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Patient Data Protection is Ensured by Responsible Healthcare Leaders

August 7, 2020/8255 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, Cybersecurity, Data Breach, Data Integrity, Duplicate Medical Records, EHR, healthcare, Medical Identity Theft, Patient Experience, Patient Identification, Patient Outcomes /by Matt Gibson

Healthcare providers in the US have a lot on their plates. Even before the coronavirus pandemic, they had their hands full with issues like patient identification errors, cybersecurity threats, HIPAA compliance issues, an abundance of duplicate medical records, medical identity theft, a distinct lack of patient safety, and more. Whatever the case may be, progressive healthcare leaders need to ensure patient data protection at all costs. In fact, many of the aforementioned problems can be mitigated by protecting patient data – leading providers have been doing that constantly. But why is it so important? How can providers safeguard patient data? Let’s dive in.

Patient data protection

Patient data protection has been one of the oldest and most important requirements for healthcare providers, and rightfully so – a patient shares critical and sensitive information with their caregivers. Names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, contact information, addresses, facial photographs, medical history, and ailments are just some examples of the information stored within patient records. If these get compromised and land in the wrong hands, such cases can have disastrous consequences – healthcare insurance fraud, litigation costs for providers, and hampered patient safety are some common results. Thus, protecting patient data is crucial for any caregiver. Let’s take a look at a few more reasons why protecting patient data is necessary for hospitals and health systems.

Reasons to protect patient data

Ensuring Compliance

Concerns regarding data privacy are more common than ever – even more so when it comes to patient data. The frequency of healthcare data breaches proves that. However, providers, along with other healthcare organizations that deal with patient data, need to have safeguards in place to protect sensitive information.

HIPAA, also known as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, was introduced back in 1996 and is primarily used for patient data protection. It mandates that all healthcare organizations who deal with PHI (protected health information) must ensure that the data is protected at all times. If an organization fails to do so or violates HIPAA in any other way, they will face heavy scrutiny and hefty fines – up to $1.5 million per year. On top of that, the person committing the violation may face criminal penalties – fines and even jail time. Data breaches can cost up to $ 6 billion for the healthcare industry, and the US also tops the list of most expensive data breaches, besides Germany.

HITECH, or the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, compliments HIPAA. It was created to make sure that healthcare information technology is adopted and utilized appropriately. Privacy and security concerns are addressed by HITECH as well.

Thus, patient data protection is a must to ensure compliance with the laws and regulations that are in place. While HIPAA compliance can be cumbersome and challenging, healthcare organizations can simplify compliance management and reduce HIPAA-related administrative burdens. There are solutions available to ensure HIPAA compliance – organizations should choose one that is simple but powerful and gets the job done effectively. HIPAAReady is such a solution. A robust HIPAA compliance software, HIPAAReady ensures training management and scheduling, reduces administrative burden, and keeps all HIPAA compliance documents in a centralized location. Organizations can even detect security gaps by conducting internal audits with HIPAAReady.

Preventing medical identity theft

One of the more crucial reasons why protecting patient data is so important is because failure to do so leads to medical identity theft. Let’s see how that happens.

Cybercriminals are always trying to breach the security of healthcare providers, and when they finally do so, they steal sensitive patient information and sell it on the black market for high prices. Fraudsters buy the data and assume the identity of the affected patients – committing medical identity theft, pushing off the expenses on the victims, and fraudulently obtaining healthcare services.

Medical identity theft can lead to lawsuits, demand significant time and costs from patients and/or providers to rectify the issues, and compromise patient data integrity. That leads us to the next reason for protecting patient data.

Enhancing patient safety

Failure to maintain patient data integrity means that the data is not accurate anymore. When a provider fails to protect patient data, it leads to medical identity theft. When the fraudster uses the victim’s healthcare services, he/she contaminates the patient data – the fraudster’s data gets written onto the victim’s patient record, rendering it inaccurate. If such cases remain undetected or unfixed, they can severely hamper patient outcomes. Medical errors, delays in treatment, incorrect procedures, and even deaths – these are just some of the numerous consequences of compromised patient data. Thus, patient data protection is critical for enhancing patient safety.

