From the April 2017 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine

The Academy of Family Physicians recommends that providers ensure that no more than 2 percent of their claims are denied, but the industry average is closer to 10 percent. Insurance experts agree that most of these denials are not due to coding errors or issues of patient eligibility. Rather, many claims are denied simply due to inaccurate or incomplete patient information: basic demographics, Social Security numbers and insurance plan numbers. Offices are often too short-staffed to resubmit claims, or fail to do so within the allowed time frame — essentially leaving money on the table. Even when claims are successfully resubmitted, the additional time and work protracts the revenue cycle, disrupts cash flow and cuts into profits.

In a pressure-cooker environment that leaves little margin for error, providers can deliver better customer service and reduce rejected claims by improving administrative processes. Automated intake procedures, digital data capture and identity verification are an essential first step. The Council for Affordable Quality Healthcare (CAQH) has estimated that full adoption of electronic transactions (reducing manual administrative processes) could save U.S. health care billions of dollars per year and millions of hours each week.


Capturing accurate patient data and porting it efficiently into digital records systems goes a long way toward producing clean claims and avoiding rejections. Advanced ID scanning and verification solutions increase the speed and accuracy of data entry, cutting down the amount of time patients spend waiting in line and filling out redundant forms. Front desk staff has more time to focus on caring for the patient and providing a better overall customer experience.

Automated patient registration processes using self-service kiosks or desktop or mobile card scanners can be integrated with EHR systems and other databases to ensure that patient data is up to date and verified. Scan-and-verify solutions significantly reduce errors in patient records and claims submissions while saving hundreds of keystrokes per intake. Submitting claims electronically significantly reduces the time between a patient’s appointment and the insurance company’s receipt of claim for that service. However, the efficiency of electronic processing is totally dependent on the accuracy and completeness of data initially fed into the system. Many practices are deploying ID scanning, verification and auto-fill technologies to quickly capture and integrate high quality demographic and insurance data from each patient.

April 2017 Magazine

Read more stories from the April 2017 issue

Health IT Homepage