How Can Medical Identity Theft Occur During Telehealth Visits?

July 29, 2020/10671 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, COVID-19, Data Integrity, EHR, healthcare, Medical Identity Theft, Patient Identification, Patient Matching, Patient Outcomes, Patient Safety, Photo Biometrics, Telehealth /by Matt Gibson

Telehealth has been around for years, but it has only been growing exponentially for the past few months. One of the biggest propellers that caused the surge in telehealth usage is the coronavirus pandemic, while the other reason is its benefit of taking healthcare out of the regular setting and setting up safe and remote environments for the patients and caregivers. While many predict that telehealth is here to stay after seeing how it can benefit caregivers and patients, health systems and hospitals need to focus on another important aspect – how can medical identity theft occur during telehealth visits, and is it preventable? Fortunately, it can be – with RightPatient. Let’s dive deep.

Telehealth skyrocketed due to COVID-19

Since telehealth was introduced, experts in the US healthcare system have been busy debating its pros and cons, affecting its growth and questioning its capabilities. However, as the pandemic has shown, telehealth has been extremely crucial for the US healthcare system during its ongoing battle against the pandemic. It has helped reduce the risk of more COVID-19 cases as non-COVID-19 patients were recommended to use telehealth instead of inpatient visits.

As previously mentioned, the biggest benefit of telehealth is that it enables patients and caregivers to engage in healthcare remotely. All they need is a good internet connection and devices to communicate with each other – eliminating any chances of contracting the virus as opposed to inpatient visits during the pandemic. Thus, it is no surprise that telehealth demand has been sky-high, with experts predicting over one billion visits during 2020 alone. While providers are quickly adapting to the changes and using telehealth, hospitals and health systems must also think about a serious problem – how can medical identity theft occur during telehealth usage?

Medical identity theft is all over the place

Medical identity theft is nothing new. Hackers steal valuable patient information through healthcare data breaches. They sell it for up to $1000 per record on the black market to fraudsters. Since healthcare is quite expensive, these fraudsters prefer buying patient information from hackers for a much cheaper price, shifting the healthcare costs onto the shoulders of the victims.

Medical identity theft is becoming quite prevalent. In 2019 alone, more patient records were breached in comparison to the previous three years combined. Medical identity theft leads to lawsuits, patient safety issues, settlement costs up to $250,000, unwanted attention, and loss of goodwill. Thus, it becomes increasingly necessary to ensure that medical identity theft is prevented, even during telehealth visits.

But how can medical identity theft occur during telehealth? Well, the stolen information can be easily used by the fraudster to bypass the obsolete patient identification systems most hospitals have – just like inpatient visits. Moreover, many patients sometimes even give their credentials to their family members or friends willingly – aiding them in medical identity theft.

Such cases lead to added costs like medical record clean-ups, lack of patient data integrity, and patient safety issues, among other problems. Hospitals are facing huge losses already due to the pandemic, and they need to recover their losses if they want to survive in the future. One of the best ways to do all of that is by ensuring positive patient identification.

Accurate patient identification with RightPatient

RightPatient is the healthcare industry’s leading touchless patient identification platform. It locks the medical records of the patients with their photos upon enrollment. Whenever the patient comes, all he/she needs to do is look at the camera and the platform matches the photos and provides the correct medical record within seconds. RightPatient seamlessly integrates with the major EHR systems, enhancing the experience for providers as well. It is hygienic too, enhancing patient safety and reducing infection control issues.

While it has been ensuring accurate patient identification for providers for years, RightPatient brings the same expertise to telehealth. It can also be used to remotely validate a patient’s identity. Patients receive an SMS or email after scheduling an appointment, after which they need to take a selfie and photos of their driver’s license. RightPatient automatically matches the photos of the driver’s license and the selfie to validate patient identity – preventing medical identity theft in the process.

RightPatient has been successfully protecting over 10 million patient records and preventing fraudsters from harming patients while reducing healthcare costs, denied claims, lawsuits, and boosting the bottom lines in the process. Protect your patients – even during telehealth visits – with RightPatient.

Hospitals Might Lose $323 Billion – Reduce Yours by Ensuring Patient Data Security

July 24, 2020/10018 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, COVID-19, Cybersecurity, Data Breach, Health Care, Medical Identity Theft, Patient Identification, Patient Matching, Patient Safety /by Matt Gibson

Healthcare around the world has been arguably facing one of its biggest challenges yet, and the US healthcare system is no exception to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. While there are spikes in COVID-19 cases, things are looking quite bleak for the financial performance of hospitals this year. To be exact, over a staggering $323 billion could be lost only in 2020! Is there any solution to mitigate the losses? RightPatient might be the answer – as it ensures patient data security and prevents medical identity theft in real-time. Let’s explore.

Unimaginable hospital losses

It is quite simple – due to the pandemic, hospitals had to focus more on the overwhelming number of COVID-19 patients, and thus, stopped treating regular patients. While this was expected, the financial losses are still huge.

According to the American Hospital Association, healthcare providers have reported declines of 34.5% in outpatient volume and 1.5% in inpatient volume, on average. Projected losses for the duration of March–June 2020 have been around $202 billion. Moving forward, the AHA estimates that the second half of 2020 will incur a loss of around $120.5 billion for providers – leading to an unprecedented sum of $323 billion in losses for the year 2020. However, the AHA does warn that this might be an understatement – the numbers might go even higher.

