, vice president, revenue cycle for GHS. “Though we are still early on in our implementation of precyseCode, the results we are achieving thus far are already validating our combined vision. I have no doubt the improvement will continue and we will be well prepared for ICD-10 and other challenges on the horizon.”

Wayne, PA and Alpharetta, GA May 2, 2012 — Precyse, a leader in Health Information Management (HIM) technology and services, announces the release of an industry report titled ―Health Information Management in 2016: The HIM Industry’s Transformative Journey to Enterprise Information Management – What Does the HIM Department of the Future Look Like?‖. Authored by Linda L. Kloss, RHIA, Kloss Strategic Advisors, Ltd., former CEO of the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) and one of Modern Healthcare’s top 25 Women in Healthcare, in collaboration with well-known HIM leaders from 20 top health care institutions nationwide, the report focuses on the changing information management landscape in healthcare, and the implications and strategic opportunities for healthcare organizations in this evolution.
As a leading HIM technology and services company, Precyse is committed to driving innovation in HIM. Founder and CEO Jeff Levitt initially convened an Innovation Community of Precyse employees to think about what the HIM department of the future might look like and enlisted Kloss to help facilitate these sessions, and extend this dialogue to thought leader groups within Precyse and across the broader HIM and informatics landscape. ―Healthcare organizations are dramatically expanding their use of information to improve patient care and organizational performance,‖ said Kloss. ―But foundational information management practices are not fully up to the demands of a digital information environment. New thinking and new learning about capturing, managing and using digital information assets is urgently needed.”
Based on analysis of the trends and drivers of change identified by the HIM Innovation Community, a position paper was authored using four potential scenarios that reflect how HIM services might be delivered in 2016. Those scenarios range from the ―Model T‖ — where the base department functions and processes have had to develop many workarounds, hybrid or paper records, minimal integrations and questionable data quality – to ―Life in the Fast Lane,‖ where HIM departments are working in a state of superior and optimized results and there is an enterprise approach to content and information management to ensure information assets are optimized for clinical and operational performance.
Informed by the conclusions of this study, Precyse’s HIM Strategic Sourcing product offering has now been positioned to help HIM departments optimize their effectiveness and advance their capabilities and functions so they will be prepared for the ―life in the fast lane‖ scenario by 2016. For example, in just 4 months, Precyse was able to help Naples Community Healthcare System (NCHS) decrease its inpatient weekly DNFB (Discharged Not Final Billed) from more than $16 million to $5 million, and its outpatient DNFB from more than $14 million to under $2 million. In addition, outpatient accounts receivable days went from 7 to 2, and average inpatient accounts receivable days went from 10 to under 2. NCHS has consistently surpassed its goal of 95 percent coding accuracy, now achieving a rate of 98 percent. Finally, the system’s medical record delinquency rate, which had been as high as 22 percent is now under 2 percent.
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―While the numbers speak for themselves, beyond these outcomes, Precyse has brought a level of comfort to us about our HIM and Medical Records areas that we never experienced before,‖ said Sandy Wood, director of revenue cycle at NCHS. ―Aside from the day-to-day service, support and expertise they provide, Precyse has put metrics in place to help us monitor key indicators that we weren’t able to monitor before.”
NCHS is just one example of how Precyse HIM Strategic Sourcing is helping HIM departments prepare for the future. At Benefis Health System in Great Falls, MT, Precyse is helping to position its HIM department to not only survive, but thrive in the highly charged environment of healthcare reform.
The Benefis initiatives for Patient Centered Medical Home and payment reform required new forms of assistance with coding, understanding the medical terminology process and educating staff and physicians. To this end, in addition to auditing for coding accuracy, embarking on ICD-10 preparation and decreasing DNFB from $16.2 million to $7.6 million, Precyse has increased Benefis’ transcription compliance to turnaround time from 33.6 percent to 98.7percent, and the documentation quality rate from 96.6 percent to 99.6 percent. For chart analysis, the backlog went from 22 days to 1 day for inpatient charts and from 14 days to 1 day for outpatient charts.
According to Dr. Paul Dolan, chief medical officer of Benefis, the health system is looking to Precyse to further improve outcomes as it plans for the future. ―We are confident that Precyse will take the lead as we move forward and build our technological capabilities in order to meet Meaningful Use criteria, in areas such as speech recognition and concurrent computer-assisted coding, as well as electronic health records,‖ said Dr. Dolan. ―We definitely made the right decision to strategically source our HIM function to Precyse. This was an extremely complex project, but Precyse has managed to bring about the needed transformation in our HIM function.‖
Precyse’s Strategic Sourcing services are comprehensive and far reaching and provide HIM departments with the leadership and collaborative spirit needed to drive behavior change in clinical documentation to improve bottom line results, ensure accurate clinical records and position clients for future success.
