Inaccurate medical coding and erroneous billing cost Americans more than $2 billion annually, and about 12 million Americans are misdiagnosed each year, according to a My Medical Score report. Another study released by Johns Hopkins in 2016 estimated around 250,000 people die every year due to a medical error, making it the third leading cause of death in the United States.
If so much rides on accurate medical coding and billing, why does it continue to be a pervasive issue? There are several unintentional reasons for inaccurate billing and coding. Below are three common challenges to ensuring precise documentation:
Challenge 1: Messy and rushed documentation
The Covid-19 pandemic only exacerbated physician burnout due to poor work-life balance, long working hours, risk of malpractice suits, dealing with patient illnesses and death, and extensive documentation. The administrative burden fuels their fatigue, which translates into erroneous documentation. According to Open Minds, clinical team members spend about 40% of their time documenting their work, which is equivalent to about two working days.
To help ease the administrative burden, clinics can support providers by integrating new technologies into existing platforms, including electronic health record systems. Such technologies, like Axiom streamline clinical documentation by eliminating the need to type notes, making it easier for medical billing specialists to assign the proper codes and bill patients correctly.
Challenge 2: Segmented data and patient information
There are many points throughout a patient’s clinical visit when information is documented, including check-in and checkout. There are also several staff members entering the data, including nurses, case managers and providers. With so many moving parts, it’s easy for information to get lost in the shuffle and for some to be missing entirely.
The AI-powered and integrated solution of Axiom automates the tedious tasks and makes all information collected accessible and fully customizable on any device. Axiom provides dynamic progress notes, ePrescribing, drag and drop dynamic form builder, patient and clinician reporting and interoperability to increase productivity and make good data-driven decisions.
Challenge 3: Gaps in revenue cycles
Many providers’ needs are not being met by their current vendor when it comes to denials management, contract management and support, and value-based reimbursements. Axiom enables you to prevent denials, reduce the cost to collect on claims, and have more efficient prior authorization procedures.
Axiom leverages the power of AI to provide actionable data insights and reduce errors within the revenue cycle, leading to lower costs, reduced risk, enhanced operations, and fewer wrongful claims and denials.
Are you looking to have greater reimbursement success, and improved patient and employee satisfaction? Schedule a demo to learn more about Axiom today.