Providers do not expect losses to reduce for the rest of the year either. The AHA’s president has even stated that the US healthcare system is facing the biggest financial crisis in its history due to the pandemic as well as reduced patient numbers.

While the US federal government has provided over $170 billion as emergency funding for the providers, many fear that it might not be enough to overcome the heavy losses.

Medical identity theft is on the rise

While COVID-19 and its long-lasting effects are raging on, that has not stopped hackers from attempting to steal sensitive patient data through healthcare data breaches. Security experts have stated that there is a huge opportunity for hackers to steal patient data since it is rich with valuables like Social Security numbers, insurance information, and so on. Moreover, they can sell patient records for up to $1000.

Healthcare in the US is expensive, and that is the reason why medical identity theft is so common. Fraudsters simply buy the patient data from the black market, and do not need to worry about any more healthcare expenses – the fraudulent bills are passed on to the shoulders of the victims. As can be seen, ensuring patient data security is quite important.

Medical identity theft not only hampers the patients financially – it affects patient safety as well. When a fraudster uses the patient data to gain access to healthcare services such as expensive procedures, medications, and equipment, their data is recorded into the victims’ patient records. Thus, the patients might further suffer from incorrect medications and procedures based on an altered medical history, making patient data security a topmost priority, even during the pandemic.

Ensure patient data security with RightPatient

RightPatient has been protecting millions of patient records for leading healthcare providers for years. It is a touchless biometric patient identification platform that locks the medical records of the patients with their photos upon registration. After enrollment, all the patients need to do is look at the camera and the platform matches the photos and provides the correct patient record within seconds. Thus, if a fraudster comes by, he/she will be red-flagged, preventing medical identity theft.

Moreover, due to the pandemic, patient identification in hospitals needs to be upgraded to a touchless platform like RightPatient to prevent infection control issues and enhance patient safety. RightPatient meets all the requirements for any given health system or hospital by preventing medical identity theft, ensuring patient data security, enhancing patient safety, and preventing duplicate record creation, boosting the bottom lines. Reduce your losses by using RightPatient and protecting patient records now.

5 Tips for Preventing Medical Identity Theft in Healthcare

July 22, 2020/16594 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, Clinical Efficiency, Connected Health, COVID-19, Cybersecurity, Data Breach, Data Integrity, Facial Reciognition, Health Care, healthcare, Infection Control, Iris Recognition, Medical Identity Theft, Patient Errors, Patient Experience, Patient Identification, Patient Matching, Patient Outcomes, Patient Safety /by Ryan Stephens

Hospitals, medical centers, and physicians’ offices are not only places where patients should feel safe about getting the right medications, but it should be a place where they also feel safe with their sensitive information. Unfortunately, with the rise in the number of healthcare data breaches, the market is even riper for medical identity theft. Over 41 million patient records were breached in 2019 alone and the majority of them were associated with hacking or cyber attack-related incidents.

Preventing medical identity theft has been one of the top priorities, yet many organizations still rely on antiquated patient identity management solutions. Many leading hospitals, namely, Terrebonne General Medical Center and The University Healthcare System have been successful in preventing medical identity theft and benefitted in many other ways since using RightPatient. Other benefits include eliminating duplication of medical records, improving patient identity matching rates, clinical efficiency, and boosting the overall revenue cycle. But what about medical identity theft? How are patients affected by it? What are the ways for preventing medical identity theft? Let’s find out.

What is Medical Identity Theft?

Medical identity theft occurs when a fraudster uses someone else’s personally identifiable information (e.g. name, DOB, Social Security Number, health insurance number) to fraudulently receive medications or services, including attempts to falsify medical billings. The healthcare industry would have billions of dollars in surplus if all healthcare providers could prevent medical identity theft. This crime involves the fraudulent use of someone’s health insurance information to obtain reimbursement for healthcare-related services provided to a person not covered by the policy. This is one of the most common reasons for the rise in the numbers of claim denials. It affects revenue integrity and requires organizations to put in more strenuous efforts and resources to identify and resolve the problem throughout the revenue cycle management.

How are patients affected by medical identity theft?

Patients may not be able to afford the cost: Financial consequences for the victims of medical identity theft can exceed the cost of credit card fraud. According to a study conducted by the Ponemon Institute, medical identity theft can cost an average American $13,500 to resolve.

Victims may not be aware of their information being stolen: In most cases, insurers or healthcare providers rarely inform the patients about the crime. In general, victims are completely unaware of when they became a victim and learn about the theft of their credentials about three months after the crime has occurred.

Reputations can be on the line: Found in many studies, victims said that their reputation was affected because of medical identity theft due to disclosure of personal sensitive health information. Many respondents believe they missed out on good career opportunities due to identity theft. Some said it resulted in the loss of their job.

5 Tips for Preventing Medical Identity Theft

Invest in modern patient identity management technology and software

With the transition of paper-based patient’s records to electronic-based record-keeping systems, it is necessary to invest in modern technology and software for preventing medical identity theft. For better security and matching rates, many healthcare providers have adopted RightPatient – a leader in touchless biometric patient identity management solutions. With RightPatient, healthcare providers can verify patients’ identities and protect access to medical records. RightPatient does not only help in preventing medical identity theft but it also drastically improves patient matching rates and eliminates the creation of duplicate records.

