Submit Patient Forms

According to David Goldman, CNNMoney staff writer, “only about 8% of the nation's 5,000 hospitals and 17% of its 800,000 physicians currently use the kind of common computerized record-keeping systems that Obama envisions for the whole nation.”
Obama’s mission is to computerize the nation’s health care records in 5 years [by 2014]. From ‘‘American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009’’ HR1 -
(3) (a) (ii) Plan to include specific objectives, milestones, and metrics with respect to the following: The utilization of an electronic health record for each person in the United States by 2014.
Individual physicians will be eligible for up to $44,000 in grants by getting in compliance with the appropriate certified EHR programs.
In the medical field, it all will be transactional based - the more Medicare claims a physician submits via an EHR certified application the more incentive dollars they receive. Maximum per is $12,000 in year 1, $8,000 in year 2, $4,000 in year 3, $2,000 in year 4, penalties (in the form of lowered Medicare payments) starting in year 5.
Dentistry is not yet included in a specific mandate. Pressure will be put on dentists’ to become paperless, because insurance companies will stop accepting paper claims. Dental practices that have large numbers of Medicaid patients will most likely be targeted first, since the government controls the purse strings in reimbursements.

 
The traditional paper charting system used by numerous health care facilities is costly and time-consuming – it’s yesterday’s news.
The American Recovery Act of 2009 will require all medical offices to have electronic health records by 2014. What are the benefits of electronic medical records?
“The average dental practice spends upwards of $15,800 on the creation and storage of patients charts each year and spends at least $11,520 annually on 576 hours of labor required to maintain paper records.” Source - Dr.  Larry Emmott. Paper vs. Digital:  What's it Worth to You?  Dental Products Report, 01-JUL-2006.
“One-quarter of all medical spending goes ito administrative and overhead costs, and reliance on antiquated paper-based record and information systems needlessly increases these costs/”
Source - Steffie Woolhandler, Terry Campbell, and David U. Himmelstein (2003) "Costs of Health Care Administration in the United StatesandCanada." New England Journal of Medicine.
EMR will cut down on clerical time and paying staff to retrieve and organize paper charts [25-75 per day]. More patients can be seen in a day without lost chair time due to lost or misplaced records and documents.
EMR will prevent the loss or duplication of medical records.  Look what happed after Katrina in New Orleans – there was widespread loss all of medical records. Had they been in electronic format, they could have been backed up off site, or the doc could have taken the hard drive when they evacuated. What if there is a fire and the paper records are destroyed?
Less space is necessary to archive information in a hard drive than in file cabinets, and it is environmentally sound by eliminating paper and saving trees.
Almost every electronic records software manufacturer says that your office will be paperless and meet the requirements that the government is insisting upon to lower heath care costs and minimize mistakes. However, they suggest that in order to become paperless, the practice must retype all the information provided by the patient on handwritten forms into the EMR or scan all the information. Isn’t there something missing here?
Call us at 888-427-1116 [est] to see how we can help you become truly paperless or to see a demonstration.
 

Questions are always coming up about how health care practices can be compliant with HIPAA and other legal requirements when utilizing electronic medical records, digitized practice management software and/or online forms.
 
Question: Is a handwritten signature required for HIPAA compliance?
Answer: Currently, no standards exist under HIPAA for electronic signatures. HIPAA rules recommend that electronic transfers of personal health information and access to it are protected by encryption and authentication.
 
Question: What is an electronic signature and is it valid?
Answer: In the Federal  ELECTRONIC SIGNATURES IN GLOBAL AND NATIONAL COMMERCE ACT [ESIGN Act] of June 30, 2000, Sec 106 (5) states: ELECTRONIC SIGNATURE.—The term ‘‘electronic signature’’ means an electronic sound, symbol, or process, attached to or logically associated with a contract or other record and executed or adopted by a person with the intent to sign the record.
 
UNIFORM ELECTRONIC TRANSACTIONS ACT (1999) [UETA]
SECTION 7. LEGAL RECOGNITION OF ELECTRONIC RECORDS,
ELECTRONIC SIGNATURES, AND ELECTRONIC CONTRACTS.
(a) A record or signature may not be denied legal effect or enforceability solely because it is in electronic form.
(b) A contract may not be denied legal effect or enforceability solely because an electronic record was used in its formation.
(c) If a law requires a record to be in writing, an electronic record satisfies the law.
(d) If a law requires a signature, an electronic signature satisfies the law.
 