Protect patient data now

Protecting patient data is a huge challenge, but it is achievable. One of the first and foremost things providers can do to protect patient data is to ensure positive patient identification at each encounter. That’s where we can help.

RightPatient is the leading patient identification solution chosen by progressive providers. It is a photo-based and touchless biometric patient identification platform with common goals shared by caregivers – to enhance patient safety, to ensure accurate patient identification, and to prevent medical identity theft.

It locks the medical records of patients upon registration with their photos. Returning patients look at the camera and the platform matches the photos and provides accurate records within seconds. Even with healthcare data breaches, RightPatient protects your patients and their data as the platform will red-flag fraudsters during patient identity verification.

Protect patient data, prevent medical identity theft, ensure positive patient identification, and more – with RightPatient.

Patient Identification Errors in Hospitals Should be Eliminated Now Instead of Waiting for a UPI

July 30, 2020/7782 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, Data Integrity, Duplicate Medical Records, EHR, healthcare, Medical Identity Theft, Medical Record Mix-ups, Patient Identification, Patient Matching, Patient Outcomes /by Matt Gibson

Patient identification errors have been haunting the US healthcare system for decades now. In fact, the lack of effective patient identity management within the majority of hospitals and health systems is quite well-known as it is prevalent. Otherwise, groups would not have formed every year to appeal to Congress to finally approve a state-funded unique patient identifier (UPI). However, the coronavirus pandemic has been wreaking havoc across the US, which is why accurate patient identification is needed more than ever. But should they still wait for Congress for a UPI, or is there a way to eliminate patient identification errors in hospitals now? The short answer to the latter is yes – RightPatient. Let’s dive deep into the issues caused by patient misidentification, what the healthcare industry is doing about it, and how leading providers are solving it.

Issues caused by patient misidentification

Patient misidentification has always caused a plethora of problems – for patients, healthcare providers, insurance companies – basically anyone involved with patient care. However, the pandemic has deemed the elimination of patient identification errors in hospitals more necessary than ever, so that patients can get faster, more accurate care, leading to improved health outcomes. So, what are the issues caused by patient identification errors?

The lack of accurate patient identification can create duplicate records or overlays (merged medical records of the same or different patients), causing a ripple effect and hampering patient safety by generating inaccurate patient information. For example, a patient with a common name comes into a provider’s facility, and without a robust patient identification platform, it will be quite difficult for the EHR user to determine the correct medical record for the patient. Thus, the healthcare official will either painstakingly search for the correct record, which is quite time-consuming, or else an entirely new record will be created, leading to just another duplicate record among the several existing ones. Duplicate records create patient safety issues – patients will be treated based on an incomplete or inaccurate medical history. For providers, the financial cost of duplicates can be up to $40 million, according to AHIMA.

Patient misidentification can also cause denied claims, which have a severe impact on the financials of hospitals and health systems. Suppose a patient is misidentified by the provider using an obsolete patient identification system. While the patient at the facility will be receiving the care, someone else will be charged inadvertently for the services as a result of patient identification errors. However, the medical record holder can simply let the authorities know that someone else had used the healthcare services, and thus, he/she will not be charged – leading to a case of claim denial. Denied claims can cost up to $4.9 million on average for any given healthcare provider.

Even during this ongoing and unprecedented health crisis, patient misidentification is quite common. It occurs because there is no proper way to match patients to their electronic health records (EHRs) within those providers’ facilities, and it leads to patient safety issues as well as reduced quality of care. Other issues patient misidentification causes are incorrect treatments, medications, and lab test results – hampering patient outcomes significantly. Given the current scenario of the healthcare system, these issues should be minimized as much as possible – something that RightPatient can help hospitals with.

What is the healthcare industry doing about it?

During a virtual briefing, the CEO of AHIMA, Wylecia Wiggs Harris, stated that COVID-19 shows how important accurate data is and why patient misidentification issues must be solved as soon as possible.

Likewise, other experts have been making similar statements. For instance, even COVID-19 test results were affected by patient identification errors. After the results came in, it was quite difficult to identify and search for the patients, as no accurate patient identity management system existed within the facilities.

