An academic hospital system from the East Coast was struggling with their oncology, infusion and interventional radiology (IR) medical coding management. Their incumbent coding vendor had been delivering poor quality and was failing to manage case volume.
The group that had acquired the hospital system placed a high emphasis on running lean and efficient operations. As part of a cost-saving initiative, oncology and IR medical coding functions were quickly outsourced. This change created various issues. Between poorly coordinated multi-system involvement and inadequate due diligence, management began to seek alternate solutions.
Additional concerns existed for the client, as well. Without good systems in place, reconciling charts and managing cases with missing information was problematic. With a weak reporting system, important details fell through the cracks. The poor quality of existing systems and the resulting billing delays significantly reduced revenue. Additionally, there was no transparency in the invoicing process.
Vee Healthtek analyzed the hospital system’s concerns and provided optimal solutions. A new technology solution using a proprietary coding workflow platform called MCode was introduced. After applying the solutions created by Vee Healthtek, the overall quality and timeliness of the client’s coding processes improved. This enabled the hospital system to address exiting issues related to transparency, reconciliation, monitoring, reporting, and invoicing concerns.
The client sought a partner with coding abilities who could bring value to the table with the resolution of problems. Vee Healthtek was in the right place at the right time to intervene, and provided a proposal to perform oncology and intervention radiology coding with the following list of innovative solutions to address the client’s needs and streamline the entire process, summarized below:
| Concern Category | Summarized Client Issues | Solutions Provided by Vee Healthtek |
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| Coding Quality and Compliance | The incumbent vendor struggled to manage coding quality and compliance related to complex oncology and IR coding. |
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| Managing Volume & Turnaround Time (TAT) | Lack of adequate workflow processes resulted in an inability to keep up with volume, delayed billing and lead to a loss in revenue |
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| Reconciliation Issues | Hospital use of multiple systems for scheduling and billing with a lack of coordination resulted in delays of timely system updates and caused slowed closing of queries |
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| Management of “Pending for Information” Cases | Manual record keeping of cases requiring additional information to process (“Pended for Information”) prevented consistent and accurate tracking, causing further delays in billing and losses in revenue |
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| Report and Dashboards | Between the hospital system’s limited reporting features and the incumbent vendor’s inability to supply more than a standard production report, trends and feedback were not being shared with the providers |
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Vee Healthtek positioned with this client to provide enterprise-wide coding services. Technology solutions, in conjunction with experienced and skilled medical coders, was appreciated by the client’s executive team. Vee Healthtek is committed to building an organized approach, adapting its capabilities to meet the client’s needs by establishing accountability and outcome-driven results to create the perfect setting for a successful partnership.
