The transition from paper to electronic medical records is mandated by law. HITECH is the acronym for the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, which was signed into Federal law in 2009. It has been the bane of existence for many health care providers. The change from paper to electronic records has turned out to be a lot more complicated than legislators anticipated. Medical document scanning services are needed to accomplish this mountainous task.
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.
Paper documents must be arranged systematically to be compatible with the electronic medical records software in current use by the health care facility. Protocols for how to name the electronic files and where to save them for later retrieval must be established. These steps are critical to having retrievable medical records.
Companies that provide services to scan documents are in demand. Especially hospitals and other large facilities have an unmanageable amount of paper documents. They need a service dedicated to relieving them of this administrative burden. Hospital administration does not have time to organize paper files, remove staples and paper clips, scan, save and shred all these files.
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.
Paper documents must be arranged systematically to be compatible with the electronic medical records software in current use by the health care facility. Protocols for how to name the electronic files and where to save them for later retrieval must be established. These steps are critical to having retrievable medical records.
Companies that provide services to scan documents are in demand. Especially hospitals and other large facilities have an unmanageable amount of paper documents. They need a service dedicated to relieving them of this administrative burden. Hospital administration does not have time to organize paper files, remove staples and paper clips, scan, save and shred all these files.
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 Automated EMR paper scanning services he recommends you check out www.docufree.com.
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