Providing medical equipment to patients comes with a heavy pile of paperwork, full of data that must be compiled and relayed in an accurate and timely manner. Accuracy is key for the Durable Medical Equipment providers (DMEs) responsible for selling and distributing what is often life-altering medical equipment. Data extracted inaccurately can disrupt the equipment procurement process, slow revenue cycles, and ultimately, worsen operations for equipment manufacturers, healthcare and insurance providers, and patients alike.
So when is DME data accuracy important? Always. But let’s start by reviewing 5 areas where data entry accuracy is essential for medical equipment providers, and how automation in healthcare such as optical character recognition and intelligent data extraction can improve data entry workflow, precision, and efficiency.
1. Preauthorization
Data integrity is a must when it comes to evaluating patient health histories and medical test results and communicating this information with insurance providers. Unfortunately, inaccuracies can easily occur when staff members are manually transcribing information—frequently necessary as a first step since medical providers commonly share records via fax.
Inaccuracies in this process can have significant consequences. For example, if a patient has a respiratory disturbance index of 15, Medicare may cover the appropriate medical device to treat their sleep apnea. If a staff member working on preauthorization accidentally leaves off the 1, they’ll wrongfully indicate a mild diagnosis rather than a moderate one, and Medicare may deny coverage.
Correcting these errors can take up valuable time—both for your staff as you identify the source of the error and remedy the problem and for the patient who is waiting on their device.
2. Invoicing
Medical equipment sales can be more complicated than standard consumer goods sales. That means invoicing can get a bit complex, but accuracy in sales data entry is key. When it comes to financial data, errors can easily creep in if you’re not careful.
Avoiding billing errors and maintaining accurate sales data allows you to:
- Achieve tight revenue cycles and consistent cash flow.
- Run your business efficiently.
- Help patients access their devices in a timely manner.
- Comply with financial audits.
3. Routing and Delivery
National and international medical equipment distributors must determine the most efficient way to get devices into their clients’ hands (whether patients in their homes or medical practices). Sending devices from the closest warehouses can cut down on logistics costs and reduce shipping times.
Routing orders involves checking the ZIP code or city on patient records or order forms. Since there is often more than one address listed in records (typically the patient’s and provider’s), it’s important to identify the relevant location. Using the wrong ZIP code or typing in a wrong digit can cause errors and delays in delivery.
4. Customer Service
Ultimately, customers are negatively impacted by errors of any kind. Maintaining accurate customer data, billing records, and recorded customer service interactions allows you to deliver the very best care. Instead of asking a patient about their diagnosis, for example, you should be able to quickly access this information from the medical chart sent over by their provider. Having an accurate understanding of your customers shows them you care.
It’s also worth noting that maintaining accuracy and avoiding time dedicated to fixing errors frees up your staff to focus on what really matters: providing high-quality customer service. They can even focus more on areas such as patent education.
Maximize time savings by achieving accuracy through automation rather than painstaking manual processes.
5. Inventory Tracking
Keeping tabs on all the medical devices and related products in your inventory and knowing their warehouse location is an involved process. Medical device manufacturers have an average of 150 days’ worth of inventory in the field. That’s a lot of stock to manage and plenty of room for errors to be introduced. These errors can compromise your efficiency and your customer service.
Effective inventory tracking is a must if you want to:
- Fulfill orders accurately.
- Identify expired products.
- Avoid overstocks and understocks.
- Enable efficient kitting and shipping.
- Make strategic, data-backed decisions on the best ways to manage your fulfillment centers and logistics.
How to Achieve Data Accuracy
Improving data accuracy shouldn’t have to mean spending more time double- and triple-checking data. It also shouldn’t have to necessitate hiring additional staff or outsourcing your data entry to a third-party provider.
Instead, the best way to achieve data accuracy is to take advantage of modern automation solutions for medical equipment providers. Data entry no longer needs to be a manual task. Today’s optical character recognition and natural language processing are capable of accurately recording and entering data better than a human can.
Notable Systems understands the medical equipment space, including common challenges and the need for absolute accuracy at every turn. Our intelligent data extraction solution can take your documents and records, digitize their contents, identify and pull out relevant data points, and even feed them directly into your business systems. It may sound too good to be true, but this system has proven to be highly accurate—more accurate than manual data entry. You can customize this solution to incorporate the exact level of automation you’re comfortable with.
Learn how medical equipment provider Apria is using Notable’s solution to improve its approach to data extraction in our case study. Want to talk about your company’s needs and how Notable Systems could help? Schedule a consultation!
