Agenda - 10-16-2012 - 5j - Laserfiche WebLink

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1 ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS ACTION AGENDA ITEM ABSTRACT Meeting Date:October 16, 2012 Action Agenda Item No.5-j SUBJECT: Electronic Medical Record/Practice Management System Replacement DEPARTMENT:PUBLIC HEARING: (Y/N)No Health ATTACHMENT(S):INFORMATION CONTACT : Dr. Colleen Bridger,(919) 245-2412 PURPOSE: To approve the replacement of the Health Department’s Electronic Medical Record/Practice Management System with the purchase of the Patagonia Health Electronic Medical Record/Practice Management Systemwith existing Medicaid Cost Settlement funds. BACKGROUND: Three years ago, the North Carolina Departmentof Health and Human Services (DHHS) required adoption of HIS (Health Information System) as the Practice Management(PM) system for local health clinics. After roll-out and ongoing problems with the system resulting in significant efficiency and billing losses, counties petitioned the state to allow them to “opt out” of the system and purchase commercial PM systems like those used by private providers and hospitals – necessarily more developed as user-friendly and high- efficiency billing systems. There are significant problems with the current Practice Management/Electronic Medical Record (PM/EMR) billing/revenue/reporting systems.The ability to produce high-level reports isnot built into the system, making strategic decision-making difficult. Currently, Health Department staff working on rebilling of denied claims is over one year behind, making it difficult to catch repetitive errors in a timely fashion. Custom reports indicate the Health Department’sbilling efficiency is at around 40% of billable charges ($355,250 payments on $711,100 claims). This short-fall is largely due to a combination of (1) consistently inaccurate reporting, (2) non-existent data-checking before billing, (3) inefficient re-billing of denied claims and (4) a lack of high-level reporting tools to increase billing quality improvement. Bringing thebilling percentage to 70% of payments on billable services (from 40%) would yield an increase in additional revenue of $210,263in year two (see table below). As of 2012, counties are allowed to opt-out of HIS. Simultaneously, counties are recognizing the benefits of moving to electronic charting of not just the billing records (the “PM” piece), but also the clinical data Electronic Medical Record (EMR).A vendor search and rating project by GastonCounty, in conjunction with acollection of the state’s local health directors, vetted over fifty different hospital PM/EMRs by cost and features, as measured by user surveys and demonstrations.