Benefits of Medical Document Management and Outsourcing Records Scanning

by Olivia Watson Printing manager

For every business, managing paper-based documents is a common and old problem. They not just take up a lot of space but also are time-consuming and do not follow the standards laid down by the present HIPAA compliance. So, is there a better way in which clinics, hospital chains, and medical institutions can manage their paper load digitally without breaking into their bank? Yes, there are in fact two options.

Option 1: Do it Yourself!

The first option might sound very tempting! Scanning all your paperwork on your copier or MFP or by purchasing an inexpensive scanner might sound like an attractive proposition but this comes with a lot of challenges. When you choose to scan your own storage for records, you need to ask a few questions to yourself: who would do all the scanning? Can you properly index all the documents so that they can be located later? Can the equipment you are planning to use handle all your large format scanning volume? You need to make sure that you do not complicate things at the end. If you are not professionally equipped to handle scanning responsibilities, it is always wise to outsource the requirement to professional documents scanning service provider.

Option 2:

The second option is to hire a third party to scan all your medical records. Since there are a lot of options that you will get when you start looking out for a scanning service provider, you need to effectively compare them. Let us take a quick look at the criteria that you need to consider:

· Experience: this is perhaps the most important criteria that you need to consider. You need to check out how many medical records they have handled and scanned so far and what EHR or EMR records they have experience in working with.

· Process: you also need to consider how they describe the entire process of preparing, scanning and indexing. It is also very important to consider how much turnaround time they are committing and in what process they are planning to make the charts available while they are scanning.

· Quality control: it is extremely important to learn about their quality control commitments before you hire them.

· Security: again, this is a criterion that you cannot ignore. You need to ensure that they have certain security standards in place and are HIPAA certified.

· Flexibility: the scanning services that you hire must be ensured to be done onsite and the service provider needs to be successfully qualified to scan all kinds of records like fetal monitoring strips, ECG reports, microfilms, X-Rays, prescriptions, diet charts and more.

Apart from eliminating the manual labor of pulling out the charts before the patients come to visit you, document scanning services also make this information searchable and accessible through your EHR and EMR systems. This enables doctors and medical professionals to view patient charts from any location and on their mobile device, also while they are on the go. The document scanning service provider that you choose should be able to integrate into your EMR systems so that users can search for records from embedded codes that would pull all the documents from a central repository. This way the medical professionals do not need to log into two different systems to access the digital medical records. This way the entire process of scanning is made absolutely transparent.

By scanning medical records, you not just find more information about your patients faster, but also are able to enhance the quality of care that you provide to your patients. By eliminating all the space which would otherwise be used to store all the paperwork, you might just have enough space to accommodate more patients. Also this space can be utilized in storing more equipment and medicines that can be used later for the purpose of treatment. Also, by having a completely digital medical record system, you can give your patients access to their records and test results as and when they get generated. This gives them more control on their own treatment.

Needless to say, scanning has its own advantages and it is nothing like getting the best scanning provider to get the job done for you. The initial days of making the choice might seem a little difficult yet it will only yield positive results for you and your patients. The results of automation are two-fold, you are able to be more productive in your business and at the same time take better care of your patients. And therefore, if you are not properly equipped, it is never wise to take up the scanning responsibilities of your clinic. It is not as easy as it sounds and entails a lot of pre and post processes to ensure that the job is executed with perfection.