Thus, healthcare leaders across the states are coming together to once again to ask Congress to lift the archaic ban on a state-funded UPI. However, if the past has anything to teach, it is the fact that the ban has been in effect for decades now. Lawmakers and officials placed the ban citing privacy concerns regarding a UPI, and it is quite unlikely that they will budge now.

Instead, many leading providers have taken it upon themselves to eliminate patient identification issues within their premises themselves. How are they doing that?

Eliminate patient identification errors in hospitals now

Forward-thinking providers did not rely on Congress to remove the ban, which might not happen anytime soon, admittedly. Instead, they deployed RightPatient – the leading photo-based biometric patient identification platform.

It locks the medical records of the patients with their photos – a returning patient looks at the camera, allowing the platform to identify the correct medical record within seconds. It is completely hygienic and ideal for the current crisis.

Our platform has been successfully reducing patient identification errors in hospitals and health systems. RightPatient ensures accurate patient identification, reduces claim denials, avoids duplicate medical records, and even prevents medical identity theft – improving patient safety and quality of care in the process.

Identifying Patients Accurately is Critical for Ensuring CMS Compliance

July 27, 2020/7417 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, Data Integrity, Duplicate Medical Records, EHR, healthcare, Patient Errors, Patient Identification, Patient Safety /by Matt Gibson

The US healthcare system has been going through a very challenging phase due to the coronavirus pandemic. However, it looks like healthcare providers are going to have their hands full – they have another rule to comply with and must plan accordingly to ensure compliance by May 1, 2021. The fact that there have been additional changes to the Medicare Conditions of Participation (CoPs) is already well known among healthcare leaders. However, while many providers are already thinking about how they can ensure compliance, they might leave out one significant factor that can make or break the entire effort – are they identifying patients accurately? Why is this important? How does patient identification fit in with the new changes? How can providers ensure accurate patient identification? Let’s explore in detail.

CMS Interoperability & Patient Access Final Rule

While the entire healthcare system has been suffering from the lack of interoperability, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have made some changes to the CoPs to ensure that there is some degree of interoperability, believing that it will have positive effects on care coordination as well.

The “companion final rule”, as per CMS, mandates that healthcare providers like acute care, psychiatric, and critical access hospitals send out e-notifications during every patient admission, discharge, or transfer (ADT) to the designated recipients (read: providers and other entities primarily responsible for patient’s care). This is applicable for both inpatient admissions and patients registered in the emergency departments (EDs).

Moreover, the providers obligated to follow the ADT requirements must make enough effort to ensure that they have sent out the notifications to the applicable parties (suppliers, entities, practitioners, etc.) in real-time.

Any given healthcare provider that uses digital medical records like EMRs or EHRs needs to ensure compliance with the updated CoPs for e-notifications. COVID-19 has extended the deadline – healthcare providers now have until May 1, 2021 to ensure compliance with the recent changes.

Why are the CoPs important?

What is the biggest reason to ensure CMS compliance? Financial factors like CMS reimbursements and avoiding non-compliance penalties are more than ample motivators. Healthcare providers need to be compliant in order to safeguard their CMS provider agreement – it determines whether the providers are able to receive reimbursements or not, which can be quite significant in some cases. If providers do not ensure compliance, not only will their agreements be in jeopardy, restricting them from receiving reimbursements, but they might also face penalties. Given the current healthcare crisis that has crippled almost every caregiver, more financial woes are something any provider would want to avoid.

What the healthcare providers are doing

Since the deadline has been extended to May 1, 2021, leading figures of healthcare providers are brainstorming about how to comply with the change – should they build an in-house e-notification system themselves, or should they buy from experienced vendors? Whatever option providers go with, they are not addressing the elephant in the room – are they identifying patients accurately?

How identifying patients accurately is related to e-notifications

Think of it this way – patient identification in hospitals is already inaccurate. In fact, many healthcare providers face patient identification errors due to duplicate medical records, medical record overlays, and patient mix-ups, among other problems. These lead to issues like compromised patient safety, unwanted patient outcomes, avoidable medical errors, and even deaths.

So, it has already been established that if a hospital does not have an accurate patient identity management system, then it causes a lot of problems for the facility. Can you imagine what will happen if the hospital goes for an e-notification platform without identifying patients correctly first?

