Quality assurance is a key aspect of any healthcare document management program. It is critical that patient information is kept secure and organized. Regulations like HIPAA keep medical providers accountable for providing complete security and confidentiality surrounding patient records. Through digital healthcare records, you can increase the security of these documents. Here are some ways to maintain quality standards.
Document Compliance for Quality Assurance
One of the main aspects to consider when enhancing quality assurance standards is compliance. Your records must comply with state and federal laws. Establishing and regularly evaluating how records are kept is essential. Your healthcare organization is better able to ensure compliance with regulations. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) is an important regulation. HIPAA ensures that private medical information is held in restricted places at all times. HIPAA has strict rules designed to protect patient information. If a provider doesn’t closely follow these standards, the practice can be shut down and doctors can lose their medical licenses.
Document Safety and Security
A second aspect to consider is the level of controlled access to protected patient information. HIPAA violations are painful to manage. They can affect financials and reputation. However, by controlling access to patient files, your practice is taking great care to maintain confidentiality. This includes all information pertaining to protected personal, medical, and financial information. Therefore, limited access is key to maintaining document security. A healthcare document management system makes it easy to manage file permissions. You can give permissions to certain people within the practice so that patients’ records are kept safe and confidential. By assigning different levels of access and permission, document safety and security is increased, ensuring HIPAA compliance to the highest level.
Transparency in Records
The third aspect to consider is record transparency. This means how all departments within the practice record, access, and use confidential patient files. For example, patient-facing groups like the front desk, nursing staff, doctors, and practitioners need to know about medical histories. However, other groups, such as billing, insurance, and schedulers, likely won’t need the specific details of a patient’s medical conditions. This is critical to maintaining patient confidentiality.
Controlling access and verifying quality use of patient records is key. Therefore, it’s advisable to create specific groupings or access groups. This includes giving patient-facing groups access to full medical records, but no financials. The other users would have the opposite access levels. By controlling access based upon job function, healthcare document management is easier. The process of assigning permissions ensures the high levels of security standards set by HIPAA. Also, patients expect that their information is private and well taken care of in your hands.
Regular and Random Review of Documents for Quality Assurance
One of the best ways to ensure that record-keeping is done correctly is undertaking regular, random file audits. Auditor options are people from a quality assurance department. Other options are a manager or other leader from another department. By completing regular reviews of patient files, all members of the practice gain a better understanding of expectations. Therefore, records achieve total compliance. During these audits, take the time to make changes to processes and procedures that may need updating. Medical practices that are intentional about staying up-to-date on things like file management or patient forms will see the benefits both internally and with their patient relationships. One way to immediately increase quality assurance is to go fully digital. Begin scanning in old patient paper records into the document management system. This idea of having all your documents digitally in one system not only improves document security, but it also helps save your employees time by being able to easily track down patient records.
Online Forms Increase Quality Assurance
Many medical practices are moving toward online automated forms. Patients can fill out forms on the website to make things easier and to spend less time in the office. These online forms could include patient registration forms, billing forms, patient surveys, and more. Processes will become a lot easier, more secure, and better organized with the use of automated forms. Automated forms are safe and secure, as they are encrypted during transfer and during storage. This means patient information is safe at all times, from the minute the form is submitted to years down the road, when it is being digitally stored.
Patient online registration forms are a great way for patients to prepare for their appointment early. In light of COVID-19, medical providers are doing as much as they can to keep their patients from sitting in the waiting room for extended amounts of time. Online patient registration forms can be sent securely through your portal for patients to fill out ahead of time. The information on these forms is secure and complies with HIPAA. By the time your patients come in for their appointments, their information will already be in the system.
Online billing is also a way to improve quality assurance. Instead of mailing your patients a bill and waiting to receive payment back in the mail, create an automated online form where the patient can pay immediately online. The process of paying through an online form is much more secure than sending payment back through the mail.
If you need a better way of managing your healthcare documents, consider Vasion. We’ll work to find a document management solution to fit your needs. From automated online forms, to providing HIPAA compliant security for patient information, our platform does it all. Get ready to save time and money and make your practice much more secure with Vasion. Don’t take unnecessary risks with your healthcare records – contact Vasion today!