Precyse Releases Report on the Future of Health Information Management

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.