Just as facial recognition or iris scanning techniques are used in smartphone devices today, this platform uses similar biometric techniques in a healthcare setting for authenticating and verifying an individual’s identity. RightPatient uses an individual’s iris pattern or photos of their face to lock their medical records. Each time a patient arrives at the continuum of care, the platform will scan their iris pattern or photos of their face to authenticate their identity and retrieve their correct medical records. With secure-log-in monitoring, fraudsters will be instantly denied when they try to gain access to medical records by assuming someone’s identity.

Automating the patient registration and enrollment process

Automating the patient registration and enrollment process can eliminate the hassle of a long, complicated registration process, save valuable time and resources, and reduce errors at the same time. Criminals can easily obtain or use someone else’s common identifiers, such as names, SSNs, and DOB for fraudulent use. Many times common identifiers have also been the main cause of the creation of duplicate identities or record mismatching. Paper-based records are also vulnerable to how easily they can end up in the wrong hands. With RightPatient, transitioning to an automated patient enrollment system will be seamless.

Streamline workflow and maintain compliance

Protected health information (PHI) is like a treasure box for cybercriminals and thieves. PHI contains valuable sensitive information and can easily be worth more than credit card numbers on the black market. This is why the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was established to ensure confidentiality, integrity, and availability of PHI. HIPAA requires healthcare organizations to implement appropriate safeguards to better protect patients’ information so it doesn’t end up in the wrong hands. Maintaining compliance with HIPAA can be quite strenuous, but organizations can use HIPAA compliance software to streamline their compliance efforts and reduce administrative burden. Adopting the best security practices to limit unauthorized access or disclosure of patient information is crucial for preventing medical identity theft.

Robust bring your own device (BYOD) and network access policy

Personal devices should be secured before accessing a patient’s information across the network. A proper BYOD policy must be developed and maintained. For instance, is it safe for employees to bring company-issued devices back home? Many times, thieves get access to sensitive information when devices such as laptops, tablets, or smartphones get stolen from the office, home, or even from a car. Hospitals should also install a separate internet wi-fi network for visitors and patients to restrict access to the organization’s internal network.

Educate your employees and patients and instill a culture of best privacy practice

Not all data breaches are malicious – human error is inevitable. From emailing sensitive data to the wrong person to accidentally posting on social media or leaving a laptop open, information can be disclosed in many ways. It is essential for healthcare providers to conduct proper training and educate their staff members, working in any capacity with medical information on how to handle and access PHI in an appropriate manner and identify suspicious behaviors for preventing medical identity theft. Training can be easily streamlined using applications.

Many hospitals always strive to do their best when it comes to securing patient information. The occurrence of medical identity theft is unfortunate but isn’t rare at all. Hospitals should also advise patients and encourage them to keep their sensitive information safe and be cautious when sharing sensitive information.

Preventing Medical Identity Theft with RightPatient

Even during this COVID-19 national emergency crisis, medical identity theft is continuously becoming a great threat to the safety of patients and healthcare providers. Besides being the leader in patient identity management, RightPatient offers completely touchless biometric modules for patient identification. With RightPatient, healthcare providers can easily prevent medical identity theft and improve patient safety along with hygiene in a facility by removing physical contact, thus, limiting the spread of contagious diseases.

Verifying Patient Identity – Top 3 Benefits

July 17, 2020/12724 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, Clinical Efficiency, COVID-19, Duplicate Medical Records, Health Care, healthcare, Medical Identity Theft, Patient Experience, Patient Identification, Patient Matching, Patient Outcomes, Patient Safety /by Ryan Stephens

The failure to accurately identify patients throughout the healthcare industry continues to result in medication and diagnosis errors, procedures on the wrong person, duplicate medical records, and health insurance fraud. Therefore, healthcare providers should properly collect and manage information for verifying patient identity to prevent medical identity theft, improve medical record accuracy, and comply with HIPAA.

The amount of information flow in healthcare is greater than any other industry, but it all means nothing if a patient’s identity is compromised, or cannot be matched with their records. Verifying patient identity before starting a medical treatment or service is vital for ensuring a positive patient experience. The inability of healthcare providers to accurately identify their patients during the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in slow procedures, incorrect treatments, and even encouraged insurance fraudsters to take advantage of this chaotic situation.

That being said, RightPatient has been helping healthcare providers keep accurate records connected with the correct identity for years now, ensuring effective health treatment and recovery. The coronavirus pandemic has also been a prime catalyst for the consideration of futureproof biometric identity management solutions, such as RightPatient, for verifying patient identity. The reason for this is that our solution helps providers maintain a hygienic environment and limit the spread of contagious diseases. Here’s what else RightPatient can do for your organization:

Verifying patient identity to prevent medical identity theft

Even during this pandemic, security experts warn that the threat of medical identity theft is far from over, because attackers know they can take advantage of this situation. Healthcare providers, as well as patients, suffer from medical identity theft: the illegal access of a patient’s personally identifiable information and using this information to fraudulently obtain medical treatment, goods, or services.

The cost of proper medical treatment is exorbitant, especially if not covered by health insurance. It results in claim denials and negatively affects a health system’s bottom line. That is why verifying an individual identity is crucial before providing any kind of service. Health care providers, such as Terrebonne General Medical Center (TGMC) and the University Health Care System have successfully prevented many potential medical identity theft occurrences since using RightPatient.

