Scribe’s New White Paper Explores Issues and Solutions to Improving Clinical Documentation While Increasing Reimbursements

Lake Forest, IL (PRWEB) July 10, 2013 -- The healthcare arena has been bombarded with significant changes affecting every aspect of the industry. Most of the new government programs, directives and regulations have required hefty changes to workflows, processes and finances. However, none have seemed to positively affect revenues. Scribe Healthcare Technologies, Inc. provides a solution. A revenue generating solution.

A recently released White Paper, “Today’s Transcription Pendulum: Does Your Documentation Support Your Billing?” examines the elimination of medical transcription and reliance on healthcare providers to absorb the brunt of the patient documentation responsibility. Not only is productivity in decline, but so are preparations for the transition to ICD-10 coding system use.

In a precursory comparison of ICD-9 to ICD-10 codes, procedure codes will go from 4,000 to 87,000 and CM codes are expected to increase more than four fold. Scribe’s White Paper outlines a system of review and assessment to combat improper coding and provide documentation improvement recommendations. Utilizing proper coding is as critical to a healthcare organization’s financial well-being as the care they provide their patients. Improper coding can result in ongoing revenue loss and insufficiencies to documentation and record keeping.

Scribe’s White Paper explains the need for a coding and billing analysis and ongoing assessment. Review of current ICD-9 code usage to plan for the move to ICD-10 is as important as identifying coding opportunities for greater reimbursements. A patient encounter must include detailed documentation to support ICD-10 codes and allow for accurate reimbursement for medically necessary services. As the White Paper explores, once effective and detailed documentation is in place, assigning ICD-10 codes or defending current claims will be simpler and faster. Gaps in documentation need to be addressed in anticipation of the specificity the new coding system mandates.

Under-coding and down-coding can be as financially crippling as claim denials. According to a survey conducted by the American Hospital Association, 94% of hospitals indicated that medical necessity denials were the most expensive and complex denials. Accurate coding techniques and guidelines for greater specificity provide denial reduction and reimbursement for patient services delivered.

Scribe’s White Paper discusses the importance of education and specific training to improve data capture so services delivered are accurately notated in the documentation. Several solutions are proposed including re-engaging medical transcription and utilizing technologies to streamline the delivery of structured data to the EHR.

Scribe’s White Paper, “Today’s Transcription Pendulum: Does Your Documentation Support Your Billing?” is available for review and download at http://www.scribe.com/contactwp1.aspx.

About Scribe Healthcare Technologies, Inc.
Scribe Healthcare Technologies, Inc. is a privately-held, healthcare technology company based in the Chicago, IL area. The company has developed a proprietary “Cloud-based” platform that centers on medical documentation solutions to deliver physician narrated content to the electronic medical record. Scribe’s platform includes complete solutions for dictation, transcription, voice recognition, document management, clinical documentation improvement, and reporting with data analytics. Scribe offerings include both computer and mobile solutions. Scribe serves more than 30,000 users. Business partners and resellers include consulting firms, transcription companies, EMR/EHR providers, and business process outsourcers. Additional information is available at http://www.scribe.com.