Spectrum Information Services NW, Inc.

Let's talk about Quality Control

2011-12-23T11:50:00.000-08:00

So, you've decided to go "paperless" and scan your paper records. As a result, you're going to be making a financial investment in these records.

Quality control is kind of like car insurance. You can pay for the minimum and hope you never need it or get full coverage and if the worst happens, you don't have to worry about anything.

What's the worst that could happen if you skimp on quality control?

If you keep the paper documents after they have been scanned, probably not much. If you missed scanning a page or indexed it incorrectly, you can always go back to the paper files.

But if you invested in scanning the paper, why would you keep it? How much are you spending for off-site storage to keep that paper? If it's still in your office, what could you do with the space that paper is eating up?

There may be legal reasons that you're forced to keep the paper, but one of the benefits of scanning is being able to get rid of large volumes of paper and eliminate ongoing monthly storage costs or to free up space in your office that could be used for revenue generating activities.

So let's assume that like most organizations, your goal is to go paperless. Now the stakes become higher. If you have lost a document in the scanning process your exposure could be anything from an unhappy customer, to legal action, to fines and penalties, or even jail time.

If someone tells you that they'll review a "sample" of your images, are you willing to take the risk that their statistical sampling will make sure that every single page was captured and legible? Who is going to be liable if you can't reproduce an important record - the vendor or you?

There are a number of ways to ensure that data entry is accurate and that all pages have been captured and are legible. Some records have less risk associated with them than others, so sometimes it can be acceptable to employ a less rigorous level of quality control. It's important to work with someone that can help you "right size" your requirements to both your budget and your legal obligations.

Quality control is an important consideration and you need to make sure that you understand exactly what that entails when engaging with a scanning vendor or doing the scanning yourself. We're available to provide free education on this subject and many others to help you with your document imaging needs. Please contact us if you'd like more information.

NIST HIPAA Security Toolkit Application now available

2011-12-23T09:42:00.000-08:00

This free downloadable application can help you assess your organization's HIPAA compliance: http://scap.nist.gov/hipaa/

SIS NW at OCHIN O-HITEC Forum

2011-11-09T13:59:00.000-08:00

SIS NWwas invited to make a presentation at the 2011 OCHIN O-HITEC forum Nov 1-2,2011.

The eventwas held at the Embassy Suites In Portland Oregon. The title of the event was"Something for Everyone"

Thepurpose of the forum is to bring together electronic health record (EHR)specific communities of medical practices focused on achieving Meaningful Usecertification in support of transforming medical care. Health care providers and healthcare informationtechnology solution providers are undergoing major transformation. This year'sOCHIN O-HITEC provided outstanding education to OCHIN's membership in the formof an experiential learning forum.

The forumwas attended by approximately 300 medical professionals and providers from allover the United States.

SIS NWpresented an educational track on the Revenue Management Cycle that included MedicalRecords Chart conversion strategies and Lockbox and EOB processing. The presentation provided information abouthow to automate the business office by eliminating paper and converting paperdocuments into intelligent electronic data.

There wasa great deal of interest generated when we unveiled our solution for auditingpayment data for the medical practice to help providers determine if they arebeing underpaid by the insurance companies.

It was afantastic event and a great educational opportunity for anyone that attended.

Proactive Customer Service

2011-10-04T17:22:00.000-07:00

At Spectrum we are fanatics about customer service! A successful scanning project depends on building a relationship with our customer and involving them throughout the process.

Our philosophy is to always be proactive about customer service and to bring issues to our customer's attention that might affect our ability to provide good quality, meet their timeline, or impact our service to them in any way.

Our Director of Operations, Jerry Miller, shares his philosophy about customer service.

As a service provider, it's critical that we remain vigilant about protecting our client’s documents, maintaining integrity within the capture process and providing high-quality results to the client. We never assume results. We work hard to build confidence and trust through ongoing customer communication to ensure that our clients are left without any doubts that we have done our best job. Our best practices ensure that any anomaly that can have an impact on our service level or creeps outside of the original statement of work is addressed and resolved and that there is clear communication. Often when we bring these issues to light it leads to refinements in our process (or sometimes the customer's process) that improve the end result.

