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Transformation Of Electronic Billing Systems From Military Term Paper

Transformation of Electronic Billing Systems From Military Use to Public Medical Facilities The advent of the twenty first century brings with the new dawning a time of extraordinary technological advancement, mega informational system development, and expanded scientific discovery. Without argument, these new developments bring with them an explosion in the informational database that must be reconciled and dealt with. No longer can service organizations and businesses rely on a central data base for gathering storing and retrieving information as these type of systems are unwieldy - and becoming more so. Individuals responsible for budgeting, marketing, invoicing, and consumer demographics are in need of immediate and accurate, ready-to-use, and updated information with respect to services and/or products offered. Unfortunately the healthcare industry has been slow in updating information retrieval systems in keeping with the need for immediate patient information retrieval and the dearth of new information being created.

The majority of healthcare systems are, unfortunately, are still captured in the era of the 1970's when centralized mainframe informational depositories were they only means for information storage. As such many healthcare systems continue to rely on a single financed-based system (billing and scheduling) wherein needed information is stored at a site that is not easily accessed for immediate usage. When information is stored at another site, getting the necessary information means requesting a report to be run which oftentimes is long in coming, inaccurate, not up-to-date, and limited. Further, the resulting report is generally paper generated and valuable time must be taken to transfer the information to a personal office computer for further use. The reasons for keeping with a centralized information program generally focuses around the concern of protecting patient information from non-approved personnel vs. The patient's welfare.

The present investigation was designed to inspect and comment upon the need for a more informational compatible system in private healthcare visa via patient information retrieval. To this end a historical descriptive study was designed with respect to an examination of current practices as well as the feasibility of employing the U.S. military electronic billing system, Composite Health Care System (CHCS), in private healthcare systems. In addition, both systems not only were examined as to strengths and weaknesses but in terms of timeliness, cost, HIPAA regulatory compliance, and user-friendly adaptability. Conclusions drawn, although preliminary, suggest that the value of implementing the CHCS is pivotal to effective patient care.

Introduction

Historical...

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As such healthcare systems are becoming inundated with copious amounts of patient data that must be made available to the healthcare practitioner with immediate notice. Over the past fifty years patient record keeping has changed dramatically as a result of several factors, namely, advanced computer technology, patient expectations, and medical care regulatory compliance requirements. The literature is replete with articles published giving strong evidence of the value of IT systems in all of the various healthcare settings (Hammond, 2003). However, in spite of that evidence, slow growth is still the hallmark of the marketplace. Today, however, the major challenge to healthcare systems is to implement a patient electronic system across the storage systems that are a testament to the technological wealth of the twenty first century. In order to garner the best-fit patient record informational system all healthcare systems must strive to promote professional standards, target the latest and best system or systems being developed, and aggressively move forward toward developing the best system possible for healthcare organizations. In doing so all participants must continually exercise vigilance and care when deciding to initiate an electronic medical billing system within a healthcare organization. At no time can a healthcare organization afford to be careless or uninformed in the selection of a computerized billing system. Those responsible for the selection and installment of any electronic billing system must be knowledgeable as to what software systems are available for upgrade or purchase. Further, the selected system…

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The lack of any comparative assessment between electronic billing systems appears to be a result of not finding any well-grounded evaluation model (Dick & Andrew, 1995; Friedman & Wyatt, 1997). Whether or not electronic patient information systems are not fully utilized, regardless of system, is the result of the lack of training, unavailability of computer access, or reliance on old practices are areas that need investigation in order to assess the factual usefulness of any software system (Heeks, Mundy & Salazar, 1999). In fact, according to Cork, Detmer and Friedman (1998) many medical practitioners and registrants continue to use the paper method as doing so provides the practitioner an avenue of convenience in areas such as prescription writing, small group meetings, and portability of records. However, until there is developed a strong level of electronic integration, paper records will likely remain as a mainstay source for the completeness of patient records. Also, and oftentimes forgotten by healthcare organizations who implement electronic patient record systems, is the fact that any garnered usefulness of an electronic record system that can influence and manipulate large amounts of data will not occur until patient historical information has accumulated for an extensive period of time. Although paper records are still currently in use there must exist a discussion as to the pitfalls of such a system in light of the fact that software systems are more accurate, capable of housing more patient data, and can import patient data for port to port instantaneously.

The shortcomings of the paper patient record system are, according to Bleich (1993), is a discredit to the medical profession as patient charts are generally tattered, disorganized, illegible, disorganized, and confusing. As such information contained within medical patient records are susceptible to error, misleading information, and historically inaccurate. Further, and as a direct result of badly kept medical records users who are in need of different types and levels of information are generally hidden amongst clutter and trivia. When this happens key medical points are often missed and some required information might not have been collected or even recorded. Also, paper medical records are seriously deficient in terms of processing needed codes for contracts and statistical returns. With there being a growing need to share medical information between providers, provider and patient, and provider/patient and insurance carrier, the paper medical record program is extremely slow and deficient as paper records can only be in one place at a time. As such paper medical record keeping creates logistical issue that make moving materials around fast enough for immediate need. Serious problems are often created as each and every healthcare unit or organization has a separate record for each patient and oftentimes problems of continuity of patient care arise.

With so many problems existing in the paper record keeping process
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