1) Scanning:
Quality measurements should be done every week .
Outsource a renowned scanning company to take care of the backlog.
Re-do scanned pages to improve quality and identify errors.
All documents to be entered into the system electronically from now on to avoid future errors and ensure quality .
100% audit should be done to ensure that all records are up to date.
Scanned records should be well documented to avoid errors.
These recommended solutions should be reported to the Health Information Management (HIM) Director.
2) Billing:
Hire a qualified person proficient in accounting temporarily so as to deal with the billing issue.
The person should check on incorrect dates or errors of double-billing .
The hired professional should look for any “invisible” charges in the patients’ records and remove them (Green and Bowie 262).
All available patient documents should be assessed to evaluate whether the prices charged match the services offered.
A verification process should then be put in place to make sure that both outpatient and inpatient payments have been made in time.
The solutions should be reported to the Administration.
3) Coding
The coding issues could be solved by the use of these solutions:
Train the new graduate so as to work faster.
Proper training and bringing in coding professionals will increase the accuracy rate to at least 99% .
Ensure that coding staff have easy access to the documentation that will act as sources so as to ensure consistent, accurate, and complete coding.
Staff with patient access should also be given orientation courses on coding.
Every coding staff member should be given a specific line of items to code to encourage accountability .
The coding process should then be monitored daily by a specific monitoring tool.
These solutions should be reported to the Administration and the HIM Director.
4) Release of information-release of wrong information can have adverse effects on research, reporting, and billing.
Solutions:
Policies and procedures should be set as to how information should be released (Green and Bowie 75).
Staff responsible for release of information should be well trained on the best ways to avoid errors.
In case these releases are done by new employees, monitoring should be done to ensure that they do not make mistakes.
Training should also be done to ensure all employees responsible for information release have the necessary knowledge.
A database should also be created that should be filled out whenever information release is requested (Green and Bowie 91).
The legal authority of whoever is requesting for information must also be established before information release.
The patient’s identification must also be verified prior to the release.
Staff must also double-check their work before releasing any client information .
The Medical Staff Committee should be informed of these recommendations.
5) Transcription:
This issue should be given the highest priority.
Proposed solutions:
Proper legal action should be taken towards the outsourcing company for their negligence .
Necessary pressure should be impacted on outsourced companies to ensure that their workers give the correct prescriptions .
Change outsourcing company to a more trusted and recommended vendor that complies with regulations regarding medical transcripts.
Hire a medical Transcriptionist (MT) qualified to deal with medical transcriptions .
Formulate quality service control programmes in medical transcripts.
Increase the number of Quality Assurance (QA) staff to ensure that the right transcripts are given to the right patients (Green and Bowie 47).
Physicians must always sign prescriptions before they are given to patients to ensure the medication is correct.
Application of speech recognition in prescription system to limit the number of people with access to giving out medical prescriptions .
Solutions should be reported to the Medical Staff Director and Medical Staff Committee.
All performance statistics should be compiled weekly to monitor improvement in quality and compliance.
Works cited
Abdelhak, Mervat. Health information: management of a strategic resource. Los Angeles: Saunders/Elsevier, 2007. Print.
McWay, Dana C. Legal and Ethical Aspects of Health Information Management. Andover: Cengage Learning, 2009. Print.
Michelle A. Green, Mary Jo Bowie. Essentials of Health Information Management: Principles and Practices. Andover: Cengage Learning, 2010. Print.
