Electronic health records still struggle with issues such as sharing data confidently, achieving meaningful use standards, improving cash flow and margins, and ensuring data integrity and security. Inaccurate or "dirty" patient data stored in electronic records can negatively impact reimbursements, increase billing errors, and put patient safety at risk. The software MED-DETECT analyzes patient data for errors, provides guidance to correct errors, and trains staff to prevent future errors, in order to improve data quality, revenue cycle management, and patient outcomes. Healthcare providers can see returns on investment within hours by using MED-DETECT to quickly find and fix errors before submitting claims.

1. THE REGION’S MONTHLY NEWSPAPER FOR HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS & PHYSICIANS
JUNE 2015
www.southfloridahospitalnews.com
BY DANIEL CASCIATO
E
lectronic Health Records
(EHRs) still struggle with
key issues. Those issues
include the ability to confidently
share data, achieving the next
level meaningful use, improving
cash flow and margins, reducing
claim denials, impact of ICD-10
coding and billing errors,
trustworthy data integrity and
information security. All of these
elicit stress and worries that
reverberate throughout the
healthcare continuum.
The industry response so far has
been analogous to pulling the
covers over its eyes and hoping for the best, and understandably so,
according to Udo Fischer, CEO of DUOLARK, a software
development company in South Florida which offers a solution to
keep patient data clean and healthy.
He notes that while these issues seem complex and costly—they
are neither. In addition, public policy and healthcare reform cement
the inevitability that these issues are confronted, and most
administrative staff just do not have the efficiencies, the knowledge
training and the operations to handle these different nuances.
Looking at the issue from a triage perspective, most healthcare
providers have approached margin compression, cash flow, and poor
revenue cycles as if these issues were related to causation when, in
fact, they are merely symptoms.
“The truth is, the lack of data integrity and accuracy of your EHR
data is the root cause, and it is flowing to every extremity of your
organization," says Fischer. “In fact, thinking of data as if it were
blood running through the arteries of your organization perfectly
describes the scope of impact.”
Coding and medical billing errors are especially prevalent because
it can be complex and time consuming. Transitioning to ICD-10 is
going to change everything. Providing the right detail information is
going to increase the value of the data and treatment plans improve
proportionately. If you are not up to date on these changes, your
reimbursements will be affected. In addition, in the rush to
implement EHRs and now ICD-10, little time is taken to analyze
patient data before it is entered into the database, resulting in “dirty”
data.
Keeping Your Patient
Database Clean and
Healthy
The quality and accuracy
of your coding and patient
database is highly dependent
on your billing and coding
staff. Data entry and filing
claims are essential to
attaining every dollar you
are due, yet many healthcare
organizations are not
tackling this chore with the
attention to detail it requires.
Not only do claims need to
be “clean” – meaning that
they have the right
information and billing
codes – they need to be filed in a timely manner.
There are two forms of data entry errors: errors of omission, such
as a lab technician forgetting to enter blood test results in a patient’s
record, and errors of commission, such as a care manager entering
incorrect patient insurance ID. These errors often delay your
reimbursement or worse, create an adverse event due to unnecessary
patient tests or incorrect medicine dosage. Not only does incorrect
data lead to money being left on the table, but you are also putting
your patient safety at great risk.
“Healthcare entities, such as emerging Accountable Care
Organizations (ACOs), still face a lot of EHR adoption and
implementation issues that result in compromised data integrity
within the EHR application databases,” says Fischer.
Correcting and Maintaining Patent Data Integrity
Until now, the private sector has all but failed to provide a
middleware that seamlessly and harmoniously joins the healthcare
providers’ expertise of providing excellent quality of care with the
business and technology expertise that every profitable business
entity must possess.
Through its software, MED-DETECT, providers can greatly
improve database integrity to avoid errors that could negatively
impact patient care and cash flow. The innovative software, available
as a subscription-based solution or installed onsite, was designed to
analyze all medical demographic issues, provide direction on how to
correct those errors, and provide training solutions to prevent them
from recurring.
Making More Money with Better Patient Data
(l-r) Karl Norris, Udo Fischer and Aaron Britt
Continued on back page

2. “We believe our software is unique,” adds Karl Norris, founder
and software architect of DUOLARK. “While developing our
software and researching the market for over three years, we could
not find anything remotely similar. MED-DETECT provides you a
structured remediation with correction priorities for the errors
found. Once we find an error in your database, our software can
correct it and actually protect the corrected record so the stored data
is not only trusted, but it’s verified, which is rare in the healthcare
industry.”
Once installed, MED-DETECT creates a catalogue system that
can find, automate, match, log and display the results to the
authorized user. Norris and Fischer call their software the first
product to create one digital master data patient record that can
validate multiple patient records against multiple patient identities
within multiple EHR databases. One trusted and verifiable master
patient record can then be used across the healthcare continuum,
which has an immediate impact on reimbursement and patient
safety.
Saving Providers Time and Money
Fischer estimates that on the low end, their software can help a
provider recoup about one month of net revenue annually.
“We’re significantly improving revenue cycle management by
shortening the timeframe in which claims that can be successfully
submitted and reimbursed,” he says. “At the same time, we are
improving the accuracy of claims before they are submitted the first
time so they don’t have to be bounced back once or twice to correct
it.”
Aaron Britt, director of finance for DUOLARK, says most clients
can see a return on investment within hours of the software
implementation.
“When these data errors are captured and displayed in real time,
the personnel in charge of remediating those errors or rejections are
automatically given an advantage of seeing where the error exists
and how to approach correcting it,” he says. “So the savings
essentially start within the first hour of implementation because
that individual can spend less than an hour to correct the problem.”
Another economic benefit of MED-DETECT is that it can
significantly increase your back office efficiency, adds Fischer. The
solution is low cost and user friendly to ensure adoption, and in
addition, does not disrupt or require that the provider’s current
operating procedures be changed to compliment the solution,
which significantly undermines the provider’s decision.
“We’re helping the administrative staff not to look for the needle
in a haystack anymore when a claim is being bounced back or
rejected,” he explains. “Now they can go into the patient database
finding out immediately why it was rejected and what they need to
do to correct the error. This can likely take five minutes unlike the
four to eight hours we estimated it took in the past. Oftentimes,
your coding and billing department didn’t even know where to start
or what to look for when a claim was rejected. We address the issue
before the claim is submitted in a very unique way.”
Norris notes that the difference their software makes is to help
healthcare providers keep their doors open.
“Our software is specifically designed to impact the business side
of healthcare,” he says. “You can now be proactive instead of
reactive. We can help providers increase revenue and stabilize cash
flow because we can speed up the payment of reimbursements,
reduce errors in billing and increase patient safety. We also control
costs because it takes less man hours to effectively bill accurately
and effectively.”
For more information on MED-DETECT or to schedule a free demo
with your own patient database, visit www.duolark.com.
Making More Money with Better Patient Data
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