We are always motivated to provide the best service. We know that our clients depend on us to do it right the first time.

Managing millions of pages of records - how do we do it?!?

2011-09-28T09:24:00.000-07:00

Jerry Miller, Spectrum's Director of Operations, talks about the importance of process control when managing millions of pages of documents every month and dozens of projects at any one time.

Process Control begins with a clear definition of the task at hand and the key is to make certain that each workflow stage is reduced to its lowest common denominator. A laser focused approach provides the best results for the client.

Organization and design prior to moving projects to production is crucial. In addition to process, having highly trained and motivated staff is critical to the success of any project. We take this a step further and make sure that each individual project always has a project leader. We are never on auto-pilot and our lead staff must constantly inspect/audit results and monitor staff performance.

Pre-Requisite:

Ø A clear handoff from Sales to Operation

o What is the deliverable?

o How is the input structured?

o Is there a clear and objective method to facilitate document separation and a means to index each document?

o What is the delivery method?

o Box Review/Client kickoff

o Testing and acceptance of proof of concept

Ø Well trained staff to apply conscientious labor to a task driven / results oriented process

Testing/Acceptance and move to Production:

Ø We utilize an electronic tracking system to provide an audit trail for chain of custody with an analogue work order for backup and auditing.

Ø Each box is assigned a unique tracking number.

Ø The client box number is captured.

Ø Each box is broken down to smaller batches which are also logged into our tracking system.

Ø Batch control feeds a controlled process.

Ø Each project has a unique capture workflow designed from document preparation to release.

Ø Customer data is utilized whenever possible to automate indexing and for auditing purposes.

Ø Document separation methodology is employed to ensure files are separated correctly.

Ø Indexing methodology may be automated by the use of OCR and/or barcode logic.

Ø Each project will be refined to best practices for each capture workflow stage: Prep, Scan, QC, Validation, Verification.

Ø Prep

o This step helps ensure documents are in good condition and can be auto-fed through the scanner for optimum productivity. Good prep improves image quality, protects documents, and ensures that the scanner operator can be as efficient as possible.

o Insertion of document separator sheets, if necessary.

o Identification of document types, if necessary.

Ø Scanner

o Ensure that all information is completely captured.

o Some QC occurs at the scanner, major issues detected and addressed.

o Recognition that document separation is occurring.

Ø QC

o Quality control can be customized to customer expectation level

o During QC the results from the scanning process are checked to ensure complete capture, image quality, and document separation. Image quality is subjective so QC is performed by senior staff. QC is the stage where our level of confidence in our process is validated.

Ø Validation

o This is where indexing occurs. Good QC ensures that document separation is accurate. With documents accounted for we now use data entry to key in at least a trigger field.

o Where is the key field? This determines the degree of difficulty. A good process ensures that the task is kept simple relative to the objective of keying in a value. We may have done something at prep to facilitate data entry or the client documents are often structured in a way that simplifies the indexing process

o Accuracy of the output is dependent on applying an accurate index on every single document processed. We utilize a number of strategies including field validation, reviewing any auto-generated index values against the document, normalizing data output, auditing against existing customer data, and more.

Ø Verification

o Workflow stage responsible for adding a double check to indexing by either double checking or going to the extreme: double blind key with a different team member.

Finally we make sure all output processing has been completed accurately and an accounting of work performed is provided to the client. By leveraging a set of custom reports we are able to account for every document processed from every box, including batch stats, document indexing components captured, and keystroke totals. Our tracking system provides reports that can be audited back to both the analogue work order and our release database. This ensures a complete audit trail for every step of our process.

Digital Lockbox Customer Case Study

2011-09-26T10:30:00.000-07:00

Family Medical Group Case Study

Family Medical Group is a family practice with five providers that sees an average of 1,800 patients per month.

