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Patient Verification Helps Hospitals Deal with Decreasing Revenue as COVID-19 Cases Rise

August 31, 2021/7740 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, COVID-19, Data Integrity, Duplicate Medical Records, EHR, healthcare, Medical Record Mix-ups, Patient Errors, Patient Identification, Patient Outcomes, Patient Safety /by Matt Gibson

Hospitals and health systems are constantly being challenged by the pandemic. Sure, COVID-19 has affected virtually every business – many organizations have declared bankruptcy while others have shuttered their doors. However, most, if not all of these organizations, had their employees work from home. Healthcare providers, on the other hand, had to face unprecedented challenges head-on, such as frontline healthcare teams risking their lives, losing billions of dollars, patient verification issues, data breaches, and more.

Unfortunately, it looks like the battle with COVID-19 is far from over for healthcare providers. With the Delta variant once again wreaking havoc, caregivers are experiencing razor-thin margins. That being said, accurate patient verification CAN prevent many issues, helping hospitals survive this challenging period. Let’s take a look at a few stats that show how concerning the new variant is and how positive patient identification can help caregivers.

Some recent statistics that show a rise in margins and expenses

While things were definitely getting better with millions being vaccinated across the U.S. and businesses slowly opening up, the Delta variant of COVID-19 has struck back with full force. While healthcare providers have been facing lower losses and improved margins when compared to the first half of 2020, a new report sheds light on many facts. While many indicators show that things are going in the right direction, some show that the effects of COVID-19 are far from over.

The “median operating margin index” in June was 2.8%, excluding funding from the CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relied, and Economic Security) Act. When taking funding into account, it was 4.3%.

What do these numbers mean for hospitals and health systems? Well, it’s an increase of almost 90% (excluding CARES Act Funding) or 48.7% (including the funding) when compared to the first half of 2020. All of these numbers are based on 900 hospitals that have participated monthly for the last three years.

When it comes to patient volumes, it’s a mixed bag. Patient volumes were higher when compared to 2020, but lower than they were before the pandemic. For those who want specifics, discharges between January and June of 2021 were 10.1% higher than in the first half of 2020, but when compared to the first half of 2019, patient volumes are down 4.4%. A similar trend can be seen for ER visits in hospitals, i.e. higher than in the first half of 2020 but lower than in the first half of 2019.

Fortunately, the revenue of hospitals and health systems has increased compared to both 2020 and 2019! According to the same report mentioned above, this is because of outpatient visits. “Gross operating revenue,” excluding CARES Act funding for January to June of this year, was 18.2% higher than the same period of 2020 and 7.9% higher than the same period of 2019.

But all of these statistics look good for hospitals, right?

Well, while all of these do look good, expenses have also increased – affecting margins significantly. The first half of 2021 saw an 8.5% rise in expenses when compared to the first half of last year, and an increase of almost 10% when compared to the first half of 2019.

While margins are increasing, expenses are increasing as well

Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic is far from over – the Delta variant has reached the U.S. and has been in the news for the past few weeks. While healthcare providers have opened their doors to regular patients, COVID-19 cases are spiking once again, and this might be detrimental to hospital margins according to an official associated with the study mentioned above.

Hospitals need to identify ways to reduce losses, improve patient safety, and avoid unwanted incidents that hurt the bottom line. But how can patient verification help?

How patient verification helps improve hospital margins

Accurate patient identification has been a topic of discussion for several years now, and identification errors have also given rise to a number of studies.

Accurate patient identification helps

Prevent medical record errors such as duplicate medical records and overlays
Prevent medical identity theft in real-time
Protect patient data integrity
Reduce denied claims by ensuring accurate, consistent information within medical records
Prevent medical errors that might lead to patient safety incidents
Avoid dangerous patient mix-ups, including transplant mix-ups
Ensure CMS compliance by sending out proper e-notifications to appropriate caregivers
Improve patient outcomes
Reduce hospital readmissions

All of the above, when considered together, can drastically reduce losses and improve a hospital’s margin. We know this because our leading patient identification platform has been helping several healthcare providers for years.

Patient verification made easy with RightPatient

A number of healthcare providers have chosen RightPatient to manage their patients’ medical records. In a post-pandemic world, RightPatient’s touchless patient ID platform makes the most sense, as it keeps everyone safe by preventing physical contact (when compared to other methods of identification).

RightPatient reduces denied claims, improves patient safety, prevents duplicates and overlays, and prevents patient identity theft – boosting the bottom line of hospitals.

