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Capturing Drug Charges
In early 2002, Hematology Oncology Specialists (HOS), which
operates 11 facilities in the New Orleans metropolitan area, was
failing to recapture drug costs. With a large patient volume,
HOS was searching for a way to offset its losses, and in May
2002, Pebbles Lonergan and Karlie Hull, HOS’ IT experts, formed
a task force. Lonergan said, “It didn’t take long for our
tech-savvy doctors, nurses, and office supervisors to see
IMPAC’s potential to solve our problem by sending charges
directly to our billing system at the time drugs are
administered, giving us data that’s easy to audit.”
Changing
a Culture
Lonergan and Hull started small, implementing one IMPAC system
at a time, beginning with the scheduling system. To keep offices
open during implementation, they staggered half-day training
classes among multiple sites. The staff were reluctant to throw
away paper schedules, but within weeks, schedulers told her that
they “couldn’t believe they’d ever scheduled the old way.”
Double-booking is a nightmare of the past, and they identified
ways to be more productive: electronic booking let them see when
they could fit in another patient; and when chemo chairs were
found to be fully utilized, they added more chairs to increase
patient volume.
Enhancing Communication
Widely appreciated by HOS physicians and nurses in IMPAC’s
electronic medical record (EMR) is the “comment line”. This
helps keep everyone updated on, for example, patients’ treatment
cycles. If a nurse is absent, her replacement can
check the cycle before administering drugs and be better
prepared for patients’ questions. The patient queuing system
also improves communication. In the back office, nurses can
glance at monitors to see who is waiting; patients arriving
early can often start therapy earlier, saving them time and
reducing HOS’ cost from no-shows since every empty chemo chair
represents loss of revenue.
Moving Toward the Future
The drug charge problem was solved in February 2003 when HOS
rolled out IMPAC’s drug code capture system. Before implementing
this solution, superbills were given each day to a supervisor
who spent four hours the following day entering charges. Now,
doctors and nurses enter charges directly into the system; the
supervisor spends an hour reviewing them; and charges are
submitted faster, with higher approval rates and faster
reimbursement. HOS also uses IMPAC’s electronic chart that lets
oncologists approve transcriptions on computer screens and is
looking to implement its feature that documents patient visits,
manages documents, and stores transcription records in EMRs.
According to Hull, “With the new CMS cuts in drug reimbursement,
it’s more essential than ever to increase organizational
efficiencies – and what better way to cut overhead than to use
IMPAC’s EMR?” Lonergan added, “IMPAC has helped position us for
the future.” |
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