PrecyseCode™ Improves Coding Quality and Productivity, Enabling Providers to Accelerate Meaningful Use of the Electronic Health Record and Prepare for ICD-10

Wayne, PA and Alpharetta, GA May 03, 2011 — Precyse, a leader in health information management (HIM) services and technologies, announces the general availability of precyseCode™, the most advanced and comprehensive health information management platform available today. PrecyseCode is driven by state-of-the-art technologies that understand and process human voice, converting it to text and transforming it to information. Now commercially available, the precyseCode software features Computer-Assisted Coding that uses unique Natural Language Comprehension™ (NLC) to create a patient’s clinical story, allowing for the assignment of appropriate, compliant ICD-9 and ICD-10 diagnosis codes, procedure codes and SNOMED clinical terminology.
NLC is achieved through the unique combination of M*Modal’s contextual understanding technology with Precyse’s collaborative technology platform and extensive coding and clinical documentation expertise. PrecyseCode is the industry’s first computer-assisted and NLC-driven intelligent workflow solution. This powerful combination provides a single, comprehensive platform to optimize coding processes, accelerate revenue cycles, and support healthcare organizations as they navigate through compliance challenges, Clinical Documentation Improvement (CDI) initiatives, migrate to ICD-10, and meet health reform and Meaningful Use initiatives head on.
“While accurate and efficient coding may be at the heart of the overwhelming challenges facing healthcare providers today, automated systems that merely provide ‘coding-only’ solutions will not suffice,” said Ken Lacy, President and General Manager of Precyse Advanced Technologies, the R&D division of Precyse. “precyseCode represents an automated coding solution that goes beyond coding to unify and optimize the entire workflow process, from physicians to coders to clinical staff and to management. 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.”
Lacy added, “Rather than reengineering existing automated systems to adapt to the changing healthcare environment, our goal was to develop a ‘from the ground up’ solution that would meet all of the current and future needs of healthcare providers. We carefully analyzed all of the various user needs and built solutions for them into precyseCode. We are extremely pleased with the result, and believe that it is the type of single solution that providers will need to be successful in the future.”
A key feature of precyseCode is its NLC capability, which reads both structured and unstructured data and reorganizes it into better, more understandable information that supports powerful capture and interpretation of clinical findings. This episode-specific patient narrative is then electronically tagged to be easily searched, mined and analyzed. Combined with NLC, real-time dashboards provide a unified view for everyone involved in the documentation workflow process. And since precyseCode already includes SNOMED (Systemized Nomenclature of Medicine) and ICD-10 codes, it allows coders to begin learning ICD-10 immediately, offsetting any anticipated declines in productivity and assuring a smooth transition in October 2013.
Lacy also noted that precyseCode offers healthcare providers a means of reducing costs and finding new sources of revenue. “The product has been proven to minimize coding backlogs, facility DNFB levels, RAC exposure and denied claims and to accelerate revenue cycles,” he said. “By allowing and processing physician queries directly in the system, it allows clinical documentation that more accurately describes the level of care provided. And by making coders more productive, it reduces the need for outside contract staffing resources to accommodate overflow.”
PrecyseCode is already achieving noteworthy results in various healthcare organizations around the nation. For example, Precyse and M*Modal have partnered with Geisinger Health System to put precyseCode’s ICD-10-ready automated clinical documentation and NLC coding software to work. At Geisinger, the software will bridge medical dictation, transcription, coding and clinical documentation improvement (CDI) processes by capturing physician dictation, editing it, coding it and directing it into electronic health record (EHR) software platform. Based in Danville, Pa., Geisinger Health System is widely recognized for its implementation of innovative care models and deployment of state of the art technologies. Using precyseCode, Geisinger physicians can dictate directly into the EHR with minimal impact to their workflow patterns. Clinical information is electronically tagged to be easily searched, mined and analyzed by healthcare team members responsible for driving hospital care and outcomes. Geisinger and Precyse aim to see this collaborative technology replicated across the country.
“Our main goals are to optimize the coding process, improve workflow and accelerate ICD-10 transition,” said Joan Topper, Vice President, IT Optimization, Geisinger Health System. “The management and coding teams at Geisinger are already seeing early improvements in both productivity and workflow, and I’m confident that this trend will continue as we go forward. We are all very excited to use one system that meets all of our facility and professional coding needs.”
The Baptist Health System (BHS) in Birmingham, Ala., also uses precyseCode to resolve a variety of challenges in its centralized coding department that supports four acute care hospital operations. According to Chloe Phillips, Corporate Director of HIM, BHS, “precyseCode technologies have simplified processes and streamlined our workflow. It has been instrumental in increasing productivity, accuracy and quality, while accelerating our revenue cycle and significantly reducing costs.”