Future-focused healthcare leaders are considering the pros and cons of making system-wide reforms in preparation for 2023. If one is in the healthcare industry, one’s career objective should be to provide the finest care possible for patients. Hospitals and clinics provide a necessary service, but they are also businesses that, unless they are nonprofits, need to find methods to control expenses without compromising care. Ideally, a change could be implemented across the board to lower costs and enhance the quality of care for patients.
While outsourcing release of information has become common practice for many organizations in various sectors, its transformative potential may be greatest in healthcare. Leaders in the healthcare industry are increasingly turning to outsourcing to combat issues like insufficient workforce, regulatory burdens, rising patient expectations for a high level of service, dwindling resources, and rising rates of burnout among existing employees.
Release of information (ROI) is at the top for improvement after outsourcing. Healthcare organizations can handle the problems mentioned earlier and achieve their goals of reducing costs while enhancing patient care and satisfaction by outsourcing to an ROI provider.
Consider these three issues that will majorly impact the healthcare business in 2023 as you evaluate your ROI processes and options.
1. Medical Record Release Regulations Can Be Costly Due To High Fines For Non-Compliance
The Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health has created an unclear and ever-changing environment due to conflicting state and federal laws, ad hoc efforts to either extend or limit access to reproductive health in a specific locality, injunctions, and trigger legislation. Perhaps a truer statement would be that, after the ruling was issued, healthcare providers have gained less understanding of the applicable access and privacy legislation.
Organizational policies that ensure adherence to local, state, and federal laws are more crucial than ever. Your HIM team may be inundated with extra work if an audit is conducted, with the investigation taking many months and a fine of up to $1 million at stake. Your company can avoid penalties and ease the strain of compliance if it outsources ROI to a partner who monitors regulatory and compliance legislation developments.
2. Most Healthcare Organizations Struggle With Recruiting and Retaining Adequate Staffing Levels
When your internal staff lags on records or document filing requests, outsourcing ROI can provide you with the workforce you need to manage your organization’s record demands. Regardless matter the cause of your company’s backlog, outsourcing can help you not only get caught up but also:
- It frees up your employees to concentrate on what’s important: the patients.
- It maintains a timely request status in your medical records office.
- Makes the outsourced ROI service provider responsible for ensuring HIPAA is met.
- It saves time and money.
3. Prioritize Fast Record Requests From Patients
More patients and insurance companies than ever before are placing pressure on healthcare providers to provide accurate and timely medical records. Increasing the workload of your medical records employees or increasing your budget are your usual options for ensuring the timely, correct, and HIPAA-compliant delivery of patient information.
Lastly, patient care and satisfaction are enhanced when requests for records are processed quickly and effectively.
Additional Reasons To Offload Release Of Information
We have listed additional top five reasons why practices have opted to outsource their release of information procedures after meeting with a large number of businesses that have successfully dealt with the release of information issues:
- Happier Patients – Better outcomes are ensured when personnel can devote more time to patient care since an outside party handles information release. Patients benefit greatly from increased care. As a bonus, patients spend less time on hold when calling to follow up on a request, as requests are fulfilled within 24 hours, and the status is updated in your EMR for staff members to monitor at any time.
- Fewer Phone Calls – Calls to the office can be reduced by using a third-party service that can usually satisfy a request to provide patient information within 24 hours, whether the requester is the patient or another party. As a result, your office will have more available phone lines as fewer patients will be calling to check in on their records requests.
- Cost Savings – Third-party ROI services often do not charge practices for successfully distributing information. On the contrary, the charge goes directly to the person making the request. Hence the service incurs no cost to the medical center. Additionally, practices discover that by outsourcing ROI duties to a remote records provider, they can minimize the time and expense of training and re-training records staff on HIPAA-compliant ROI procedures and dramatically cut FTE and HR expenses.
- Less Risk – Risk is reduced since the proper release of information is an activity that can put your practice at risk of a HIPAA violation if not handled appropriately. By outsourcing record keeping, your practice can shift HIPAA responsibility to the records service-providing Business Associate.
- Increased EMR Value – When used for purposes other than patient record storage, an EMR (Electronic Medical Record) provides a greater return on investment.
Final Thoughts!
In their latest report, industry researchers forecast that the healthcare IT outsourcing market would expand at a CAGR from 2023 to 2032. The report forecasts the market’s growth across several segments and regions over the coming years, as well as analyzes the current state of the market in detail, including the most recent trends, developments, drivers, constraints, challenges, and opportunities.
