Healthcare-related A.I. advances become more affordable as each day passes. However, there are a number of things infusion pharmacies must implement before they can start taking advantage of these developments. Tina Ratliff, Prochant’s Pharmacy Reimbursement Manager, stopped by The Modern Healthcare Back Office to explain exactly where your back-office processes need to be prior to using artificial intelligence.
Eliminate Paper
The first step pharmacies need to take to prepare themselves for artificial intelligence is to digitize all physical paper documents. To track your progress regarding the transition to paperless operations, ask your IT department to notify you on the amount of paper a specific department prints each month.
Electronic records have many benefits to them. They significantly decrease the amount of time it takes to locate information and keep employees from having to leave their desk to pull a patient’s medical records. They also prevent medical records from getting misplaced and allow multiple people to view an individual’s medical records at any point in time.
Break This Bad Habit: Get accustomed to viewing documents as PDFs instead of as physical paper copies. Not only does digitizing everything make it easier to locate information, it also reduces your costs by removing or reducing paper and ink expenses.
Increase Efficiency
Electronic medical records significantly improve interactions with insurance companies. If it takes you too long to produce contract information when speaking to providers, they’re going to hang up. When an infusion pharmacy digitizes all of its documents, it places all relevant data at their fingertips.
This improves overall efficiency by eliminating the possibility of having to call providers back after you’ve located the information. Scanning and then saving physical documents onto a drive is the most effective method available for digitizing information.
Add Electronic Fax Machines
Switch from a traditional paper fax machine to an electronic fax machine. Electronic fax machines enable users to send and receive digital documents that can be saved directly to the location those specific records are stored. The majority of electronic fax systems allow you to upload documents you receive via fax directly to a patient’s medical record.
The cash posting department is another area often plagued by unnecessary paper. There should be a way to sign up for electronic remittances. Signing up for electronic remits is the most opportune time to also sign up for electronic funds transfer (EFT). With EFT, get you paid immediately instead of having to wait for a check to make its way through the mail.
Artificial intelligence requires preparation before it can be integrated. Being knowledgeable on the subject increases the probability of successfully implementing A.I. when your company decides to start using it. Hear more about this on the podcast: