Abstraction services offer high levels of data control and integrity for healthcare organizations and clinical departments. Here are three (3) reasons yours should consider outsourcing this work.
- Your team is busy with safety compliance.
Healthcare providers may be so busy with meeting safety compliance that they’re unable to focus any efforts on developing positive operational change. Finding balance between both services often depends on third-party data management in the form of core measures abstraction.
This unburdens your primary care professionals from dealing with confusing layers of bureaucracy, and lets your data management provider glean quality metrics that can lead to system-wide process improvement.
- You want more informed decisions on patient care.
Registry data provides hospitals and healthcare professionals the means to improve patient treatment and health outcomes, while reducing the chances of long-term complications, readmissions, and relapses.
Allowing your team to make these kinds of informed decisions depends on the consistency, timeliness, accuracy, and analysis of your data collection. Qualified third-party abstractionists can oversee all of these factors.
- You need affordable data management solutions.
As long as you partner with a team whose Health Information Management (HIM) professionals meet the following qualifications, the work that they provide can more than pay for itself.
- Two (2) years of experience within nursing, coding, physician reviews, programming, and/or cybersecurity.
- Five (5) years of auditing and abstraction experience.
- Credentials from the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) and/or American Academy of Professional Coders (AAPC).
- Certified as a:
- Registered Health Information Administrator (RHIA).
- Registered Health Information Technician (RHIT).
- Certified Coding Specialist (CCS).
- Certified Professional Coder (CPC).
Examples of Our Data Abstraction
Maryland Health Care Commission (MHCC). We partnered with the Commission as a subcontractor to perform data collection and measurement for Maryland State Quality Measures Data Center (QMDC). For nearly a decade, HCRS has provided professional services to sustain and expand the QMDC infrastructure that supports MHCC’s quality and performance reporting initiatives. This included the Maryland Health Care Quality Reports consumer website. Our work involved the validation of Cardiac Registry data from 23 hospitals spanning a three-year period.
Our staff performed targeted data validation audits to ensure the accuracy of the data used for analyses and public reporting on the Quality Reports website. Of the 500 medical records identified for review, approximately 200 were Hospital Acquired Infections (HAI). The MHCC chose to conduct an HAI data audit to compare Health Services Cost Review Commission (HSCRC) Hospital Inpatient Discharge Data for certain HAI cases with National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN)-generated HAI data. In the same year, a second audit of clinical data was performed to determine if the HSCRC Hospital Inpatient and Outpatient data (including ICD-10 and CPT codes) were supported by hospital medical records. In future years, the MHCC is considering audits that will focus on the quality of clinical data (e.g., HAI data) submitted by nursing homes or ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) as CMS requirements evolve.
Medicaid Integrity Contractor (MIC) Program. Our team of registered nurses and certified medical coders conducted over 10,000 complex medical record audits per year (both desk and field) in 19 states west of the Mississippi and three Pacific territories. Our program lasted for six years, during which time we were able to identify $8 in incorrect payments for every $1 of client investment in our services.
Let’s Discuss a Program
If you’d like to learn more about how outsourced data abstraction can benefit your organization, contact us today to discuss a program.