Family Medical Group was introduced to SIS NW during our search for a lockbox solution. We have been on an electronic medical record system since 2007, but we continued to operate our business office in the same manner it had been run for years. We had paper everywhere! Our employees were constantly duplicating work.   What we found with SIS NW is that they went beyond being a lockbox provider. They took the time to gain an in-depth understanding of our practice and our work flow before offering us a solution.

SIS NW went above and beyond to solve our complex work flow. Thanks to SIS NW our change from paper to a paperless business office has been transparent.   SIS NW took the time to understand our needs and create a plan of action that not only solved our problems, but changed our processes so that we can do what we do best, practice medicine.

In addition to providing a great lockbox solution that has eliminated the risk and potential liability of having employees make bank deposits, SIS NW also provided a solution for managing our EOB forms. Our billing staff used to post insurance and private payments to the patient accounts from the paper forms. Now they all have dual monitors and post directly from the images. This provides better HIPAA compliance because there is no chance of patient information being seen while in a pile on someone’s desk or information being taken from the office.

We have one biller that works off-site that has secure access to the EOB’s through a web browser. This helps reduce costs for providing office space and allows the biller to telecommute.

The lockbox solution makes it next to impossible to embezzle funds. All deposits are done off-site by a trusted third party and all postings are also done off-site.    Any authorized user can review deposits, check copies, and EOB’s from their PC. All user activity can be easily audited which is a huge benefit. We can easily see who has accessed patient information and the date and time of all user activity is automatically recorded. The search functionality SISNW provided makes it incredibly easy to locate an EOB. We now have all of our records electronically backed up off-site for disaster recovery purposes.

The increased efficiency can be directly translated into time and money.    We were able to eliminate one staff person and drastically reduced our expenses for off-site storage and paper and filing supplies. We no longer have to pay salary and mileage for employees to make trips to the bank.    We have calculated that our annual savings are over $50,000 per year.    That amounts to an extra $10,000 per doctor in earnings each year. The space we’ve saved will allow us to add two additional practitioners.

We no longer have the archaic business office where employees spend time opening up envelopes, standing by a copy machine making paper copies of checks, spending money on “paper products” to produce “paper batches” and most importantly traveling outside the office to go to the bank. We now manage our accounts receivable without ever having to get up from our desks.   We also have a more “green” workplace.   It was the most painless and transparent workflow change I have ever experienced.

SIS NW is not only our lockbox provider, but our partner at Family Medical Group Northeast, PC

Keirene Adams – Practice Administrator

Zero down financing now available for Scanning Projects

2011-08-24T17:59:00.000-07:00

Spectrum now offers an easy way for you to finance your scanning projects. With today's challenging economic conditions, finding money in the budget to do a scanning project can be tough. At the same time, we're all being asked to do more with less. Our leasing solution provides a vehicle to get the work done now so that you can operate more efficiently without having to dip into cash reserves.

In recognition of these issues, we have developed a solution that allows you to get your project done now and make small monthly payments with single digit interest.

Financing for projects up to $75,000 can be approved with a simple one page application. The only initial investment is the first and last month's payment and there is a one dollar buyout at the end of the lease. Larger projects may require more background information, but can also be quickly approved.

Please contact us for more details.

MEDICAL RECORDS SCANNING FAQ'S

2011-06-15T14:03:00.000-07:00

My practice is moving to an EMR, what do I do with all the patient records in our chart room?
You will need to choose between one (or a combination of several) of the following options:

1. Continue to store them in your existing on-site chart room

2. Scan them and attach them to the electronic patient record in the new EMR

3. Scan them and store the images in a repository that is separate from the EMR

4. Store them off-site at a business records storage facility

5. Store them off-site in self storage space

Why should I scan my old charts?

The main reason to scan your charts is to improve patient care and reduce liability by making them easily accessible to your physicians and staff.

