From the July 2017 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
Accept electronic signatures
Obviously, HIPAA compliance is a critical factor in patient onboarding. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 mandates that health care organizations have safeguards in place to protect sensitive patient information. This means health facilities collect plenty of patient signatures.
New patients, in particular, may be asked to sign the following:
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• Notice of privacy practices.
• Consent for treatment.
• Consent for release of medical records.
To accelerate the processing of these consent forms, consider accepting electronic signatures. E-signatures promote paperless onboarding, streamlining the process and cutting the necessary time and effort of staff and patients.
Reduce patient flow bottlenecks
Patient flow is the way your facility manages patients from check-in to check-out. If your goal is to have happy patients who feel respected, you must concern yourself with how they move through your organization. The more efficient your flow, the more time you’ll have to focus on care, and the higher your patient satisfaction will be.
Data automation is the key to perfecting patient flow. New patients are typically required to submit a heap of data — basic identifying information, medical history, insurance validation, etc. Routing this information, collected with online forms, to the necessary database allows you to validate insurance and plan treatment before a patient arrives for his appointment. Expediting administrative tasks gets your patients in front of a care provider faster, which sets your office up for a seamless patient flow.
Creating a paperless patient onboarding process can save your facility time and effort and greatly enhances the patient experience.
About the author: Chris Byers is the CEO of Formstack, an Indianapolis-based company offering an online form and data-collection platform. Prior to Formstack, Byers co-founded an international nonprofit that was built via remote relationships among partners in Europe, Africa and the U.S.
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