Issues like common names and characteristics shared by patients are already quite prevalent and cause patient mix-ups. If such a case occurs while sending out e-notifications, then the wrong patient’s data will be provided to the subsequent caregiver. Thus, patient mix-ups and incorrect patient identification cases during ADT notifications will wreak havoc – delays in treatments, medical errors, and lawsuits are just some of the consequences of such scenarios. It will be a nightmare for any given provider. Hospitals and health systems that are not identifying patients accurately at their facilities need to eliminate these errors to ensure CMS compliance and avoid any unwanted consequences. They need to ensure patient data integrity by ensuring positive patient identification every time a patient comes in. That’s where we can help.

Identifying patients accurately with RightPatient

RightPatient is the healthcare industry’s leading photo-based biometric patient identification platform. It seamlessly integrates with the major EHR systems and becomes part of the workflow. Patients are registered by locking their medical records with their photos. After enrollment, incoming patients only need to look at the camera and the platform matches the photos and provides accurate medical records within seconds. This ensures a safe, easy, touchless, and hygienic patient identification experience for everyone.

RightPatient ensures that the correct patient is identified every time across the care continuum, helping you maintain patient data integrity. With RightPatient, you can send out the correct patient’s notification every time, ensuring CMS compliance and safeguarding your patients and, in turn, your business.

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

July 24, 2020/8458 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, 2020/14728 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.

How to Get Prescription Drug Coverage

July 16, 2020/3203 views / 0 Comments/in Guest Blog Posts /by Guest

Did you know that your health insurance might cover your prescriptions too? Many people are unaware of this added benefit when they visit the pharmacy for a course of antibiotics or other prescription drugs.

Behind the scenes of your health insurance plan is usually a list of approved medications that your insurer will cover in part or in full. This is known as a formulary. Some insurers may offer prescription coverage only as an add-on to your current plan. It’s always best practice to fully understand every inch of your insurance.

Why spend money when you don’t need to? Health insurance premiums don’t come cheap. Take advantage of your entire plan or what your insurer has to offer and cut down your medication costs.

Below we will cover everything you need to know about getting prescription drug coverage. Read on to learn more.

Prescription Drug Coverage Options

There are a myriad of ways in which you can gain prescription coverage. You may already be entitled to it through your employment or union without even knowing. TRICARE, Medigap, and Veterans Affairs also offer prescription coverage policies. It’s worth taking the time to delve deeper into any existing insurances you already hold.

Alternatively, Medicare offers two different routes to obtaining drug coverage. The Medicare Prescription Drug Plan is often referred to as Part D is a drug-specific add-on to your existing Medicare plan.

You can also opt for a Medicare Advantage Plan (Part C), which is similar to an HMO or PPO plan. With this option, you’ll receive the benefits of parts A, B, and D. These include hospital insurance, medical insurance, and drug coverage. Specific in-network pharmacies may need to be used to ensure your insurer will cover the cost if you opt for this route.

How to Join a Drugs Plan

Joining a drug plan is simple. If you’re searching for a new insurance policy, all you need to do is select it as an option (if available) during the selection process. Many independent and federal insurance companies will provide this choice.

Alternatively, if you’re eligible for Medicare and want to enroll in Medicare prescription drug coverage, you’ll need to enroll in the Medicare Plan Finder. You can also call the Medicare agents to set up your drugs plan. If you want to add the cover later, you will need your Medicare number and the correct date your part A and B insurance began.

How to Find Out What Prescription Drugs Are Covered in Your Plan

If you want to find out what prescription drugs are covered in your current plan, you can head to your insurer’s website. Here you’ll be able to find the list of included medications in the provider’s policies. If the information isn’t transparent, then you should call your insurer directly for more details.

Drugs covered in your prescription policy should also be detailed in any materials mailed to you after setting up the insurance. If you have lost these, you can often request a new set to be sent to you.

Other Important Factors to Be Aware of With Prescription Cover

What type of insurance you take out (HMO, PPO, or private) and what plan you purchase will determine how your drug policy works.

Some may only allow you to use certain pharmacies. Others may not cover your current prescription. In the latter instance, you may be offered a one-time refill until your doctor prescribes a new drug that is eligible under your cover. Alternatively, you can apply for an exception.

