As value-based payment models take hold, today’s healthcare practices face an array of new challenges. Private practices, physician groups and hospitals must find ways to increase the quality of care they provide (while decreasing costs), ensure better outcomes (despite caring for more patients) and become more efficient.
 
To help solve these concerns, healthcare organizations should not minimize the critical importance and impact of health information management.
 

While HIM can be part of the solution, the technology behind it is often expensive. At a time when healthcare facilities and physician practices are struggling to keep financial bottom lines in the black, how can these healthcare organizations find the best return on their HIM investment?
 
The answer is Automated Indexing.
 
And, yes, I can hear you now. You’re thinking “Of course he would say that.”
 
But, stick with me, and I’ll show you why automating your practice’s document indexing offers the highest ROI for your healthcare HIM dollars.
 
First, let’s look at how to determine ROI for your healthcare organization.
 
How to Determine ROI in HIM
 
Traditionally, ROI is measured in terms of money saved or earned, but demonstrating ROI in healthcare goes beyond the bottom line.
 
Instead, let’s look at ROI as a combination of direct and indirect benefits, along with revenue opportunities.
 
Direct benefits can be seen as the savings from increased efficiency and productivity. Examples include the ability to better allocate or reduce staff resources, less overtime, and decreased costs.
 
Indirect benefits, although often more difficult to measure, can provide longer-term advantages. Examples of these include improved medical outcomes, increased patient satisfaction, more productive workflows, process improvements and higher staff morale.
 
Revenue opportunities could include improved scores for value-based payment.
 
So, if those are the categories that determine ROI in today’s healthcare environment, how does automated indexing tick the boxes?
 
Let’s take a look.
 
The ROI of Automated Indexing
 
Direct Benefits – When it comes to the direct benefits of automated indexing, it’s easy to see why the ROI is so high. Manual indexing requires additional staff and is prone to filing errors. Switching to automated indexing significantly reduces the reliance on medical record personnel while providing much faster turnaround, consistent and standardized document naming conventions, patient identification, discrete clinical data capture and order management. With these benefits, automated indexing reduces overall document indexing costs by 60-80 percent. Have you ever calculated how much it actually costs your organization to index a document into the patient’s medical record? It’s typically in the range of $1-$2 per document.
 
Indirect Benefits – The direct benefits that come with automated indexing are not the only reason it offers the highest ROI in HIM. Indirect benefits also offer the ability to provide better patient care and therefore, higher patient satisfaction, less frustration for clinicians and staff, better workflow, and improved efficiency.
 
When you switch to automated indexing, you no longer have staff searching for lab records, imaging reports and referrals while clinicians and patients wait. Instead, every record is exactly where it’s supposed to be when you need it.
 
Revenue Opportunities – The benefits don’t stop there. Automated indexing can also provide a higher ROI due to the improvements it provides in reporting for quality measures. With improved reporting often comes an improved score for value-based payment, leading to increased revenue for your healthcare organization.
 
Technology has never been more of a priority than it is today for healthcare providers. Healthcare organizations, from private practices to large hospital systems, must balance tighter budgets while dealing with stringent regulations. There are many HIM technologies available to help practices manage these needs. However, they must pay off quickly, with an ROI that offers more than dollars and cents; it should also improve quality and outcomes while streamlining operations and reducing costs.
 
That is why the best ROI in HIM is found in shifting from manual indexing to automation. By delivering documents to your electronic medical record system, you can improve patient care and your bottom line.