#practice technology

Here we are 14 years into a whole new millennium, almost halfway into the second decade of the information age, and in this era of advancement, technological leaps, and higher learning, a few things are becoming essential to the continued success of healthcare practices, no matter their specialty.

HIPAA compliance

Secure exchange of information

Ease of accessibility

Environmentally friendly or “green” solutions

All four of these things are essential to being, and staying ahead of the healthcare technology curve in this day and age. Your patients and even partners, in many cases, expect that you make these things a priority.

HIPAA: The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act exists to protect your patients, you, your employees, and generally everyone in the healthcare space, but, it also lays down a great deal of regulation on how the industry is operated, in order to maintain that protection. The largest, most prevalent, and, often, highly costly infraction of the HIPAA mandate is the misuse or disclosure of PHI. You already know what PHI is, but what you may not know is that one common way to get dinged for a HIPAA violation is through delivering PHI to a payor by paper mail. The minute any printed health documentation leaves your office, it’s a potential violation waiting to happen. If that envelope is delivered to the wrong place, and someone opens it, your office could be liable. If PHI documents are scanned and left on a fax machine, you could be at risk. The bottom line is that when dealing with PHI you want to be sure you’re doing everything possible to: keep it completely safe, track its every move, and maintain the safety of your patients’ information every step of the way. As you know, FastAttach, for instance stores, marks, tracks, and delivers your PHI files completely electronically, and we have never lost a single document, nor have our servers been breached in our almost 20 years of dedicated service.

Now, to go with that issue of security, and to break down the electronic portion of the topic further, is a rising facet of the industry known as “Secure Information Exchange”: The instant, electronic transfer of healthcare documentation. Companies like ours, Renaissance, Ability, and others allow for such transfer, with varying levels of portability and security within the industry, as certain companies have more access to higher numbers of payors, or only reach within one branch of healthcare (medical, dental, vision, etc.) It should also be noted, that not all information exchange entities are truly “green” or “paperless” as, in order to feign a higher number of payors, some will drop your electronic information to paper, and ship it off that way upon receipt, thus removing the security blanket of electronic transfer. In essence, not all Info Exchange companies are created equal. Be sure to do your homework when evaluating them: if it something seems too good to be true, it usually is.

On top of all of that is this thing known as Ease of Accessibility, which is a little less straight forward than the other two, but equally important. When you are dealing with payors, patients, partners, the government, its regulations, and everything else the world can throw at you, the last thing you want is to have to jump through hoops to get done what you need to get done. Practice management software is a huge aid in that regard, but there are still pieces of the puzzle left over on the fringes of what such softwares can handle. Juggling 30 different programs to scan, edit, and send one x-ray to a payor, for instance, is a horrible waste of time, energy, resources, and RAM. Luckily, there are a few companies out there offering programs, apps, or utilities to aid in lowering the time and materials spent completing tasks in the healthcare industry. MEA|NEA, for instance offers a vast array of interfaces, and an excellent suite of products suited to helping your practice reach, maintain, and surpass its potential through ease of access, and ease of use.