How are YOU planning to reduce losses and improve margins at your healthcare facility?

How to Protect Patient Information as Data Breaches Become a Topmost Concern

August 25, 2021/6737 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, Cybersecurity, Data Breach, Data Integrity, healthcare, Medical Identity Theft, Patient Data, Patient Identification, Patient Safety /by Matt Gibson

We’ve talked about data breaches in hospitals and health systems more times than we can count. Unfortunately, these unwanted incidents just keep on happening, and even when the pandemic was at its peak, hackers didn’t stop. Thus, it isn’t a surprise that many healthcare executives are wary about cyberthreats that loom in the dark, just biding their time and waiting to attack more hospitals and steal patient information. That being said, let’s take a look at some recent cyberthreats faced by hospitals, what healthcare execs are saying, and how to protect patient information even if there is a data breach.

Most healthcare experts are worried about cyber threats

Let’s take a look at some of the recent worrying trends in health IT, according to some respected healthcare executives.

Half of them stated that the frequency of cyber-attacks on healthcare facilities is one of their primary concerns now – let’s explore the issue in detail.

Out of these execs, one of them expects that this will continue to be a huge problem for the foreseeable future – a worrying but accurate prediction, unfortunately.

Another exec stated that such cyber-attacks put patient data, arguably one of the most sensitive pieces of information available within hospitals, at huge risk. We’re inclined to agree, as most data breaches end up with hackers stealing patient information and selling it to fraudsters who commit medical identity theft down the line. Many caregivers, as a result, are searching for answers to the billion-dollar question – how to protect patient information.

Another exec stated that cyberattacks are rapidly evolving as hackers come up with innovative ways to attack and lock or steal patient information – something quite challenging to keep up with.

One of the execs that is worried about cyber-attacks stated that hackers and these issues hinder them from doing their jobs properly, which is to care for their patients. He also stated that effective cybersecurity practices and far more assistance are required to tackle cybersecurity and keep costs in check.

Another of these execs predicts that more hospitals and health systems will be focused on improving some aspects such as better integration between platforms, patient consumerization, and strategies that help with cybersecurity efforts.

However, not all healthcare executives chose cyber-attacks as their primary worries.

Others chose:

The boom of startups that give unrealistic expectations, taking up a lot of money from investors.
Mergers and acquisitions.
Mandates about sharing health information that are quite unclear and might be detrimental.
Clinician burnout due to EHR coding, among other issues.
Ensuring equity during telehealth visits.

While all of them are quite valid concerns, the biggest concern is how to protect patient information effectively – healthcare data breaches are occurring as we speak.

Hospitals must protect patient information effectively as data breaches are rampant

On the 15th of April, a phishing attempt was successful – unauthorized individual(s) got access to login credentials of an employee of Orlando Family Physicians. After a thorough investigation, it was found that three other employee accounts were accessed. While the access has been revoked, over 447,000 patients were exposed, such as names, health insurance data, Social Security numbers, and more. This is just a classic case of data breaches – something that has been repeating itself for several years in many hospitals and health systems.

Fortunately, as we mentioned at the beginning of the article, doing something about protecting patient data and preventing medical identity theft IS possible – let’s see how to protect patient information even if there is a data breach.

How to protect patient information with RightPatient

RightPatient is the leading touchless patient identification platform trusted by responsible hospitals and health systems for several reasons. Firstly, it ensures accurate patient identification starting from appointment scheduling and at any touchpoint across the care continuum. Secondly, it is easy-to-use, safe, and hygienic, as the interactions are contactless – something that is extremely valuable in a post-pandemic world. Thirdly, it protects patient data and blocks fraudsters during identity verification – preventing medical identity theft in real-time.

During the registration process, the patient just needs to look at the camera – the photo taken is attached to their medical record, essentially “locking” it from being meddled with by fraudsters. When the patient returns for future visits, all the patient needs to do is look at the camera – RightPatient automatically runs a search and presents the appropriate EHR when it finds a match between the saved photo and the patient’s live image. Any fraudster attempts will be red-flagged by RightPatient during this process – stopping medical identity theft in its tracks.

How are YOU protecting your patients’ information?

