OIT Integrates with Medical Claims Processing Pioneers

Most companies would be thrilled beyond belief if they were able to more than quadruple their productivity.

Anesthesia Business Consultants is not like most companies.

Since its inception, Anesthesia Business Consultants has had the foresight to leverage technology in ways that have enabled it to eclipse its competition dramatically. While most companies might be complacent about doing more after experiencing a fourfold increase in productivity, Anesthesia Business Consultants had the vision to recognize that leap as merely a starting point.

background:

Anesthesia Business Consultants processes medical claims for more than 3,000 providers that represent approximately 250 different groups. The claims are then parceled out for payment through NEIC, Medicaid, Medicare, Blue Shield, and other sources. A privately held company located in Jackson, MI, they employ 250 people throughout the United States.

As one of the first companies to implement imaging, Anesthesia Business Consultants remains on the forefront of technology in the healthcare industry. Prior to 2001, their system consisted of a single-user Canon imaging system that was not connected to the network, and paper files stored in boxes. Lots of boxes.

After using this system for a period of time, Anesthesia Business Consultants measured the number of images that they were able to scan and retrieve with the system and compared their results with their manual filing system. Surprisingly, they realized that the imaging system was not an improvement over the manual system; using either method, they were only able to process a maximum of 100 images per day.

Their need was much greater than their existing capabilities.

Consequently, a team of three pioneers recommended evaluating alternative imaging solutions. Steve Berman, Vice President of Anesthesia Business Consultants, Steve Williams, Director of Networking, and Donna Perry, Vice President of Operations, evaluated several leading companies in the document management industry. While all of the companies that they considered offered elements that would improve their productivity, only one stood out for its ability to meet each of the company’s needs and simultaneously integrate with Anesthesia Business Consultants’ existing system.

After studying their options for about six months, Berman, Williams, and Perry championed Optical Image Technology, Inc.’s (OIT) DocFinity Suite as the best solution to address their need. As Berman recounts, “the single reason that we chose OIT above the other vendors was DocFinity’s ability to index on the fly.” They recognized that DocFinity was able to integrate with Anesthesia Business Consultants’ proprietary system and pull relevant information automatically, without any manual entry.

Both this discovery and the success of the solution were revolutionary. According to Berman, at that time no other company in the industry could pull information as quickly as Anesthesia Business Consultants; few can compete with them even now.

initial challenges:

Finding the right people to do the repetitive and sometimes monotonous job of prepping and scanning files was an initial hurdle, and it was one of the toughest phases during Anesthesia Business Consultants’ conversion to automation. Currently, between five and six people perform all of the prep work, which includes scanning, staple removal, and insertion of separator sheets. Another challenge was training their end users. Once these challenges were met, Anesthesia Business Consultants noticed significant increases in their capabilities.

early implementation:

As early as 2001, IntraVIEWER®, DocFinity’s Web Client, was used to automatically pull images out of Anesthesia Business Consultants’ system, simply by using the Document Control Number (DCN). This automation facilitated a dramatic increase in productivity: With IntraVIEWER, they were able to pull 30-60 images per hour, with a maximum of 480 per day. Not only was this fourfold increase a vast improvement over the previous 100 images per day; it also gave Anesthesia Business Consultants a tremendous edge over their competition. When they saw what a small-scale integration with DocFinity could accomplish, the visionaries at the company charted a course for future exponential growth.

integrations:

At this point, Anesthesia Business Consultants recognized the potential offered by DocFinity’s integration and automation capabilities. Shortly thereafter, they implemented DocFinity throughout their entire infrastructure. Initially, they interfaced DocFinity with all of their records. Currently, Anesthesia Business Consultants receives claims and images by mail and scans them with Kofax, which is also integrated with DocFinity. Anesthesia Business Consultants is able to scan 60 pages per minute, duplex.

Because DocFinity integrates with the phone system, customer service representatives are able to view relevant customer information immediately upon answering calls. DocFinity also integrates with First Anesthesia, a proprietary billing system written in Oracle. This integration provides information about the number of images that are stored under a DCN.

DocFinity also interfaces with Anesthesia Business Consultants to help expedite electronic claims to Emdeon (formerly Web MD), through which claims, in addition to some electronic remittance, are sent electronically.

current implementation:

Once Anesthesia Business Consultants had a glimpse of what their existing software could do when integrated with DocFinity, the possibilities were endless. Anesthesia Business Consultants uses several DocFinity components: Cold-Electronic Reports Manager (ERM), Imaging, IntraVIEWER & AutoArchive, Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM), and the Print/Fax Server.

Currently, they use DocFinity to store claims, images, demographic information, charges, and payment information. The only component of the business that is not stored in the system is adjunct information (such as rejections); Anesthesia Business Consultants is still contemplating the most efficient way to do this.

All of their departments are tied into DocFinity. This includes patient information, coding, procedure entry, payment posting, follow up, and customer service. Anesthesia Business Consultants’ initial processing capacity, 100 files per day, has been obliterated by its current ability. With DocFinity, Anesthesia Business Consultants is able to scan between 30,000 and 40,000 images per day, which is more than 300 times its initial capability. Currently, they are able to process approximately 10,000 claims per day. A procedure that had initially taken two-and-one-half to three weeks has now been reduced to minutes, thanks to DocFinity’s automation capabilities.

return on investment:

With their decision to implement DocFinity, Anesthesia Business Consultants has realized significant benefits. They are able to retrieve information within seconds, and no longer have to worry about lost or misplaced documents. DocFinity has simplified the auditing process and made it much more thorough. Customer service has been optimized; claims are processed quicker and money is deposited into the bank accounts faster. Most importantly, DocFinity has helped Anesthesia Business Consultants to grow, ensuring that they do not fall behind in claims processing. As Steve Berman says, “DocFinity has more than paid for itself. There’s no doubt.”

looking toward the future:

Anesthesia Business Consultants has realized from the start that if they can cut keystrokes, they can save money. With this in mind, they are looking into ways in which workflow solutions can further improve their efficiency. As Berman says, “Three things determine Anesthesia Business Consultants’ success in everything: Vision, People, and Technology. With the right vision, the right people, and the right technology, which we now have, we are bound to continue to succeed.” After all, in spite of the fact that they have increased their efficiency by almost a factor of 400, now is no time to become complacent.