An exception will make the specific drug you use eligible for cover. However, you will often be charged copayment. The fee is usually the same rate as the most expensive drug already on the policies approved list. The amount may count towards your deductibles and out-of-pocket limits.

If your request for an exception is denied, you can appeal this decision and seek a third-party review.

You may also find that some policies cover shipping costs for delivering your prescription by mail. On the other hand, others may not offer this service within the plan and charge you an additional fee for it.

To Conclude

Don’t be afraid to pick up the phone and ask your medical insurer if prescription drug cover is part of your policy. You may be surprised by the number of medicines that are already covered in your plan.

If a drug policy needs to be added on, it’s more than worth investigating further. You may incur a slight increase in premiums, so you would need to factor this into your budget.

Optimizing Revenue Cycle Management in Healthcare is More Important Than Ever

July 9, 2020/7653 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, Clinical Efficiency, Data Integrity, Duplicate Medical Records, healthcare, Patient Identification, Revenue Cycle Management /by Matt Gibson

While the US is still suffering from the effects of the highly contagious COVID-19, it has arguably hit its healthcare system worse than anything else. Around 1.4 million people working in healthcare have lost their jobs. The number itself is quite shocking, however, what makes it worse is that the pandemic has changed everything. For instance, the US healthcare system used to be unaffected by any recessions, but COVID-19 has shown otherwise. This is because numerous hospitals have declared layoffs, furloughs, or are even shutting down due to unimaginable financial pressure. With that in mind, as hospitals are opening up, they need to reduce their losses right off the bat, otherwise, it will be hard for anyone to survive. Thus, revenue cycle management in healthcare is more crucial than ever now.

The numbers are drastic

It has already been mentioned that over 1.4 million healthcare professionals lost their jobs. That’s not where it stops, though. Since hospitals made the difficult but necessary choice to prepare for the overwhelming amount of COVID-19 patients by shutting down non-emergency care at their premises, they became financially crippled. The American Hospital Association stated that hospitals are losing a mindboggling $50 billion a month, due to the fact that they are seeing an extremely low number of patients – as low as 70%. Revenue cycle management in healthcare has always been a much-discussed topic, however, as the numbers show, it is of utmost importance now to optimize revenue cycles by reducing costs and mitigating losses – something that RightPatient can help healthcare providers with. But how does optimized revenue cycle management help hospitals deal with the financial crisis?

Benefits of optimized revenue cycle management in healthcare

Reduced denied claims

A streamlined revenue cycle depends on the level of accurate data present within the system. If there is a high level of accuracy, it reduces the chances of denied claims. Usually, denied claims occur when there are mistakes in payment claims. One example is when patients are mistakenly charged for services they have not used. RightPatient ensures that the patient is accurately identified from the beginning to the end of the process – substantially reducing denied claims.

Enhanced patient experience

An optimized revenue cycle means that the FTEs will spend less time on redundant tasks such as rechecking coding and billing for errors and focus more on providing better care to the patients – enhancing the patient experience.

Higher and faster collections

It is quite simple – if the revenue cycle is optimized, there will be higher collections with a lower number of errors. FTEs, thus, do not have their hands full of coding and billing errors – giving them the time to focus on the remaining collections, improving efficiency in the process.

Accurate patient information

An optimized revenue cycle means that you are ensuring patient data integrity; that is, from the beginning of caregiving to collections, the correct patient has been identified. This can be easily achieved using an accurate patient identification platform like RightPatient.

Better financial returns

One of the most vital parts of a healthcare provider that everyone scrutinizes, other than treating patients, is its financial performance. After all, these are the indicators as to how well a provider is doing. An optimized revenue cycle means that there are increased clean claims, faster collections, lower lost claims, and accurate patient data – all leading to improved revenue of the provider.

Since COVID-19 is still affecting the financial performance of providers, they need to ensure that their revenue cycle is as optimized as possible.

Optimize revenue cycle with RightPatient

Optimized revenue cycle management in healthcare means that you need to have the correct data for the patient and you are ensuring that he/she is being billed accurately throughout the whole process. Thus, for a better revenue cycle, you need to ensure accurate patient identification. This is where RightPatient can help you.

