How Electronic Medical Records Streamline Billing and Provider Reimbursement
Healthcare reimbursement can be a long, complicated process. It requires many steps, any of which can derail the process — and there is no guarantee the claim will ultimately be approved and the provider paid in full. One innovation that has helped the reimbursement process is electronic health records. Here’s an overview of how electronic records have simplified, streamlined, and made the reimbursement process more secure.
Challenges of medical billing and reimbursement
One of the biggest challenges in medical billing and reimbursement is that there’s no “one-size-fits-all” payment model. For example, payment models can include fee-for-service, value-based, salary, capitation, episode-based, or bundled services — and most providers get paid through more than one method. In addition, providers must navigate the convoluted reimbursement policies at the federal, state, and private payer level. And if a physician or medical facility chooses not to participate in the reimbursement process, the pool of potential patients is reduced.
Another challenge of medical billing and reimbursement is that manual billing processes are inefficient. Paper records are also expensive to copy, transport, and store, making it difficult to share data among providers, patients, and payers — and paper records are bad for the environment.
Benefits of electronic medical records
Technology has enabled a huge transition in streamlining medical records storage and processing. Electronic recordkeeping helps ensure that patient data is accurate, up to date, and easily accessible. It allows secure sharing of information with patients, providers and other healthcare workers, which ultimately reduces costs because of reduced manual paperwork.
Electronic medical records (EMRs), which are defined as a repository of patient data in digital format, allow more coordinated and efficient diagnosis, care, and treatment. EMRs also help provide legible, complete documentation to promote more efficient and reliable coding.
How EMRs help patients, providers, and payers
Currently, EMRs are used primarily by healthcare providers; however, they could be used by all stakeholders in the healthcare system. Some EMRs even allow patients to view their own medical records, renew prescriptions, make appointments, and communicate with providers.
Electronic health records let providers make better diagnostic and treatment decisions by integrating information from multiple sources. Electronic records can improve productivity and speed up revenue cycles. Therefore, providers can achieve better work-life balance.
EMRs improve all aspects of patient care, including communication, effectiveness and timeliness of treatment, information security, education, prescribing, and overall patient experience. Ultimately, EMRs lead to better patient outcomes.
Decreased manual paperwork means reduced costs for providers and patients. The increased legibility of electronic records increases the efficiency of coders, which aids providers and payers and results in better claims management. EMRs also integrate well with the increasing use of telehealth platforms and digital patient interactions.
The EMR has brought tremendous advantages over the past decade and has truly proven its value during the COVID-19 crisis. EMRs provide benefits for providers, patients, and payers.