Question: What if I want to have a patient’s signature on the HIPAA notice and on their other electronic records?
Answer: SPF’s works with a company that will provide electronic pads on which the patient can sign when they are in the office, and the signature is biometrically secured and bound to the document.
 
Dr. Keith Rossein

Currently, many specialists send printed forms, cards or tear-off pads to their referring docs to assist in patient referrals. In turn, the GP or other referring docs will fill out the form with the pertinent information and either give it to the patient to bring with them [along with x-rays] or fax or mail it to the specialist.
Often the patient forgets to bring it with them or brings the paperwork and leaves the x-ray home. Mailing or faxing often slows down the process and adds extra cost.
Check out our amazing new product that solves these problems. It’s an online patient referral form. The specialist emails a link to his/her referring docs. The doc clicks on the link that brings him/her to the form on our secure website. The doc [or staff member] types in the appropriate information and can actually upload x-rays or clinical photos directly into the form.
When completed the referring doc clicks on “submit” and the specialists gets an instant email notification that the information has been uploaded to their account. The specialist logs on to their password protected management account and may view, print or download the text and images to the practice computer. If desired, the two docs may discuss the patient in real time by phone or by email.
Call us at 888-427-1116 [est] for more information or to see a sample form or demonstration.

Recently, Dr. Keith Rossein presented information about online patient forms to the Hambletonian Dental Study Club in Middletown, NY. Those in attendance learned about federal legislation concerning electronic medical and health records, as well as how to be HIPAA compliant with online forms and communication of medical/dental information.

The pros and cons of having patient forms on a practice website were reviewed and compared to the Submit Patient Forms service. How the patient information was transferred into their practice management software was discussed. Some of the electronic records software reportedly use by this group included Softdent, EZ Dental, Dentrix, Orthotrac Classic and Practiceworks. Shown in the photo (L-R) are Dr. Keith Rossein, Dr. Maureen Whipple, Study Club Director Dr. Donald Magidson and Dr. Tom Torres, raffle winner.

As I surf the web, I see many professional and esthetic looking medical and dental websites that describe state-of-the-art technologies for patient care, but in my opinion, fall short with the process utilized for patients to fill out and submit their initial paperwork.
The large majority of these sites have simple PDF forms for patients to download, fill out and bring with them to the office.
In general, when you send a patient to your website to fill out forms, it slows down the process for your practice. You are dependent upon the patient waking up one morning and thinking, "Today's the day I am going to find the Dr. Jones, MD website." If they type in the wrong address, they get frustrated and don't proceed, or they call the office and disturb one of your staff.
From a practice management standpoint, these static PDF forms raise many questions.

1. How does your patient know were to access the forms?
2. How do you keep track of whom you have asked to fill out a form?
3. How many patients per week/month forget to bring in their completed form to their first visit?
4. Do your online forms consider HIPAA compliance?
5. Is there some way to remind the patient to complete their forms?
6. Do you get back your forms with sometimes illegible handwriting?
7. How do you enter your patient’s information into your practice management software from these forms?
8. How much staff time is taken up with the management of your forms?

If you don't like the answers or don't know some of the answers, then click on “Quick Tour” on our home page to view a 7 minute video that explains our service and how we deal with answers to the preceding questions or give me a call at 888-427-1116 [est].
Dr. Keith Rossein
 

Welcome to the new SubmitPatientForms.com Blog. Visit us to learn about new updates in our software and capabilities.

We will also try to keep you informed in legislation and advances in electronic health records. For example, did you know that The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 signed into law by President Obama on February 17th provides $19 billion funding for health information technology such as Electronic Health Records [formerly know as Electronic Medical Records]. Section (3) (a) (ii) States, “Plan to include specific objectives, milestones, and metrics with respect to the following: the utilization of an electronic health record for each person in the United States by 2014.” This act provides for up to $44,000 in grants per qualifying medical office for investment into electronic health records.