Reduces information discrepancies in medical records

Arguably, the most damaging concern for healthcare providers is incorrect and potentially life-altering information being put on someone’s medical record. Inaccurate records have been the root cause of incorrect treatments, delays in procedures, and even the creation of duplicate records and overlays. Medical records are very difficult to change as they are meant to be a permanent and comprehensive account of an individual’s healthcare history. Thus, verifying a patient’s identity and accurately matching their information with their medical records can help providers to avoid financial losses due to fraudulent claims and improve data integrity.

Verifying patient identity for compliance

In the U.S., various state, federal, and industry-specific compliance regulations such as HIPAA and HITECH have been established for verifying patient identity. Not complying with these Acts can lead to hefty financial penalties being issued, and in worst-case scenarios, criminal charges being filed.

HIPAA, which stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, is a federal law that provides security provisions and data privacy, to protect a patient’s medical information. It enables smooth transitions of electronic records and requires appropriate controls over the use and disclosure of medical records.

Any organization that deals with protected health information (PHI) is required to comply with HIPAA’s rules and regulations. The law consists of several standard verification requirements for the disclosure of PHI. Under this subpart:

(i) Except with respect to disclosures under §164.510, verify the identity of a person requesting protected health information and the authority of any such person to have access to protected health information under this subpart, if the identity of any such authority of such person is not known to the covered entity;

Numerous stipulations suggest that it is lawful for organizations to take reasonable steps, such as using HIPAA compliance software and using platforms like RightPatient for verifying patient identity, to ensure compliance. HIPAA compliance also ensures that there are appropriate safeguards in place to protect PHI from unauthorized disclosure or breaches.

RightPatient – touchless biometric patient identity management platform

RightPatient is the healthcare industry leader in biometric patient identification. RightPatient also offers remote identity validation and appointment scheduling solutions for telehealth practitioners to ensure positive clinical outcomes during this pandemic. The platform verifies patient identities by comparing their selfie photos and ID (e.g. driver’s license). It helps healthcare providers save money on more costly identity-proofing solutions through credit agencies.

Even without this pandemic, exercising due diligence is vital. With the threat of medical identity theft looming even greater than before, healthcare providers need to have the most risk-conscious and thorough procedures in place to mitigate fraud. With RightPatient, healthcare providers can confidently stand under the near-perpetual spotlight of public scrutiny.

Patient Identity Verification Must be Touchless After COVID-19

July 6, 2020/11229 views / 0 Comments/in Biometric Terminology, BLOG, COVID-19, Future of Biometrics, healthcare, Infection Control, Patient Matching, Patient Safety /by Matt Gibson

The coronavirus pandemic has been the biggest changemaker in recent decades. After months of lockdown, social distancing, and gradual reopening of society, new cases are being seen in the US again. While everything may seem uncertain for now, one thing is for sure – COVID-19 has changed reality for everyone. Going to restaurants and hanging out with friends are things of the past now and there is no telling when all this will be normal again. The coronavirus has highlighted one thing in particular that will stay for us with a long time to come – how to reduce physical contact with others. Healthcare providers have had headaches of infection control issues for years now, but it is the headache of the average patient after the pandemic shook the world. While there will be a rise in usage and demand in touchless technology in the future, such as facial/voice recognition attendance systems, printing board passes via gestures, etc., one area where it is crucially needed is during the patient identity verification process. Let’s analyze the current condition of patient identification processes used, why a uniform identifier is not used by providers, and how leading healthcare providers are ensuring accurate patient identification.

Patient identity verification – the current scenario

Patient identification errors have been a much-discussed topic in this space, and for good reason. It is still one of the biggest problems healthcare providers are facing – leading to denied claims, medical identity theft, increased losses, and patient safety issues. While ineffective patient identity verification is a prevalent issue, different providers are implementing different solutions to solve them. But shouldn’t there be a uniform method of patient identification present? That is where the UPI comes in.

The mythical UPI

UPIs, or unique patient identifiers, have been the talk for years now. UPIs can be anything that is, as the name suggests, unique to a single patient. Its absence has led to quite a few problems within the US healthcare system, including duplicate medical records, waste, and preventable medical errors. In fact, John Hopkins has said that over 250,000 people in the US die due to medical errors, many of which are due to incorrect patient records and data. These unfortunate deaths could have been avoided with accurate patient identification. But why, then, is UPI still not a thing? Why do healthcare providers still struggle with patient identification?

Healthcare providers, as well as respected leaders in the healthcare system, have been clamoring for a UPI for years now. In fact, HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) mandates that a UPI be created for patients. However, there have been concerns since the beginning of talks regarding a UPI – how it might be stolen, misused, or worse, just like Social Security numbers. Basically, lawmakers were concerned as to how UPI could be kept private and confidential so that third parties cannot gain unauthorized access to it. Thus, back in 1998, Congress banned the authorization of a state-funded UPI. The stance has not changed after all these years. Even in 2019, the House of Representatives voted to revoke the ban, but the Senate let it stay. The lack of an effective patient identifier has been haunting the US healthcare industry ever since the UPI was banned in 1998.

How is the US healthcare system verifying patient identity?

Different healthcare providers are using different methods for patient identity verification. However, most of them are rendered ineffective now due to the coronavirus pandemic. Earlier, only healthcare providers used to think about infection control issues. Now, it is a headache for the patients as well.

