Family Health Services is the central billing and revenue accounting organization for Family Health Service Physicians and East Metro Family Practice. There are fifteen (15) practice locations serviced by Family Health Services. Billing services and accounting is performed at a single location in St. Paul, Minnesota.

In the past, all of the billing and financial reports generated by the Clinic Management System provided by Infocure (DISC Systems) could only be distributed and accessed in paper format. For example, much of the information for the patient billing office, including patient billing detail, billing summaries, zero balance statements, daily posting journals and other transaction-related reporting, were printed on paper by the Unix System and stored in the central office. Further compounding the space problem was the separation of the two business organizations requiring every report to be printed and maintained separately for each practice.

In order to access information from the reports, accountants and billers would later return to the paper based reports, search for the correct information and try to make a usable copy. Often, data was then re-keyed and used to complete other routine tasks. The process was slow, inefficient and wasteful of precious human resources, space and paper.

 indexes pages and files them away in the correct electronic file cabinets.

Report information is now available in an electronic format on the Office TCP/IP network with standard PC work stations. Access is controlled by system security, allowing the organization to include sensitive information such as payroll reports in the repository.

The heaviest use of the system is evident in the revenue accounting and billing departments. Both are areas that have been inundated with paper in the past. Staff members now find it much easier to search for specific information, extract data and manipulate it as desired in spreadsheets or other software applications.

The software captures computer-generated reports in an electronic format and downloads them to electronic media. Currently, electronic files are sent to both CD’s and magnetic hard drive storage. The CD’s, each holding as much as 600,000 pages of information, are used exclusively for archiving purposes. Magnetic Hard discs are used for retrieval. The CD storage media has replaced microfiche and paper filing systems for archiving purposes. Storage of printed copies is no longer necessary.

With the huge success of the DataStore solution, attention could be directed at the next area of concern: The massive amount of space taken up by the EOBs. Over 3000 pages per day are coming into the offices. Organizing them for easy access and storage was causing a huge problem. Even with the enormous space savings provided by the DataStore COLD system, the organization was bursting at the seams. The options were to acquire more space or find an alternative method of handling of the EOBs.

Hitec Integration had four goals for any alternative method of storage and retrieval. They were:

Hitec Integration took into consideration the way that the Clinical Management System worked and decided to allow the imaging system to work within the established framework of processing, filing and retrieval.

The Infocure (DISC) system establishes batch numbers for EOBs as they are applied to patient accounts. A Batch of EOBs would contain anywhere from 5 to 30 pages. Infocure (DISC) points to specific batches when querying a specific patient record. In the paper based filing system, batches were filed by provider and batch number. Billing personnel were use to going to a file cabinet and retrieving the batch(s). Research, copying, etc., were accomplished via the paper and then the batch was returned to the file cabinet.

The imaging system was set up to store the batches similarly by batch number. To eliminate manual indexing, Hitec took an electronic Batch report from the Unix system and created batch cover sheets that are bar coded with batch and date information. This automated procedure incorporates a Hitec developed application for report capture, parsing and printing of the bar coded batch cover sheets.

Organizations that are familiar with imaging understand that scanning and indexing can be a major bottlenecks in the electronic filing process.

EOBs come in various shapes, sizes and quality. Some are single sided, others are dual sided. The variety of documents can slow down the scanning process unless the proper technologies are used. To eliminate problems during the scanning sessions Hitec decided to employ Virtual Rescan technologies from Kofax and Fujitsu.

The Virtual Rescan enabled high speed scanner eliminates the need to rescan any document because of poor resolution, skewing or too light or dark areas. Virtual Rescan fixes 90% of image problems on the fly and improves the electronic page without the need for operator intervention. The end result is a better electronic image. Both single and dual sided pages are scanned in a single pass. Blank pages are discarded automatically. If page readability is too far out of range the scanner stops and allows the operator to adjust the image without touching the scanner. This way document sequences are never corrupted.

The system reads the bar code sheet for each batch to collect index information and stores the images accordingly. The entire process for scanning the daily batches is less than two hours. Equal to, or less than the manual method.

Along with space consumption, finding and using paper based EOB information had been one of the labor intensive parts of the billing functions. On open accounts, for example, searching through paper based batch files to find information could take anywhere from 5-to-30 minutes.

By comparison, finding EOB documents online is a simple procedure that takes only seconds. Given the system's search capabilities, information can be pulled up by any index factor. Billing personnel are not constantly getting up, going to one or more file cabinets, and gathering batches for research.

Once retrieved and on the screen, documents can be utilized just as paper. With electronic notes, annotations and printing, the function of paper is retained without the physical properties.

Time spent re-filing the documents has been eliminated along with copier expense.

Both the COLD and Imaging solutions provided by Hitec Integration have achieved the goals established by Family Health Services. There has been plenty of time and system resources left over to establish additional applications for electronic filing.

Staff workers in data processing have stopped printing multiple copies of reports for internal use. Now, original reports from the mainframe, as well as Scanned EOBs and other documents are stored electronically.

The amount of space required for use and retention of paper based reports and EOBs is being reduced on a daily basis. Additional applications are being analyzed to determine the potential availability of savings.

The staff has been overwhelmingly supportive of the changes. The Hitec DataStore and PaperStore solutions have proven to be easy to use systems that facilitate productivity gains and benefits almost immediately.

The combined solutions have helped the staff reach individual and organizational revenue and productivity goals, which can increase their earnings as well as trigger additional performance perks.

Often, discussion about the use of information technology in Health Care focuses on clinical issues. Here, attention to operational problems has provided tangible rewards. Family Health Services is a great example of the right technologies, used by a motivated group of individuals to lower costs.