It is a touchless biometric patient identification platform and is used by leading healthcare providers for a number of reasons. It prevents medical identity theft, optimizes the revenue cycle, reduces denied claims, prevents duplicate record creation, enhances patient safety, and more – leading to improved financials, boosting the bottom lines in the process.

Upon registration, RightPatient locks the medical records of the patients with their photos. Whenever an enrolled patient comes in, all he/she needs to do is look at the camera and it identifies them within seconds, providing the correct patient record to the EHR user and ensuring accurate patient identification. This ensures that the correct patient is identified right from the start – reducing billing errors and denied claims and optimizing revenue cycle in the process. This is something that every provider needs to ensure to survive during this unprecedented situation.

RightPatient has years of experience and has been helping protect over 10 million patient records. Duke Health and Community Medical Centers, among others, are using RightPatient to ensure safe, hygienic, and accurate patient identification. Are you optimizing your revenue cycle sensibly?

How to Prevent Medical Identity Theft During COVID-19 as Experts Predict Rising Cases

July 9, 2020/5718 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, COVID-19, Data Integrity, healthcare, Medical Identity Theft, Patient Identification, Patient Safety /by Matt Gibson

The world has been drastically changed due to COVID-19 – it seems as if the whole thing was adapted from a sci-fi horror story. While many parts of the world have been opened up with precautions, it looks like the coronavirus pandemic has yet to complete its significant mark on humanity. For instance, new cases are surfacing in the US – over 2.6 million Americans have been infected as of June 29th, 2020. However, that will not stop hackers from attempting to steal patient data, which ultimately leads to medical identity theft. In fact, experts have warned that such cases will rise due to the pandemic. That being said, everyone within the US healthcare system is working hard to survive, serve patients, and open up. With all these overwhelming odds, one might even not have time for the answer to the question, “How to prevent medical identity theft even during the pandemic?” Fortunately, there is an answer – RightPatient, but more on that later.

Rising medical identity theft

Medical identity theft is nothing new – it has been around for quite some time now. In fact, more than 2.3 million Americans are victims of medical identity theft each year, whereas healthcare providers might be forced to pay settlement costs of around $250,000. However, a security expert like Randy Pargman, an ex-senior computer scientist of the FBI, has stated that there will be more cases of medical identity theft during the pandemic as there is a lucrative window of opportunity for hackers.

But why is that so? Mr. Pargman has stated that since the patient information contains valuable and sensitive data like Social Security numbers, insurance information, DOB, names, and addresses, these can easily be used by actors. They can simply pretend to be the patients and obtain medical services while the victims are billed fraudulently. Cases like this will be quite common unless healthcare providers know how to prevent medical identity theft. Thankfully, RightPatient does that effectively. It also helps to improve quality and safety with its platform.

Why are such cases so common?

The answer is quite simple – medical records are the most profitable forms of stolen information. To put it into perspective, stolen credit card information sells for up to $110 on the dark web, whereas stolen patient records sell for up to a whopping $1,000!

Thus, it is quite natural that hackers would target healthcare providers more, as they can sell the records for far more money. Fraudsters can also obtain expensive medical services, unobtainable drugs, and medical equipment for a mere $1,000. They are saving thousands of dollars – healthcare can get quite expensive. It is simple economics – wherever there is demand, there will be supply.

While providers are required to protect patient data due to laws like HIPAA, they usually implement inadequate security, ultimately leading to healthcare data breaches and medical identity theft. As previously mentioned, not everyone is facing such cases. Healthcare leaders have taken it upon themselves to protect their patients from medical identity theft and saving themselves from unnecessary costs due to HIPAA violations. Saving costs is even more necessary during the pandemic. So, how are the leaders answering the question, “How to prevent medical identity theft?”

How to prevent medical identity theft with RightPatient

RightPatient has years of experience with leading providers. A touchless biometric patient identification platform, RightPatient solves a number of issues. But before that, how does it work exactly?

It locks the medical records of the patients with their photos during registration. After enrollment, the platform simply takes a photo of the returning patients, matches it to the one saved within the record, and provides the appropriate EHR within seconds. The best part is that it does so without requiring a single touch from the patient, making it the most hygienic patient identification platform.

