Health care providers have no choice in the matter, they are mandated by law to convert paper medical records to electronic files. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009, also known as HITECH, makes electronic records a requirement. The mandate has caused considerable grief among health care facilities. Thankfully, companies have been formed that provide medical document scanning services to achieve this daunting transition.
Hospitals and other health care facilities have enormous amounts of paper records from years past. The task to convert all these paper documents to electronic files is almost unimaginable. The job goes beyond passing documents through a scanner. People doing this work must have an appreciation of the filing system and how to name and save the electronic files. Unless there is an organized system, files cannot be retrieved.
The skill set involved in converting paper documents to electronic goes way beyond the process of scanning documents. Paper medical records must be put into some organizational structure before the documents are scanned. Once scanned the electronic files must be appropriately and accurately named and saved for retrieval as needed. If all of these steps are not done systematically and correctly, all the effort put forth and the money spent will be for nothing.
The companies that provide these services must be qualified and trusted to securely perform the job. Someone has to take the time to remove staples and paper clips and organize the paper documents before they can be scanned. The patient records may include X rays, which also need to be converted to electronic.
To be HIPAA compliant, health care providers and scanning companies need to be prepared to provide proof of the chain of custody for all the records they handle. HIPAA stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. Neither the name nor the acronym give a clue as to the meaning and objectives of HIPAA. The Act was intended to safeguard the privacy of protected health information, also known as PHI.
Once all the hard copy documents have been scanned, the service is left with a mountain of paper that must be securely destroyed or securely stored. The decision to shred or store must be made before the documents are scanned. Scanned documents are stored electronically, but if the health care provider wants to store paper documents there will be an ongoing expense for this service also.
These companies are providing a very necessary services. Hospitals are ill equipped to do this work, and hiring temporary employees is a plan fraught with the probability of errors and mishandling. A staff trained and dedicated to converting paper documents is the best way to approach the requirement for electronic patient records.
Hospitals and other health care facilities have enormous amounts of paper records from years past. The task to convert all these paper documents to electronic files is almost unimaginable. The job goes beyond passing documents through a scanner. People doing this work must have an appreciation of the filing system and how to name and save the electronic files. Unless there is an organized system, files cannot be retrieved.
The skill set involved in converting paper documents to electronic goes way beyond the process of scanning documents. Paper medical records must be put into some organizational structure before the documents are scanned. Once scanned the electronic files must be appropriately and accurately named and saved for retrieval as needed. If all of these steps are not done systematically and correctly, all the effort put forth and the money spent will be for nothing.
The companies that provide these services must be qualified and trusted to securely perform the job. Someone has to take the time to remove staples and paper clips and organize the paper documents before they can be scanned. The patient records may include X rays, which also need to be converted to electronic.
To be HIPAA compliant, health care providers and scanning companies need to be prepared to provide proof of the chain of custody for all the records they handle. HIPAA stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. Neither the name nor the acronym give a clue as to the meaning and objectives of HIPAA. The Act was intended to safeguard the privacy of protected health information, also known as PHI.
Once all the hard copy documents have been scanned, the service is left with a mountain of paper that must be securely destroyed or securely stored. The decision to shred or store must be made before the documents are scanned. Scanned documents are stored electronically, but if the health care provider wants to store paper documents there will be an ongoing expense for this service also.
These companies are providing a very necessary services. Hospitals are ill equipped to do this work, and hiring temporary employees is a plan fraught with the probability of errors and mishandling. A staff trained and dedicated to converting paper documents is the best way to approach the requirement for electronic patient records.
About the Author:
Loris F. Anders is an office management specialist focused on optimizing workflow processes in document management. If you would like to learn more about EMR cloud document management he recommends you check out www.docufree.com.
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