If you don't scan your charts, you'll be forced to manage two systems - one that is electronic and one that is paper based - a "hybrid" system. Managing both systems can be frustrating, inefficient, and potentially result in poor patient care. A hybrid system usually results in slower adoption of the EMR and it's not uncommon to see physicians in an exam room with a tablet PC and the paper chart.

When you receive release of information requests you can provide the information faster, cheaper, and more securely than retrieving and copying or scanning paper files and mailing or faxing them. You can also turn the release of information request into a revenue generating opportunity.

You'll have a large portion of your office space consumed by files and all of the labor costs associated with managing those files. Wouldn't it be better to convert that space into another exam room or use it for some other revenue generating activity?

Off-site storage may appear to be inexpensive, but if you have to keep your records for an extended period of time (pediatrics, women's health, urology, etc.) storage charges can greatly exceed the cost of scanning charts, especially if there is a high level of retrieval of charts from off-site storage. Storing charts in a self-storage unit could be a potential HIPAA violation. Self-storage units are often targeted by thieves, putting patient information at risk.

Once my charts are scanned, do I need to keep the paper chart?
In most instances, you can destroy the paper as long as you have scanned the entire chart. We advise that you consult a trained legal professional to ensure compliance with all laws and regulations pertaining to your specific practice.

Do I need to scan the entire chart?

Some practices choose to scan only certain sections, but you may be forced to keep the paper if you don't scan the entire chart. You may be faced with maintaining two separate systems, one paper based and one electronic. How will you know what information is in which system? How much will it cost to continue to staff the chart room with medical records staff? If you eliminated the storage space, could you add another provider(s) or diagnostic equipment and generate more revenue? These are all questions to ask yourself when making this decision.

Another important thing to take into consideration is potential future litigation. You could find yourself in a situation where you have conflicting information in the paper chart that wasn't brought into the electronic medical record that could be damaging in the event of a malpractice or other suit. You need to make sure you keep information for the required amount of time and if your records aren't integrated you could potentially miss information that could affect patient care. It is also not uncommon for us to find multiple charts for the same patient when we do a conversion. Scanning all the charts is an opportunity to clean up your existing patient information.

Do I need to scan all my existing charts?

Different practices have different needs. In many cases, we recommend that only charts for patients that have visited in the last 12-18 months be scanned. In some specialty practices like Pediatrics, charts may need to be kept for up to 28 years. The cost of storage for that length of time will exceed the cost of scanning the charts. Our consultative process includes an assessment of which charts should be scanned and which might be better serviced by a secure document storage company.

If you have older charts and the patient hasn't visited in a long time, those charts may not be worth scanning. You'll want to make sure you have a mechanism in place for destroying old charts once they meet their retention requirements. Keeping the paper chart exposes you to liability in the event of litigation if you have kept records that could have been destroyed once they met their legally mandated retention requirement. All records that you have, whether they are paper or electronic, are discoverable in the event of a lawsuit. It can be challenging to manage records retention if you have more than one repository.

Why don't we just hire some temps to scan our charts?

Practices tend to look at three things when they make this decision. The cost of a scanner, it's rated throughput, and the "low cost" of temporary (or family member) labor. The labor costs of prepping the charts (taking out paper clips, staples, etc.), indexing the charts, and quality control are often not factored into cost estimates for in-house scanning. These items combined typically cost 2-4 times as much as the actual scanning.

Perhaps you already have a scanner or a digital copier that can scan. A service bureau will use equipment that can capture 4 or 5 times as many pages per minute as most copiers or office scanners, greatly reducing the labor cost per image. If you use a digital copier, you will have people "fighting" over the resource and the person doing the scanning will be frequently interrupted, decreasing efficiency and increasing the chance of mistakes.

Typically, the same person doing the scanning is also removing paper clips, staples, etc. to get the charts ready for scanning and then indexing the charts after they have been scanned. The net result is that the scanner is often sitting idle and the actual throughput is about 20-30 percent of the scanner's rated speed. The project you thought would take 4 or 5 months ends up taking two years!

