Even with the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), TechTarget reports that the focus on value-based care and reimbursement will continue. Proper data capture is crucial to get real value out of EHR systems and support meaningful use requirements. Medical transcription companies play an important role in this scenario by ensuring quality medical documentation.
Medical transcription outsourcing is helping providers to achieve meaningful use goals and realize the value of the accountable care organization (ACO) model in the following ways:
- Ensure effective capture of data: Medical transcriptionists ensure appropriate and accurate capture of healthcare data in electronic health record (EHR) systems. EHRs provide data for several quality measures that accountable care organizations (ACOs) must report every year to the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CMS). This data includes everything from recording preventive health measures, such as immunizations and mammography screenings, to tracking populations at risk for diabetes, hypertension and other chronic conditions. U.S. based medical transcription companies provide EHR-integrated documentation in the necessary structured format, ensuring that the data easily reflects the practice’s quality improvement efforts. They promote discrete data capture.
- Helps generate data reports to plug gaps in care: A practice that has regular access to comprehensive and comprehensible data reports can detect gaps in care and take measures to plug them. Medical transcription outsourcing to a reliable service provider gives physicians speedy access to various types of patient care reports. This helps them spot signals in patient data that could end up affecting their quality score related to hospital readmissions. For instance, quick access to up-to-data information on a diabetic patient’s condition will help the physician act quickly and take corrective measures before the condition worsens.
- Saves documentation time and ensures focus on care: Medical transcription services allow clinicians to use EHRs without giving up narrative dictation. Companies that provide these services have a team of experts on the job. They assist with documenting consultation notes, entering orders and referrals, and queuing up prescriptions, freeing the physician to focus on the patient. One study found that patient charting with an EHR-integrated transcription solution averaged 30 minutes per day in clinician documentation time while standard EHR data entry by the clinician took 140 minutes per day.
A recent Black Book market survey reported that 92 percent of hospital executives felt that the reimbursement realities of Medicare’s Quality Payment Program will lead to more physician and post-acute provider acquisitions this year. In such a situation, it pays to have staff that is well-versed in technology and skilled in the documentation processes that optimize an EHR system for meaningful use. By assuring accurate, timely and affordable documentation solutions using the latest technologies, medical transcription outsourcing companies help physicians meet the requirements of accountable care and reap the advantages that come with it.