Thus, if a fraudster comes in assuming the identity of someone else, RightPatient will immediately red flag the person – preventing medical identity theft in real-time. RightPatient also prevents duplicate record creation, reduces denied claims, and enhances patient safety. All these lead to boosting the bottom lines of hospitals – something which is very much needed for providers currently to survive.

So, how can you prevent medical identity theft during and after the pandemic? The answer is RightPatient.

Infection Control in Hospitals – How it Should be Addressed as Hospitals Reopen

July 8, 2020/6010 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, COVID-19, Infection Control, Medical Identity Theft, Patient Identification, Patient Safety /by Matt Gibson

COVID-19, “the novel coronavirus”, “corona” – it goes by a lot of names. Whatever you choose to call it, one thing everyone can certainly agree on is that it is an unprecedented phenomenon that has changed the reality for all of us. Many of us have not met friends or family members for months, have not left our homes, and are practicing social distancing to save ourselves and our loved ones from getting infected. However, one of the only exceptions to be highlighted are healthcare workers. They have been tirelessly providing services over the last few months – tackling the relatively new disease on the frontlines, with many even getting infected with it in the process. However, hospitals need to ensure patient safety as they are opening up gradually. With that in mind, infection control in hospitals is mostly focused on the busiest areas of their premises. What about the first point of contact? Is it safe for patients? Is the process touchless, accurate, and hygienic? Let’s analyze how RightPatient can reduce infection control issues for you during the arrival of patients.

Infection control in hospitals

First of all, infection control in hospitals aims to reduce the spreading of infectious diseases and keep the number of infected individuals, incidents causing infections, or the possibilities leading to outbreaks as low as possible. This is quite a tricky task, as it is not always possible to keep these criteria in check.

However, everyone mostly focuses on the other areas of the health systems and are overlooking the first point of contact – patient registration desks, EDs, and so on. For most of the providers, that is usually where all patients go first to receive healthcare services. If not kept in check, these points of entries might turn into infection control issues. For instance, if the place gets contaminated, every patient coming afterward will be potentially infected unless it is decontaminated properly. That itself is an administrative nightmare and will force the hospital to block off the area, leading to delays or hold-ups in services, causing significant losses in the process. As one can clearly see, this is something that any healthcare provider would want to avoid, which is why infection control issues were always a concern for leading healthcare providers.

Patients are wary of infection control issues now

While infection control in hospitals, or lack thereof, was only a common headache for the providers, the coronavirus pandemic has led to it being a headache for everyone else as well. Nowadays, everyone is well aware of how the virus spreads and they are scrutinizing how hospitals can and are reducing or managing infection control issues.

While the US healthcare system has been going all out to deal with the overwhelming number of patients, many providers are slowly opening their doors to regular patients requiring urgent care. For these patients, the hospitals need to be up to speed and ensure that they are improving patient safety and quality of care so that patients feel right at home and go through the caregiving process without any unwanted incidents.

While COVID-19 has instilled the fear of how good or bad infection control in hospitals is, what can the providers do to reduce spreading the disease at the first point of contact?

RightPatient – the futureproof patient identifier

It is a touchless biometric patient identification platform and has a variety of benefits. But how does it work exactly?

RightPatient locks the medical records of the patients with their photos upon registration. After enrollment, the patient just comes in and looks at the camera – RightPatient then matches the photo with the one saved alongside the medical record. It provides the saved medical record within seconds – ensuring accurate patient identification.

Leading healthcare providers understand the importance of positive patient identification and how it affects them. They have been using RightPatient for years and one of the reasons they chose it is because it is the most hygienic way to identify patients accurately and quickly without causing any infection control issues like other touch-based solutions.

While leading healthcare providers have been reducing infection control issues for years, you can do it now – preventing medical identity theft in real-time, reducing denied claims, and preventing duplicate medical records – all with a single platform that can be seamlessly integrated with your EHR system. RightPatient proudly protects over 10 million patient records and boosts the bottom lines of several healthcare providers.

