Finding ways to save time on patient interactions can be critical in a busy orthopedic practice. Orthopedic surgeons may spend more time simply dealing with patient paperwork than they do helping patients!
In fact, some estimates state that “Physicians spent 27% of their time in their offices seeing patients and 49.2% of their time doing paperwork” (Source: Forbes).
To help orthopedic physicians save time and get more done, Phoenix Ortho is proud to introduce CareComplete. Here’s what the tool is and how it can help your orthopedic practice save time:
The Phoenix Ortho team likes to call CareComplete “the easy button for orthopedic surgeons.” It’s an add-on solution for the Phoenix Ortho EHR that can link to United Healthcare’s systems to provide critical information in an instant—such as:
All of this information is gathered while the orthopedic surgeon is still scheduling the surgery!
Ready to Save Time and Headaches on Scheduling Surgeries? CareComplete is already available to customers in the latest version update! (Customers who need to update to version 5.00.050, please Submit a Support Ticket using the ticket type: Upgrade.)
The biggest benefit of using the CareComplete button when setting up an appointment for an orthopedic surgery is that it saves you a lot of time. Normally, to get information like eligibility, whether the patient needs authorization, and the amount of money the patient needs to pay, you would have to reach out to the payer organization (typically an insurance company) and ask.
This means dealing with automated voice response (AVR) systems, sitting on hold with the payer organization, and manually tracking and filing paperwork even before knowing if you’ll be able to see the patient at all. If the payer organization refuses the surgery, that’s a lot of time (and frustration) wasted.
Simply being able to check a patient’s eligibility for a surgical procedure before the patient leaves the room could be a major time-saver. Instead of waiting for hours to get manual confirmation—and potentially having to cancel or reschedule the surgery—you can verify eligibility instantly.
It can also help better set the patient’s expectations. For example, if a patient isn’t eligible or needs authorization for the surgery, you can let them know that they need to contact their insurer and get confirmation.
Additionally, knowing what their out-of-pocket costs for a surgery will be is useful for ensuring that they’re prepared to pay at the point of care.
This can help improve patient satisfaction with the quality and transparency of their care. Increased satisfaction can translate into more visits in the future.
Here’s a scenario that can frustrate both orthopedic practices and patients: it’s the day of the surgery and the patient shows up, expecting care. The surgery is completed on time and the patient pays their copay before leaving. Then, a few days later, the patient gets an email from their insurance provider (and so does the clinic).
What does the email say? Something along the lines of: “XYZ service is not covered by the patient’s health insurance. This charge is being refused.” Now, the clinic is not getting reimbursed for some portion of the care provided. To get that money, the clinic now has to bill their patient directly when the patient isn’t expecting it. Getting eligibility confirmation before the surgery even starts can help prevent surprises later.
CareComplete makes it easy to get patients scheduled for surgeries immediately instead of having to wait days or weeks for a response to a manual request for information. This helps to shorten the time between an initial patient visit and providing necessary surgical procedures.
This contributes to patient satisfaction with the quality and timeliness of care and improves cash flow by getting surgeries scheduled faster.
Surgeries can be a major revenue driver for an orthopedic clinic. Take some of the time and guesswork out of arranging your surgeries by using CareComplete with your Phoenix Ortho EHR now!