While some are waiting around for the government to approve a state-funded UPI, they are facing a constant struggle with the usage of an obsolete means to identify patients – asking them questions. This has a lot of loopholes – it is slow, tedious, and anyone can assume the identity of the patient as long as they have the patient’s data with them, leading to medical identity theft.

Others are using patient ID wristbands. While more effective than asking questions, this, too, can be stolen, transferred, and used to commit medical identity theft. Not to mention, these require physical contact as well, something that patients will very much be reluctant to do nowadays – a result of the pandemic.

An effective patient identity verification system is biometric patient identification. Once again, not all modalities are effective, safe, and practical. As mentioned earlier, the pandemic has changed reality for all of us – patient identification is no exception.

While biometric modalities like fingerprint and palm-vein scanning are effective, they require the one thing patients will not be ready to do for a long time – touch the device to verify their identities. Hospitals are the epicenter of infection control issues, and while every provider has been dealing with COVID-19 patients, regular patients will be quite hesitant to touch anything. This is especially applicable during patient identification, as they know all patients pass through this location, and contact-based devices might lead to infections.

Touchless patient identity verification is the future

This is where RightPatient comes in. We have been providing hospitals with a touchless biometric patient identification platform for years now. Since the beginning, our focus was to ensure patient safety, which is why we always suggested healthcare providers consider our touchless solution that eliminates any infection control headaches related to patient identification. Unlike touch-based solutions, our devices do not require cleaning after every use.

The medical records of the patients are locked with their photos upon registration. Whenever the patient returns, RightPatient identifies the right medical record within seconds after the patient looks at the camera.

RightPatient has been serving leading healthcare providers like Community Medical Centers, University Medical Center, and Duke Health. It has helped with eliminating the creation of duplicate medical records, preventing medical identity theft, and enhancing patient safety through accurate patient identification in a hygienic manner.

We shared the same concerns healthcare providers have – how to ensure accurate patient identity verification while eliminating infection control issues. After the pandemic, patients have the same concern too. Are you addressing it correctly? If not, contact us right away.

Patient Identity Matching – Solving an unsolved crisis with RightPatient

June 30, 2020/12843 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, Clinical Efficiency, COVID-19, Duplicate Medical Records, EHR, Facial Reciognition, healthcare, Infection Control, Iris Recognition, Medical Record Mix-ups, Patient Experience, Patient Identification, Patient Matching, Patient Outcomes, Patient Safety /by Ryan Stephens

Accurate patient identity matching holds paramount significance across the U.S. healthcare system. Delivering the best possible patient experience, including safety and outcome, hinges on the ability of the healthcare providers to keep and maintain accurate medical records. Healthcare providers continue to struggle to accurately match their patients’ identities to their health records, and blame it on inaccurate and incomplete patient data, says the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Physicians should be able to retrieve accurate records on each patient’s medical history, including lab results, diagnoses, medications, imaging, surgeries, etc. to deliver the best patient care. Needless to say, accurate patient identity matching during the COVID-19 crisis is vital for ensuring a positive patient experience.

Can healthcare providers solve the patient identity matching crisis? Yes, and the solution is RightPatient – a leading touchless biometric patient identity management platform that has been successfully helping many leading hospitals address this specific issue.

Accurate patient identity matching ensures that the right patient is associated with the right medical records within a healthcare system. It means knowing with certainty that a piece of medical information belongs to the correct individual. There are many consequences if records are mismatched, such as incorrect treatment, improper data entries which can lead to the creation of duplicate records, and medical identity theft. Effective patient identity matching is not just about patient safety, it also helps healthcare providers avoid financial losses associated with duplicate records and claim denials from medical identity theft.

How costly are patient identity matching errors?

Let us look at this example. A patient’s kidney was surgically removed by the time physicians realized that there was no tumor. This blunder in the operating room of Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester, Mass., occurred when the patient’s CT scan was accidentally mixed up with the record of another patient who had the same name. The incident was widely reported in July 2016 when regulators came to investigate what exactly happened. Most people who read the accounts thought it was a rare blunder. But this type of blunder is not rare at all.

Every day in medical clinics and hospitals, physicians assume they have an accurate picture of a patient’s medical history, diagnoses, lab results, and other information when they click into an electronic medical record (EMR). But this assumption can lead to fatal consequences, like the example mentioned above.

The problem is called patient identity matching error, a crisis that RightPatient has been addressing for years. One of the most severe match errors is when two patients’ medical records, with a similar or same name, get merged, leading to an erroneous organ removal or other nightmares. More common than this is the creation of duplicate medical records. For instance, Christina Elizabeth Smith, Cristina E. Smith, and C. E. Smith refers to the same individual, but her medical information is filed under three separate records. Neither the physician nor the patient will be aware of missing data points when they are discussing treatment decisions or procedures.

The problem with common identifiers

Duplicate medical records can be created in many ways. One of the most common sources of duplicate records is making errors during the patient registration process. Other variations can be associated with identifying an unconscious patient when they are in the ER. Many times, duplicate records are also created due to demographic changes for the patient. Registrars face difficulties when patients change their last name or move to another place, so they create a new record for that individual.

Patient identity matching errors can also occur when there is a variation in using common identifiers during the registration or identification process. A simple typo or mishearing the correct word can result in a mismatch in records.

Common identifiers are also used to commit medical identity theft, an issue that healthcare providers have been trying to avoid for the past several years. A fraudster can easily get access to this type of information and fraudulently imitate someone else’s identity to get medication/benefits for their own use.