Patient Identification in Hospitals is in Dire Need of an Upgrade After COVID-19

July 7, 2020/7475 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, COVID-19, Medical Identity Theft, Medical Record Mix-ups, Patient Errors, Patient Identification, Patient Safety /by Matt Gibson

COVID-19 has changed the world around us in unprecedented ways. In fact, it is still shaping how we will interact with each other in the future for years to come. Social distancing, ensuring proper hygiene at all times, and wearing PPE whenever we step outside have become the norms and it will be so for quite some time. Naturally, hospitals have been the most affected parties due to the coronavirus, since they are the ones treating the patients. As different parts of the US are opening up gradually, it is quite natural that healthcare providers would open their doors too. However, changes are advised to ensure that patient safety is improved while hospitals are reopening. One of the most important changes required is the overhaul of patient identification in hospitals since that is usually the first point of contact for both patients and caregivers. Let’s look at why most of the current patient identifiers can pose threats now, and how a touchless solution like RightPatient is the only choice going forward.

Why is patient identification in hospitals important?

Patient identification errors have been haunting the US healthcare system for a long time now. The consequences of patient misidentifications can be quite severe for both providers and patients. Patients can suffer from shocking bills, the wrong treatment, repeated care or lab test results, and even death. Providers, on the other hand, may experience denied claims, unwanted attention, the costs associated with fixing duplicate records and overlays, and loss of goodwill. As can be clearly understood, patient identification errors can cause irreparable damage to all those who are associated with them. But how is the US healthcare system identifying its patients?

What patient identification was before COVID-19

Patient identification in hospitals has, admittedly, been quite fragmented. Different providers use different strategies to identify their patients. Let’s look at some of the common means of patient identification along with their pros and cons, as well as why RightPatient is the perfect choice for accurate patient identification.

Even though there are a variety of patient identification solutions available, some hospitals still prefer to use the decades-old method of identifying patients by asking them questions to find their respective EHRs. The EHR user may ask the patients to state their names, addresses, DOB, ID numbers (if appropriate), and so on. The only good thing about this is it is mostly touchless. However, the costs outweigh the only benefit of this archaic method. It is slow, tedious, time-consuming, and cannot detect if someone else is pretending to be the patient, leading to medical identity theft.

Another popular method is using patient ID wristbands. While this is more accurate than just asking questions, it has its drawbacks as well. It can be transferred or stolen, leading to others using healthcare services assigned for a different patient, committing medical identity theft. More importantly, it is also contact based, something which everyone is quite reluctant to do nowadays, but more on that later.

One of the most accurate ways to identify patients is by utilizing features patients do not share with anyone else, that is, the features that are unique to them. This is where biometrics comes into play. For instance, modalities like fingerprint and palm-vein scanning drastically improve accurate patient identification. However, these would require the patients to touch the devices for identity verification, which was off-putting for leading healthcare providers. These would cause infection control issues. For instance, a patient with a contagious disease could come in, touch the device, and effectively contaminate it, unless it is cleaned after every usage. It would be a nightmare for all those involved in the process.

What COVID-19 taught us

Prior to the pandemic, not many patients would have thought about it. After COVID-19, however, the majority of patients would be extremely reluctant to use touch-based solutions for patient identification, as they have a fear of contracting the highly contagious virus now. Thus, acceptance rates for touch-based solutions would be quite low now. Thus, patient identification in hospitals needs to be upgraded to enhance patient safety as well as accuracy.

So, what are the leading healthcare providers using for accurate patient identification?

What patient identification should be after COVID-19

The leading touchless biometric patient identification platform, RightPatient, is being used by providers like Grady Health, Duke Health, and University Health Care System. So, what makes RightPatient so different yet effective?

It locks the medical records of the patients with a photo of them upon registration. When registered patients return, all they need to do is look at the camera; the platform recognizes them and produces the correct medical record within seconds. All of this can be done easily and without a single touch from the patient!

RightPatient ticks all the right boxes – it ensures accurate patient identification, successfully prevents medical identity theft, reduces denied claims, prevents new duplicate records, and enhances patient safety by providing them a touchless solution. All of these benefits lead to boosting the bottom line of healthcare providers – something that they really need right now.

RightPatient has been protecting over ten million patient records already, and with the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become the only viable solution. Are you still using outdated platforms? It is high time to make the change and upgrade to RightPatient.