Locating a particular document, file, or record, and delivering it for use is nothing but record retrieval. Multiple record retrieval companies provide retrieval services to claim assistants, also attorneys and medical professionals as well. Complying to the HIPAA norms, processing, and handling required documents including, but not limited to authorization to release medical records, notices, notice of privacy practices, these record retrieval companies collect medical documents either manually, electronically using faxes or emails and even directly accessing EMR for document downloads. These companies put a lot of effort into collecting documents from various locations and dispatching to the right claim companies or law firms. A lot of data is collected with every such activity.

Are these companies doing justice to the data that they are collecting? Are companies just busy focusing legal aspects of collecting and just delivering bundles of medical records? Should retrieval process climb the next level of medical record handling service? Being part of the BIG data produced, can some process be developed to use the information that we collect for the betterment of society which can be the next level for the healthcare industry as well? Can the medical record handling be broadened and deepened? Whoa….. whoa…..!!!!! Lots of questions! And here are the answers…

Record retrieval companies traffic and manage a lot of medical data daily. As mentioned earlier it can be a part of BIG data and a prodigious record collection. There are multiple ways this data and records can be processed to give better deliverables to the customer. The product can be more meaningful in terms of useful data presented in the right way, which can reduce further processing time and can be cost-effective.

So, if we consider the medical records only as a primary factor which can be utilized to add services to the current plain record retrievals there are many options one can think of to make the final product more purposeful.

Medical Record Reorganization

Records are collected from various locations like hospitals and clinics, where pages are not arranged in a systematic way, there is no sequencing, instances of missing records. Medical record reorganization service provides an apt solution for the cluttered mess of documents. The medical records can be arranged based on locations, based on dates, or based on event sequences for the treatment given to the patient. There are multiple types by which the medical records can be reorganized and customized approach helps to cater the customers’ needs and requirement.

Features Of The Organization Service

• Records organized by dates and locations.
• Medical records are separated from administrative, legal and billing records saves time.
• Easy to trace the missing records, incomplete records, and illegible records.
• Time-saving in assessing the records facilitating accelerated claim or judicial processes.
• Cost-effective due to time-saving.
• Giving opportunity to the end client to focus on the prime areas.
• Well-organized and well-listed documents are easy to handle.
• Adding features of bookmark or commenting box creation for any medical records adds to effortless review.
• Eliminating redundant data review by marking and separating duplicate records.

Medical Record Indexing

Medical records used by claim adjusters or law firms are retrieved in batches, which might be months apart. To process such batches after a long gap proves a little difficult for the adjusters or insurance company. Medical record indexing is a service which provides a solution by creating separate sections for every document type for every patient, which can be updated when a new batch of documents is received. It is again a record sorting process but more focused on tracing the patient’s claim number, case number, SSN number to make sure that the claim adjuster or attorney gets the right documents for the right claim readily sorted and arranged.

Features of the Indexing Service

• Records are sorted based claim numbers
• Further organized based on type of record and date of record
• Helps the claim adjusters to effortless juggle between multiple claims of the same patient
• Easy assessment of the records to understand necessity for additional medical documents
• Smooth traceability of the treatment events
• Time-saving to meet the timelines of the claim processing
• Cost effective as less manpower is utilized to process claim documents
• Focus can be given to the actual work

Medical Record Summarization

The end customer to handle medical records is normally from a non-medical background and requires to put a lot of effort to go through the medical data captured in the given record. Sometimes the handwritten words, sometimes the abbreviations used or sometimes some symbols used in the document can take a very long time to understand and comprehend the data. It is also sometimes very difficult to go through very big documents such as IME reviews. Medical data summarization is the finest solution provided to overcome these problems faced. Well-organized pages and well-comprehended medical data provide advantage while assessing the medical records.

Features of the Summarization Service

• Well-comprehended data reduces review time.
• Customized hyperlinking provided during summarization can always help to connect to the source document wherever required
• Redundant data in the medical records is omitted and only required data is put in standardized structured format (Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan)
• Each visit summarized separately even in a treatment log accelerates the review time.
• Cost-effective and time-saving.
• Details of the summary for visit like provider name, location name, and dates involved adds value to the summary.
• Billing of the respective visit dates can be summarized for additional information.

Medical Review

Detailed summary of the medical records submitted to claim executive or law firms help in reducing their endless efforts of reorganization and comprehension of medical data. The pre-fabricated medical review not only saves time but also add inputs to the claim settlement or lawsuit hearings.

Are only medical records be considered for additional services any record retrieval company can offer? Of course not! If companies decide to utilize the tool, what current era is using, they can provide services which will help the claim companies, law firms and also the hospitals and doctors to analyse multiple aspects of the healthcare. This tool is nothing but analytics.

There is no secret that the BIG data analytics is changing the healthcare world today. Providing analytical services to both ends, the hospitals/clinic, and the law firms or claim firms will help to increase business value.

Data Analytics

Following are the endpoint which can be considered for providing analytical services:

• Analysis of the more effective treatment and least effective treatment rendered by a physician.
• Most treated disease condition in the given hospital or highest number of specific disease population can help claim firms to rethink on the claim structures.
• Most treated disease condition in the given hospital or highest number of specific disease population can help hospital to re-evaluate the protocols set for that disease treatment to improve effectiveness of the treatment.
• Predictive analysis based on the given data from multiple centres can be used as a foresight to battle with many diseases.
• The medical data analysis also can be used for scientific research for personalized medicines.
• Analytic conclusions from the data can be shared with government health bodies to take necessary precautionary steps.

This is just a beginning of the extensive services that a medical record retrieval company can provide to the end customers while processing the medical records. Will it consume all the energy to in giving these additional services? No, these processes can be managed via a third party and also can be managed offshore. There are companies with healthcare domain experts on-board and capacities to handle voluminous data can be the part of developing these appendages to the main business.