Article written by Stephanie Onofri
Doctor, I’m Seeing Double!
How easy is it to err on financial paperwork? Let’s be honest, after hours of grueling calculations, our eyes have a way of playing tricks on us. Sixes begin to look like nines, sevens turn into ones, and adding or omitting a zero can cause some serious issues, especially if we’re talking about the financial burden of a medical patient who has just undergone surgery or simply taken some necessary medical tests. Sure, to err is human, but medical patients go through enough financial difficulties without the added risk of mistakes on behalf of the medical provider.
Many hospitals have supplemented their medical accounts payable and medical accounts receivable systems with centralized electronic records management platforms that allow all financial records to be stored, accessed, streamlined, approved, and most importantly, automatically audited for errors. In reality, the bulk of the errors in medical AP and AR aren’t actually generated by personnel, but by the disconnect and disorganization of the inter-business relations between Insurer, Medical Provider, and Recipient.
In order to optimize financial processes as much as possible, these centralized software platforms employ features such as intelligent capture, OCR, and exception matching which allow for the uploading and conversion of paper records to electronic text formats and proceed to audit Medical, Bills, Invoices, Payments, PO’s and other financial documentation for mismatched or outdated information such as mismatched patient/provider IDs, insufficient PO funds, outdated POs, mismatched unit prices, etc.
Within the enterprise content management (ECM) platform, errors in AP and AR departments are minimized in the following ways:
- Intelligent capture of characters on paper documents for conversion to various electronic formats takes less time and allows for less error than manual data entry.
- Exception matching and automated audits save considerable time that would otherwise be spent correcting misinformation, or requesting new/updated/corrected documentation from patients, medical, or insurance providers.
- Updates and approvals are quickly uploaded and are accessible to multiple medical and insurance personnel at once which allows for faster, more accurate processing.
So the benefits of Enterprise Content Management are tangible, and Medical Industry leaders find it not only efficient but cost-effective also, since it yields substantial ROI compared with years prior to its implementation.
Connect with one of our business process experts below to learn more about how a centralized ECM solution can lasso your medical financial processes into an efficient streamlined system workflow!