Since the same person is often doing all the work, the chance for mistakes increases exponentially. A service bureau has different personnel working on each step of a tightly controlled and carefully designed custom workflow process so that work is always being cross checked. A quality service bureau will also have an independent quality control step built into their workflow to ensure all pages were scanned and legible.

A service bureau will have a team dedicated to your project allowing it to be completed in weeks, instead of months or years.

An experienced service bureau utilizes high end production scanners, state of the art workflow management tools, and has developed processes over the years that result in a highly efficient quality driven process. While scanning seems relatively simple, there is a big learning curve and it just doesn't make sense to try to re-invent the wheel.

We have had to re-scan entire chart rooms for practices that didn't have a good quality control process. Patient information was indexed incorrectly, inter-mixed in other patient charts, and illegible. We've also had practices that did their own chart scanning tell us that their project took months longer than anticipated and ended up costing 2 or 3 times as much as we quoted.

We utilize advanced technology that allows us to automatically separate the charts using the same tab methodology you use in your paper charts and we utilize existing patient demographic info to automate the indexing process, provide more search information, and improve accuracy. Charts scanned by an experienced service bureau will be easier to use, accurate, and all images will be legible.

Temporary employees are often overlooked when it comes to confidentiality and HIPAA training.

What about patient confidentiality?

We ensure HIPAA compliance through a combination of personal accountability and physical security. All employees must undergo criminal and credit background checks prior to employment and execute confidentiality agreements as a condition of employment. We provide ongoing HIPAA training. We utilize an independent auditor that performs an annual HIPAA compliance review. We execute Business Associate agreements with all customers and carry a high amount of liability insurance. Our scanning facilities are secure locations that are locked 24/7 and under 24/7 internal video surveillance. All employee work activity is tracked to the file level for every project.

What if we need a chart while you're working on it?

We utilize a secure e-mail solution that allows us to e-mail a scanned chart to you if you need it while we have it at our scanning center. We can also provide encrypted FTP access and in some cases we can send it directly to your EMR. We work with clients to schedule the project so that only a small portion of your charts are in our facility at any one time.

Do we have to scan them all at once?

Some practices prefer to spread out the scanning expense and we will work with you if you need to spread your budget over a period of time. Some practices send us their charts once a week after patients have visited. Others send us charts for the patients they have scheduled for the upcoming week so that they are available in the EMR when the patient visits. Both of these options ensure that you're only scanning charts for active patients. We've also had practices that send a pre-determined number of boxes each week to spread out the investment.

When preparing for an EMR migration, many practices perform a pack and purge each year. Instead of sending the oldest year of Medical Records to an offsite storage facility the records are scanned and held in an online archive until the go live date for the EMR implementation.

Can you scan into our EMR system?

We have performed dozens of conversions into a multitude of EMR systems. To date, we haven't found any that we haven't been able to scan into and we currently have templates built for most of the major EMR systems.

Do you offer other solutions for medical practices?

We are constantly looking for other ways to add value to our relationship with the medical practices we serve. We have developed cost saving solutions that automate revenue management, release of information, and other time consuming manual processes. We provide solutions that eliminate labor and manual data entry including conversion of paper EOB forms into a Medicare compliant 835 EFT file. We also provide an audit solution for comparing the maximum reimbursable amount in your contracts against actual reimbursements.

Do you work directly with EMR providers?

A number of EMR providers recommend our services to their customers because they know we do quality work and have the technical expertise to format the scanned charts correctly to make them available in their EMR. We actively partner with the EMR providers and understand how their solutions work.

What else should I take into consideration?

Clients often wrestle with the issue of whether to scan the entire chart or not. If you think you don't need to scan the entire chart, ask yourself a few questions. Will the time spent weeding out pages end up costing the same or more than simply scanning those pages? Am I putting patient care at risk by not having all the pertinent information I need? Am I exposing myself to liability by keeping records that could be purged? What will my storage costs be? Can I put the space occupied with charts to other use as an exam room or the home of a new piece of diagnostic equipment that will generate revenue?