Health Information Management in 2016: The HIM Industry’s Transformative Journey to Enterprise Information Management – What Does the HIM Department of the Future Look Like? can be read in its entirety at www.precyse.com. For more information on Precyse HIM Strategic Sourcing, visit http://www.precyse.com/strategicsourcing.

Wayne, PA and Alpharetta, GA Apr 9, 2012 — Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen G. Sebelius today announced a proposed rule that would delay the compliance date for the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Edition diagnosis and procedure codes (ICD-10) from Oct. 1, 2013 to Oct. 1, 2014.
When HHS originally announced its intent to delay ICD-10 on Feb. 16, 2012, Precyse carefully reviewed the implications of the announcement and the need to advise its more than 1,000 clients who relied on its management, staffing and technology solutions and professional advice in health information management matters. Precyse advised its clients to stay the course and continue their ICD-10 preparations, and continues to advance that position.
“We’re telling our current and prospective clients that now is not the time to procrastinate. This delay provides them the opportunity to refocus their efforts and get it right,” said Chris Powell, president of Precyse. “Precyse believes this delay will allow providers the time they need to improve their clinical documentation processes and build a strong foundation for process improvement. In addition, the delay allows payers to prepare for the change and enables providers to focus on technology implementations and more thorough testing with their vendors.”
Clinical Documentation Improvement (CDI) Program:
Precyse believes that now is an excellent time for providers to increase their clinical documentation training programs for physicians and other caregivers. Medical coders frequently face incomplete or vague records that are inconsistent or missing information. This results in increased physician queries and a decrease in coder productivity. If this is happening now with ICD-9, it will only worsen with ICD-10, which is far more complex in its requirements for specificity and completeness. It is important that providers take this extra time to develop processes, guidance and support to improve their clinical documentation. Studies have shown that even minor documentation improvement changes will create obvious financial and non-financial rewards: fewer claims denials, reduced RAC audit exposure, improved case mix index and improved cash flows. Most important, however, is that patient care is improved when chart notes are complete and better data is available for analytics and comparative studies. Provider Action Item: Target high volume specialties in your organization that will be most impacted by ICD-10 and train those physician specialists in proper documentation while training the coding team on accurate coding; then, move to the next specialty for training.
Process Improvement Program:
The proposed delay also offers the provider the opportunity to assess the flow of their information across their organization and develop a plan to address gaps through process improvement and technology. Precyse advises clients to invest in automated systems that streamline the entire clinical documentation process. ICD-10 is not just about re-training medical coders — it’s about capturing better data to create a more complete and useful set of codes, which is crucial in a fully automated electronic medical record environment.
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Precyse recognizes the promise of future innovations such as automated speech recognition, Computer Assisted Coding using Natural Language Comprehension™ (NLC), and clinical decision support tools — but also notes that realizing their full promise in the future will require that current users will need to improve the way in which they interact with and use their systems today. Provider Action item: Develop workflow platforms and applications that allow healthcare providers to do their jobs more efficiently and effectively.
Training and Development:
Take this time to not only invest in the training of coders but also intensify the training for those who will use the data. Now is a great time to improve the basic skills of coders in their ICD-9 knowledge that will also be required in ICD-10. The transition to ICD-10 has pushed healthcare to appropriately invest in training coders as skilled knowledge workers. As part of its own ICD-10 preparations commencing in 2010, Precyse assessed the coding skills of its nearly 300 coders to evaluate their ICD-10 readiness. Precyse found that in order to successfully prepare its coders to become certified in ICD-10, Precyse would need to invest in additional training related to anatomy, physiology and pathopharmacology, as well as opportunities to improve their understanding of coding system logic and principles.
Precyse invested in and developed comprehensive and multifaceted training programs that can be delivered via virtual webinars or through its online Precyse University, while developing individual training plans for every coder. As Precyse’s clients began to deploy these training programs, many have noted improvements in case mix index, improved coding compliance audit results, increased coder retention and satisfaction, and improved coder recruiting metrics for new coder recruits who are eager to develop and perfect their skills. Provider Action Item: Perform side-by-side ICD-9 and ICD-10 coding analysis, assess the documentation and coding gaps of coders and other caregivers and target training based on these findings.
“Precyse is an innovation company that listens carefully to our clients and prospects; every day we challenge ourselves to come back to our clients with solutions that solve their business problems while improving patient care and outcomes,” Powell continued. “We don’t believe that an ICD-10 implementation delay changes our goals. We pledge to our clients and future prospects that we will never stop innovating and improving even in the midst of very challenging times.”