These kinds of problems can be mitigated if common identifiers such as names, DOB, SSNs, or other demographic data used during the initial registration and identification process are replaced with the unique identifiers that RightPatient uses. For instance, identifying and authenticating an individual by using their iris pattern or a photo of their face.

Accurate Patient Identity Matching with RightPatient

RightPatient is a touchless biometric patient identity management platform. Problems pertaining to duplicate records, medical identity theft, and record mismatch have been successfully mitigated by using RightPatient. Leading healthcare providers such as Terrebonne General Medical Center and The University Health Care System have successfully eliminated these sorts of problems and are continuously delivering the best experience for their patients with utmost clinical efficiency.

During the initial patient enrollment process, RightPatient will lock an individual’s medical records using their iris pattern or a photo of their face. Each time a patient arrives at the continuum of care, RightPatient will verify and authenticate their identity through an iris scanner, camera, or a webcam and retrieve their accurate medical records.

As a leader in the patient identity matching process, RightPatient helps healthcare providers to keep and maintain accurate medical records of their patients. Patient identity matching problems related to aggregating patient data via Health Information Exchanges (HIE) can be eliminated if all the healthcare providers adopt RightPatient, ensuring the best clinical outcome and data integrity across the healthcare system.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, touchless biometric technologies will play a key role in the next few years. RightPatient ensures safety and hygiene in a health facility by limiting physical contact between people and frequently touched high-risk surfaces, such as fingerprint scanners. Adopt RightPatient and make sure that one patient does not have multiple records in the master patient index (MPI) and that each piece of health information ends up in the correct patient record.

Improve Quality and Safety in Healthcare With Touchless Patient Identification

June 25, 2020/12261 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, COVID-19, Facial Reciognition, healthcare, Infection Control, Iris Recognition, News, Patient Engagement, Patient Experience, Patient Matching, Patient Safety, Photo Biometrics /by Ryan Stephens

In the medical field, elective procedures are surgeries that can be scheduled in advance, including those that are medically required. The U.S. healthcare industry is losing millions of dollars due to canceled elective procedures. Studies have found that surgical stays account for approximately 48% of hospitalization costs and elective procedures bring in $700 more per admission than emergency room admissions. For obvious reasons, many people have stopped going to hospitals, even those with critical medical conditions, since the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. On the bright side, more than half of the health consumers now feel moderately safe about returning for elective procedures. But much of it will hinge on ensuring quality and safety in healthcare.

Hospitals are considering when and how to recommence elective procedures as the surge in COVID-19 patients in some areas of the country has slowed down. But families and patients will want to know what changes the healthcare providers made from when they were told to stay at home. They want reassurance that hospitals have undertaken appropriate measures for ensuring quality and safety in healthcare delivery, and it will take time and proper resources for physicians to convince the consumers.

Key takeaways

In a recent webinar panel discussion with some patient and family advisors conducted by Vizient, they found out that patients are likely to return to elective procedures in waves. The initial wave will include those who will come forward no matter the risks, such as oncology patients, patients with impairment affecting their daily life activities, or those in pain. This will be followed by the second wave, who may return if they feel safe about hospital hygiene, for instance, low risks of getting infected or a low-risk procedure with a minimum follow up. Other findings also include transparency and communications. To feel safe, patients will want to know that safety and infection prevention processes are in action, including cleaning of handrails, elevators, and other high-touch surfaces, and clinicians wearing personal protective equipment throughout the care.

Feel safe with RightPatient’s touchless patient identification platform

As the aforementioned examples suggest, patients will demand assurance from providers that they are taking actions to ensure quality and safety in healthcare delivery. Adopting RightPatient’s platform is an ideal strategy to make sure of that. Elective procedures or not, at the initial stage, identifying patients accurately and matching their medical records is an integral part of the healthcare delivery process. As an industry leader, RightPatient has helped many healthcare providers tackle the patient identification crisis and improved quality and safety in healthcare delivery. With patients demanding more hygienic solutions, RightPatient’s touchless identification process can help hospitals convince healthcare consumers to come in during this or a post-COVID-19 crisis.

RightPatient is an entirely touchless biometric patient identification platform. From pre-procedure through discharge, this platform can match a patient’s identity and pull up their correct medical records throughout the continuum of patient care. All a patient needs to do is get their photo captured by a smartphone, tablet, or a webcam from a safe distance, and RightPatient will instantly identify the patient and bring up their medical records. Additionally, RightPatient also has a remote patient authentication model. During this process, RightPatient can validate patient identities while they are at home by comparing their ID (e.g.driver’s license) and selfie photos.

Clinical efficiency and positive patient experience will play a key role in hospitals gaining back their momentum. With RightPatient, patients can be reassured that their medical records are secure and healthcare providers can be at ease knowing there is zero chance of making a blunder in matching a patient’s identity. Besides accurate identification, this platform helps prevent medical identity theft and duplicate medical records as well, overall enhancing quality and safety in healthcare delivery.