ColumbiaSoft and Spectrum Information Services NW, Inc. Join Forces to Help Businesses Get Jump-Start On Paperless Conversion to Electronic Document M

2010-04-02T14:01:00.000-07:00

Spectrum Information Services NW, Inc. helps businesses in
Oregon and Washington convert their paper to digital files where they can be stored, shared, and managed electronically using ColumbiaSoft’s document management software.

Portland, Ore. – April 6, 2010 – Spectrum Information Services NW, Inc. (SIS NW, Inc.) has joined ColumbiaSoft’s network of technology providers and will work with the document management software company and its customers in providing outsourced paper conversion services.

“Together, we offer a seamless transition to digital, with less risk and less challenge,” said Glenn Odell, president of SIS NW, Inc. “Companies that are looking to improve business processes and gain the benefits of a paperless office can count on a combination of our services to scan and manage information.”

“Spectrum’s reputation for exceptional project management and service quality, combined with their broad technical capabilities, makes them a trusted choice in outsourced scanning,” said ColumbiaSoft executive vice president, David Pogue.

Using start-of-the-art scanning technology, SIS NW, Inc. provides high-volume paper-to-electronic conversions for businesses in Oregon and Washington. SIS NW, Inc.’s back file scanning helps businesses digitize existing archives of documents stored in filing cabinets, boxes, and warehouses – eliminating the cost of storage, and making it easier to search files electronically and retrieve information. The company’s day-forward scanning services help businesses maintain a paperless operation by digitizing records on an ongoing basis.

Outsourcing the conversion of paper also helps save time and money by eliminating the need to scan files internally. More consistent and accurate scans, with precise capture of content, improves document indexing, organization, and ultimately the ability to find and retrieve documents later after they are placed in the electronic document management system. For example, SIS NW, Inc.’s advanced scanning process allows it to OCR (optical character recognition) words so they can be electronically searched, and apply metadata (facts about the files) that helps organize information. Once in ColumbiaSoft’s Document Locator document management system, information can be easily shared, retrieved, stored, and more.

About ColumbiaSoft Corporation
ColumbiaSoft is a leader in document management software and services designed to enhance efficiency, reduce risk, and improve collaboration. Information workers use ColumbiaSoft software to manage and share paper and electronic documents, e-mail, faxes, and other electronic files to reduce costs, increase productivity, automate business processes, and meet compliance requirements. As a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, an Autodesk Authorized Developer, and an Adobe Solutions Network partner, the company’s products fully integrate with popular applications such as Microsoft Windows, Office, Outlook, SharePoint, Adobe Acrobat, AutoCAD, and more. ColumbiaSoft is a privately held company based in Portland, Oregon and was founded in 1998. For more information, visit http://www.documentlocator.com.

About Spectrum Information Services NW, Inc.
Through offices in Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington, Spectrum Information Services NW, Inc. provides cost effective imaging services and consulting, and focuses on delivering value by helping businesses improve operations. SIS NW, Inc. serves businesses across all industries with a range of paperless conversion services, including: healthcare solutions for claims processing, managing EOB forms and converting paper based patient charts into EMR/EHR systems; accounts payable automation; loan processing automation; mailroom automation; human resource and payroll documentation; and more. For more information, visit http://www.sisnwinc.com.

###
All referenced product names, and other marks, are trademarks of their respective owners.

Media contacts:
Jim Kemp
Marketing Communications Manager, ColumbiaSoft Corporation
(800) 298-1172 x108
pr@columbiasoft.com

Lisa Kays
Business Manager, Spectrum Information Services NW, Inc.
360-802-4551
lkays@sisnwinc.com
www.sisnwinc.com

Welcome

2010-03-26T17:50:00.001-07:00

Welcome to the newly created Spectrum Information Services NW, Inc. blog. Visit often to learn industry tips and tricks and review useful articles and information.