Why Your Practice Should Outsource Release of Information

As doctors, hospitals, and other healthcare providers continue to see more and more patients the amount of administrative work that is required from these medical providers is drastically increasing. The amount of extra work that healthcare providers must handle in addition to actual patient care has gotten so significant that many facilities have had to hire additional support staff. Other facilities are making all of their regular staff members including doctors, nurses, medical assistants, and clerical workers take on larger roles within the facility because the workload is simply too much to handle. Both of these solutions have serious negative consequences for the healthcare providers and that is why many have begun to outsource some of their most daunting administrative tasks.

What is Release of Information?

At any medical facility the release of information (ROI) department is essentially the custodian of records. This department is responsible for the handling, management, storage, and release of all medical records for patients treated at a given facility. ROI is a very busy department at any healthcare facility as they must constantly deal with patient, insurer, and audit requests for medical records. Whenever any one of these clients needs copies of medical records they have to submit their requests to the ROI departments and it us up to the ROI departments to distribute copies in a secure and timely fashion. Requests for medical records pour in on a daily basis so this work is not a task that can be quickly taken care of by medical facilities.

Despite the large amount of release of information work that healthcare providers are faced with many doctor’s offices and facilities do not actually have designated ROI departments. As facilities continue to face larger volumes of requests for records many have had to take drastic actions to tackle the task. Healthcare facilities without fully staffed ROI departments have turned to one of two options to face this challenge: they hire more administrative workers or give more work to their current staff members. Both options are detrimental to healthcare providers and that is why the outsourcing of ROI work makes so much sense.

Benefits of Outsourcing

In response to the challenges listed above some facilities have decided to take another route by outsourcing their ROI work. Outsourcing your ROI work can provide you and your facility with many benefits including:

• Reduction of administrative costs. By hiring a professional release of information company to handle their ROI work healthcare providers can eliminate the need to hire more workers. Hiring more full time workers can be very costly for facilities and is simply not the most resourceful option out there.
• Allowing you and your staff to focus on your practice and core competencies. When medical facilities decide to pass on their ROI work to current staff members they are bogging down these staff members and distracting them from their actual jobs. Instead of being able to focus on patient care these staff members are now stuck dealing with procedural tasks and this is detrimental to the production of the facilities and the level of care given to their patients. The goal of all healthcare facilities is to provide the best patient care that they possibly can and this is simply not possible when staff members are overloaded with endless paperwork.
• Elimination of compliance worries, efforts, and costs. Government and HIPAA regulations are constantly evolving and becoming more complex making them very difficult to keep up with. Training to understand these regulations can be burdensome and extremely time consuming, but if these regulations are not strictly followed there can be serious consequences for healthcare providers. By outsourcing your ROI work you remove the compliance responsibilities from your practice and pass them on to professionals who work with these regulations every day.
• Faster turnaround times leading to happier, more satisfied patients. When patients can get their requested records quicker they are going to be happier with your facility and feel like they are receiving excellent care. If patients are happy they will be loyal to your practice and everyone will benefit.

How to Get Started

Outsourcing your ROI work can eliminate so many problems and stresses from you and your staff while increasing office morale and productivity. ROI is a daunting, yet important task and it should be handled by professionals. With over 23 years of experience in the industry the experts at OrderMedicalRecords.com have helped countless healthcare providers with their ROI needs and have truly provided these providers with meaningful benefits. Call or visit us online today to find out how we can benefit your facility and your patients.