5 Strategies to Ensure Revenue Integrity in Healthcare

June 9, 2020/11938 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, Clinical Efficiency, Duplicate Medical Records, Facial Reciognition, healthcare, Iris Recognition, Medical Identity Theft, Patient Identification, Patient Matching, Patient Safety, Revenue Cycle Management /by Ryan Stephens

Many healthcare providers were struggling financially before the pandemic. But now, the U.S healthcare industry is on the verge of financial disaster. According to the American Hospital Association, hospitals are bleeding approximately $50 billion per month due to canceled elective procedures and costs associated with treating COVID-19 patients. Many non-COVID patients have also stopped seeking primary care visits, including patients with life-threatening conditions, because they are worried about exposures. In addition, claim errors, denials, and payment delays that result from inaccurate patient identification, duplicate medical records, and medical identity theft still persist, all of which affects revenue integrity.

Adopting Value-Based Reimbursement (VBR) models has shown to have economic advantages but poses a real challenge for healthcare providers alongside ever-changing healthcare compliance regulations. Siloed workflows, data proliferation, and disparate systems make it difficult to achieve the collaboration that is needed for VBR to yield optimal results. However, intelligent revenue cycle management can be the key to achieving financial stability and revenue integrity.

Identify the problem

Today’s environment requires automating workflows and considering the whole revenue cycle process to ensure revenue integrity. Healthcare providers want an easy, seamless way to manage revenue cycle without errors, such as those caused by patient identification issues. Considering the lack of electronic medical record (EMR) system capabilities to adequately address the critical need for accurate patient identification, it is vital to leverage complementary technologies with core-specific competencies that can improve the overall revenue cycle. For example, improving patient identification and matching processes at the front-end of the revenue cycle process can significantly reduce costs.

As an industry-leader in touchless patient authentication, RightPatient has been helping many healthcare organizations reduce claim errors and denied claims by ensuring accurate patient identification. By eliminating denied claims linked to identification errors, healthcare providers can reduce the burden of back-end activities in the revenue cycle and simplify the reimbursement process to ensure revenue integrity.

Rely on technology

Adopting technology is also essential to ensure that clinical teams across the healthcare ecosystem are accessing high quality shared data to produce the best outcomes. Augmenting the organization’s core systems with complementary technologies on a single, integrated platform enhances internal collaboration with other teams or departments. For instance, RightPatient crosses departmental silos and brings transparency to patient healthcare data across disparate domains. Transparency across teams is critical. RightPatient will ensure that a holistic and accurate medical record of each patient can be accessed by clinical and operational staff members no matter where the patient is authenticated. By automating the patient identification and authentication process, RightPatient improves clinical outcomes and enables staff to proactively focus on other areas where their expertise has the most impact.

Ensure compliance

According to the National Association of Healthcare Revenue Integrity (NAHRI), the goal of revenue integrity is to prevent issues that lead to revenue leakage or compliance risks through effective, efficient, and internal controls across the care continuum, supported by strong documentation and sound financial practices that can withstand audits at any time.

Violation of healthcare compliance is a major contributing factor to financial losses. For instance, HIPAA violations are becoming more common across the U.S healthcare system. HIPAA compliance software, on the other hand, can help address this issue. Such software allows healthcare providers to simplify their compliance efforts and manage training through an effective communication system. Ensuring HIPAA compliance prevents privacy issues that can impact proper revenue cycle management and helps to avoid costly financial losses.

Accurate documentation and coding

Unfortunately, as long as healthcare providers do not address the issue of front-end data validation, claim denials will continue to wreak havoc. Inaccurate patient identification and medical identity theft still remain a major contributing factor to denied claims and payment delays. However, through accurate patient identification, RightPatient enables healthcare providers to bill and code each patients’ information accurately. By ensuring accurate and clinical documentation, this platform significantly reduces inefficiencies of denials and rework, thereby strengthening revenue integrity.

Improve hygiene and foster patient trust with RightPatient

Healthcare providers are witnessing a reduction in non-infected patient activity due to the fear of COVID-19. Visits for general check-ups or other routine procedures have decreased to the obvious financial detriment of healthcare providers. These providers need to reassure their patients that they are taking all precautionary steps to maintain hygiene and control this contagious disease. Adopting RightPatient is a sensible part of this strategy.

RightPatient is a completely touchless biometric patient identification platform that can accurately identify patients throughout the continuum of care. After capturing a photo from a smartphone, tablet, or webcam, RightPatient instantly identifies patients and retrieves their correct medical record. By securing unauthorized access to medical records, hospitals are able to prevent medical identity theft, reduce denied claims, and duplicate records – all of which are vital to a high-performing revenue cycle.

RightPatient also offers remote patient authentication, which is becoming increasingly necessary as people are maintaining social distance by staying at home and getting treatment through telehealth practices. During this process, RightPatient validates patient identities by comparing their ID (e.g. driver’s license) and selfie photos. This process can also help healthcare providers to save money on more expensive identity proofing solutions through credit agencies.

As patient care becomes more complex, so does the management of the revenue cycle. RightPatient can help to simplify and manage the complexity by ensuring safe, ubiquitous patient authentication from various patient encounter points. Full financial recovery from this pandemic may take years, but adopting RightPatient will ensure that you are on a faster path to success.

Improving Patient Safety and Quality of Care – Contactless Patient Identification

May 13, 2020/11966 views / 1 Comment/in BLOG, Clinical Efficiency, COVID-19, Future of Biometrics, healthcare, Infection Control, Patient Experience, Patient Identification, Patient Matching, Patient Outcomes, Patient Safety /by Ryan Stephens

The World Health Organization (WHO) published “Social Distancing” guidelines to limit the spread of this deadly COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. Similar to many other countries, healthcare leaders in the U.S. have been in search of solutions for improving patient safety and quality of care while maintaining social distancing.