Denied Medical Claims Are Costly but Preventable with Patient Identification

August 23, 2021/6981 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, Data Integrity, Denied Claims, Duplicate Medical Records, EHR, healthcare, Patient Data, Patient Identification, Patient Outcomes, Patient Safety /by Matt Gibson

The U.S. healthcare system is no stranger to problems, unfortunately. In fact, it has been plagued by a plethora of issues for several years. While some of the problems are definitely solvable, external issues alongside other factors cause the problems to continue. Some of the many problems are astronomical prices, the lack of price transparency, interoperability issues, the abundance of data breaches, medical identity theft, and patient safety issues. While we have covered some of these topics at one point or the other, let’s take a look at another crucial problem, denied medical claims, how they are problematic for everyone, and how positive patient identification can prevent them.

Denied medical claims are costly and cumbersome for everyone involved

Denied claims are not a recent problem within U.S. healthcare – most hospitals and health systems are quite familiar with them. One can safely say that denied medical claims are quite expensive – an average hospital can lose around $3.5 million due to them. However, denied claims not only affect hospitals but also insurers and patients, albeit in different ways – let’s see how.

Claim denials in a nutshell

In the U.S., healthcare is closely related to reimbursements from Medicare, Medicaid, and commercial insurers. Patients get health insurance, go to their healthcare provider, get treated, and that’s about it. However, a lot more goes on behind the scenes regarding healthcare reimbursements.

After providing healthcare services to the patients, the hospital processes the information and sends the claims to the insurance company. While healthcare providers usually get reimbursed by the payer, some of them face expensive hiccups. Due to billing or coding issues, patient identification errors, medical record mix-ups, or other problems, the payer identifies inconsistencies after receiving claims, and they might reject or deny said claims. While some claims can be resubmitted, checking for and fixing the errors is time-consuming, costly, and requires a considerable number of resources.

All of the above leads to back-and-forth exchanges between care providers and payers. Insurers have to reject claims, caregivers lose out on a significant amount of revenue, and many patients even receive shocking, incorrect bills. However, some even lose healthcare services, especially those associated with Medicaid.

Let’s take a look at a few statistics to see how Medicaid patients suffer due to denied medical claims. However, do keep in mind that denied claims can be detrimental for any patient.

A worrying study regarding denied claims

A very recent study has shed light on denied claims and how physicians or hospitals are reluctant to see Medicaid patients due to reimbursement issues.

According to the study, at least 25% of Medicaid claims have been denied upon initial submission. On the other hand, 7.3% of Medicare claims were denied whereas commercial insurers denied 4.8%.

Moreover, the study also states that around 17% of revenue is lost due to billing problems associated with Medicaid patients, whereas the numbers are quite lower for patients covered by Medicare (5%) and other payers (3%).

While any type of denied claim is extremely costly, the statistics show that the Medicaid ones are quite problematic. Moreover, since Medicaid is associated with low-income families, reimbursements are lower as well.

All of this just leads to caregivers being reluctant to look after Medicaid patients.

Denied medical claims are preventable

One of the topmost priorities of physicians and healthcare providers is to look after the patients, Medicare or otherwise. Instead of worrying about denied claims, hospitals and health systems can work on reducing or eliminating them with the right tools and strategies.

Fortunately, RightPatient, the industry’s leading touchless biometric patient identification platform, can help reduce denied claims substantially.

Denied and rejected claims typically occur because of billing and coding errors – most of which can be traced back to medical record errors, patient mix-ups, and identification issues. RightPatient eliminates all of that, and more, as it ensures that the accurate information is fed to the correct EHR at all times. As a result, billing and coding errors are drastically reduced and so are denied claims – boosting the bottom line.

How are YOU reducing denied claims in your healthcare facility?

How Identity Management in Healthcare Helps With the Interoperability & Patient Access Rule

July 14, 2021/7158 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, Data Integrity, EHR, healthcare, Patient Data, Patient Identification, Patient Outcomes, Patient Safety /by Matt Gibson

With COVID-19, telehealth, data breaches, and other challenges, healthcare providers have had their hands full. Because COVID-19 is a national health crisis, CMS pushed back compliance with its Interoperability and Patient Access rule until July 1, 2021, though it’s been effective since the start of 2021. Nevertheless, with mass vaccinations across the country, as well as hospitals slowly opening, CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) will require healthcare providers to comply from July 1. So, let’s examine a few of these requirements, the way it mandates correct information of patients, and the way proper identity management in healthcare facilities can ensure patient data integrity.

The reason CMS is gambling hugely on this rule

Like all the rules out there, the CMS Interoperability and Patient Access rule is comprehensive – the majority of it requires healthcare facilities to remove any restrictions which normally prevent patient information exchanges all across the healthcare gamut.

Under this rule, CMS plans to improve interoperability along with patient access – assisting the providers as well as patients to ensure proper healthcare outcomes.

Concerning interoperability, CMS wants the rule to aid in assisting healthcare providers to share and access patient information securely and effectively. That will assist in improving collaboration and improving healthcare outcomes as it will help make informed decisions more accurately.

On the other hand, patients, when they’ll get access to their health information, will be more involved with care decisions, increasing patient engagement.

Improving patient data access across the care continuum has several benefits such as improving healthcare outcomes, cutting costs, reducing redundant lab tests, reducing inefficiencies, and boosting collaboration among the caregivers – improving healthcare results as well. Though, all that will happen only if patient data integrity is rigorously maintained, and this requires immaculate identity management in healthcare facilities.

Healthcare providers must support e-notifications

As a segment of this rule, CMS necessitates healthcare givers (which utilize EHR systems) like critical access, acute care facilities, and psychiatric hospitals must deliver e-notifications to the patient’s other caregivers like primary care doctors, post-acute providers and suppliers, amongst other entities during ADT (admission, discharge, or transfer) events – appropriate for ED as well as inpatient admissions. This data has to consist of the patient’s basic information, the name of the sending organization, and if needed, the diagnosis of the patient.

But how does identity management in healthcare facilities play a part here?

So, patient identification in the majority of hospitals as well as health systems is yet a substantial dilemma for several causes. The outcomes can be distressing – patient misidentification can lead to making errors with medical records, mixing up patients, medical identity theft, damaging healthcare results, getting readmitted to a hospital or it could end up killing someone!

Think about it. What if an incorrect alert gets delivered to the incorrect caregiver because of a patient identification error – it would end up a disaster for everyone, if unnoticed. Not just would it impede the outcome for the patient, it would additionally compromise CMS compliance – affecting reimbursements, something that is very important for the majority of healthcare suppliers.

Whilst incorrect patient identification is quite common in the majority of healthcare facilities, reliable caregivers are utilizing RightPatient to guarantee immaculate identity management in healthcare facilities.

The Way RightPatient guarantees accurate identity management in healthcare facilities

RightPatient is the leading patient ID platform that identifies patients accurately at any touchpoint in the care continuum. By accurately identifying patient records right from registration and beyond, RightPatient prevents false alerts and ensures that the appropriate healthcare organization receives e-notifications. Since RightPatient also ensures patient data integrity by protecting patient information, it also leads to lower readmissions, boosting CMS compliance down the line. RightPatient also enhances patient safety, prevents medical errors, red-flags fraudsters in real-time – improving the bottom line in the process.

How are YOU planning to ensure CMS compliance at your healthcare facility?

Claim Denials are Damaging More Than 30 Percent of Hospitals – Are You Stopping Them?

July 12, 2021/6838 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, Data Integrity, Denied Claims, EHR, healthcare, Patient Identification, Patient Safety, Revenue Cycle Management /by Matt Gibson

Claim denials have always been a problem – it is a fact that they have occurred in all kinds of health issues for many years. Nevertheless, it got pushed to the back of the line due to the COVID-19 as well as problems with IT in the healthcare field, efforts to get people vaccinated, etc.

Sadly, claim denials have gone up – they are happening much more often now. In fact, it’s reported they have gone up 20 percent in the last 5 years! That, along with other gloomy statistics, was announced in a recent study from Harmony Healthcare. With that out of the way, it’s time to look more closely at this situation and how revenue cycle management in healthcare operations can be improved by identifying patients correctly.

A short update on claim denials

Claim denials, additionally called denied claims, are simply claims normally sent in by a healthcare supplier to the authorized payer, except for particular reasons, they were deemed “unpayable.” That occurs because of issues with coding and billing, mixing up medical records, missing filing deadlines, inadequate medical needs, or additional pertinent explanations.

So, here is what’s going on currently regarding denied claims.

Several disturbing statistics concerning denied claims

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered nearly everything to become worse, including denied claims. In fact, the earlier stated study showed a massive one-third of hospitals stated their denial rates were 10% or over. The study included more than 130 healthcare providers all over the United States and this rate of denial ranged between 6 and 13%. The accepted “danger zone” for denied claims is touted as 10%.

This study likewise explained why hospital administrators think denied claims happen. Thirty-two percent said it was caused due to coding errors while twenty percent said the reason was front-end concerns. Nonetheless, both these issues may be based on mix-ups with medical records, which comes from patients being misidentified – we will speak more on that topic later.

Whilst these revealed denied claim frequency, what’re the real issues denied claims cause?