Up until now, the use of biometric identification solutions has probably not been considered for preventing the spread of diseases in many workplaces. The rapid, worldwide spread of the Coronavirus has put hygiene and the ability to control the spread of contagious diseases at the forefront in the minds of many people across various industries. While many healthcare leaders have adopted technology in hospitals for improving patient safety and quality of care, a large number of healthcare providers still rely on antiquated solutions for patient identification.

Biometric technology is forecasted to grow across industries

Many industries are now considering biometric technologies for identification and authentication. Biometric identification as a service is already experiencing significant growth. With increased utilization of smart mobile devices and cloud-based intelligence platforms, biometric identification is now more accessible and scalable. Face or iris recognition techniques, in particular, are very effective in limiting the spread of contagious diseases.

According to the Future Market Insights (FMI), the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the consideration of contactless biometric solutions because of the sudden need for social distancing. By the end of 2020, global spending on contactless biometric technologies is estimated to be $16.6 billion.

The New York Police Department (NYPD) has stopped using fingerprint identification for staff members and employees entering the building, and is now using a contactless biometric system.

Improving Patient Safety and Quality of Care in hospitals

Improving patient safety and quality of care is more than simply making the patient happy. Healthcare providers need to understand that for a positive patient experience, ensuring patient safety protecting the patient from preventable harms is equally important.

Biometric patient identification can be a contactless process to identify patients fast and accurately. A contactless biometric patient identification platform does not require all patients to touch a biometric device during the identification process and accurately retrieves an individual’s medical records. While this process is a great way to control infection, it has also proven to be effective in preventing duplicate medical records and medical identity theft, thereby improving patient safety and quality of care.

RightPatient – the leading contactless biometric patient identification provider

RightPatient offers iris and facial recognition biometric patient identification solutions for healthcare providers. Several leading hospitals such as The University Health Care System and Terrebonne General Medical Center (TGMC) are already improving patient safety and quality of care by using RightPatient.

During registration, the patient simply takes their picture. RightPatient quickly recognizes the patient and retrieves the correct medical record from the healthcare provider’s EHR system. The process is fast, simple, and contactless, which is ideal for infection control, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Several leading hospitals have also improved fraud detection and prevented medical identity theft by using RightPatient. This platform is the key to securing patients’ medical records – and at a distance.

Duplicate Medical Records and Patient Misidentification Frequently Affects Hospitals

May 1, 2020/7030 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, Duplicate Medical Records, healthcare, Medical Record Mix-ups, Patient Identification, Patient Matching /by Matt Gibson

The U.S. healthcare system does not seem to catch a break. The coronavirus outbreak is the latest problem added to the already formidable list of issues plaguing the U.S. healthcare system. Lack of price transparency, outrageous costs, and archaic laws are just some of the problems. However, let’s talk about a problem that has been around for many years and still haunts several (if not all) hospitals – lacking an effective patient identification system.

A study regarding patient misidentification

Not so long ago, a study conducted by the Pew Charitable Trusts and Massachusetts eHealth collaborative shed light on a known issue – wrong patient matching is very common in U.S. hospitals. Let’s see what wrong patient matching leads to and what causes the errors, so that we can understand why healthcare providers must ensure accurate patient matching.

Patient matching and duplicate records explained

Firstly, the meaning of patient matching is quite self-explanatory. It refers to matching a patient with his/her health record so that the hospital can proceed on providing healthcare services. Now, it seems quite simple, but patient matching issues exist, according to the aforementioned study. What makes it so tough? The most common reasons are duplicate medical records and patient misidentification, also referred to as mismatched patient records.

Duplicate medical records are created when a patient has multiple patient records at a given healthcare provider’s EHR system. This happens for a variety of reasons – poor communication between the hospital staff and the patient during patient admission or checkup, failure to find the existing patient record within the database, and so on. Duplicate records decentralize the healthcare process that providers initially intended to provide to patients. For instance, due to duplicate records, a patient’s complete medical history could be impossible to find. In essence, different diagnoses are stored in various records, which leads to serious medical errors like mistreatment, repetitive lab tests, wrong medication, unintentional injuries, and in extreme cases, deaths.

Patient misidentification, wrong patient identification, and mismatched patient records are used interchangeably but mean the same thing. Patient misidentification occurs when a healthcare provider mixes up medical records of different patients. This happens when the patients share similar characteristics – name, date of birth, medical history, are just a few examples. This can cause severe issues like mistreatment, financial loss for patients, longer recovery time, and has also proven to take the lives of unfortunate ones.

How are hospitals affected?

Not only patients but healthcare providers are also affected profoundly. Claim denials can lead to losses in millions and occur when bills are sent to the wrong patients as a result of patient misidentification. Patients can also hit hospitals with lawsuits because of mistreatments.

Thus, accurate patient identification is critical for hospitals to operate smoothly and without any unwanted incidents. Fortunately, RightPatient has a proven track record of helping out hospitals with patient identification issues. It is a biometric patient identification platform that locks the medical records of patients with their biometric data. During enrollment, the platform takes a photo of the patient and his/her biometric data, such as a scan of the irises, and attaches it to the medical record. Later on, whenever the patient returns, all he/she needs to do is look at the camera. RightPatient accurately identifies the medical record within seconds, ensuring accurate patient identification as well as preventing the creation of duplicate records.