The massive effect of denied claims

Denied claims are exceedingly expensive if faced – and may amount to around $4.9 million for the healthcare supplier. No matter how big or small a provider is, that is a huge portion of cash, and could even cause some hospitals to close.

Understand, denied claims are not merely expensive on their own, FTEs or full-time equivalents must do their best to fix any coding errors so the successive claims won’t be refused or refuted. This means the FTEs aren’t doing their normal job, which slows down other work and causes the whole process to be ineffective. Altogether, these facts cause a major blow to the bottom line of these hospitals.

As earlier stated, numerous denied claims are generated because of issues at the front end as well as coding mistakes, which happen a lot due to misidentifying patients.

The way denied claims and misidentifying patients are linked

This is very easy to figure out – it begins at the registration desk. The incorrect EHR gets noted with the patient, so, incorrect info is placed in the medical record. That may occur because of an error like an overlay or duplicate. If no one discovers the error before the treatment is concluded, the patient’s provider ends up sending the wrong claim info to the authorized payer.

As the claim is being processed, the authorized payer closely inspects it and sees there are errors, thus the claim gets denied. Misidentifying patients causes coding errors and front-end problems. These issues can be averted if the patient is identified properly.

RightPatient decreases claim denials, and goes beyond!

RightPatient helps many healthcare facilities protect millions of their patients’ records. It’s the industry’s top touchless biometric patient identification platform. It works by identifying patients via facial recognition, thus averting overlays, duplicates, and mix-ups with medical records from the beginning. Therefore, this averts the claim from being denied, thus saving hospitals lots of money. It just may be the answer you need to reducing denied claims.

The benefits of RightPatient do not end there. Besides reducing denied claims, RightPatient improves patient safety, enhances healthcare outcomes, and ensures positive patient outcomes.

Does your healthcare facility prevent denied claims efficiently?

Ensuring Data Integrity in Healthcare Facilities is Critical in a Post-Pandemic World

June 29, 2021/6516 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, Data Integrity, EHR, healthcare, Patient Data, Patient Identification, Patient Outcomes, Patient Safety /by Matt Gibson

Starting on a positive note, it’s safe to say that we’ve seen the worst of the pandemic, at least in the U.S. Now that over 310 million Americans are vaccinated against the notorious COVID-19, almost everything is slowly but surely returning to the “old normal”. We’re saying “almost” because COVID-19 is still affecting a lot of people, businesses, institutions, and industries. The U.S. healthcare system, for instance, arguably faced the worst challenges it has ever had last year, leading to astronomical losses. While providers are opening their doors slowly, it’s estimated that they will face collective losses of over $120 billion this year. This makes it quite clear – hospitals need to implement strategies that can reduce losses, and ensuring patient data integrity in healthcare facilities might just be the answer, leading to improved quality and safety in healthcare – let’s dive deep.

How COVID-19 changed our realities

Well, even if you’ve been living under a rock, you’d have noticed that the entire world changed last year. Social gatherings, sporting events, rallies, basically anything that included a large number of people were suspended and lockdowns were imposed to flatten the curve and reduce the infection rate. While different countries implemented lockdowns differently, all of them had one thing in common – the healthcare systems were shaken to their cores due to the unprecedented challenges.

COVID-19 was devastating for healthcare providers

In the U.S., hospitals had to suspend their regular operations, elective procedures, and in-person visits to take care of the COVID-19 patients. Healthcare teams and frontline workers did everything possible to fight COVID-19 as they risked their lives. As a result, hospitals had to cut off sources that normally would bring in revenue, and losses were around $323 billion last year. Surgeries usually are a huge source of revenue for healthcare organizations, and as they were postponed indefinitely, hospital finances plummeted.

Before going into how ensuring patient data integrity in healthcare facilities can reduce significant losses down the line, let’s take a look at some stats regarding surgeries.

Some worrying stats regarding surgeries

According to research conducted by McKinsey & Company, hospitals and health systems saw (on average) a 35% decline in surgical cases from March 2020 to July 2020. The same research also mentions that working on this backlog might require at least two years even if facilities can operate at 110% capacity!

According to additional research, elective surgeries declined by around 193% after CMS recommended healthcare providers postpone non-emergency procedures back in 2020 – leading to unprecedented losses.

Moreover, only half of the healthcare providers want to implement strategies or solutions that can help them deal with this growing backlog. Moreover, around 80% of these same individuals believe that they can grow next year.

What they are failing to realize is that times have changed and so has the healthcare space. Telehealth is dominating and everyone is worried about hospital-acquired infections – healthcare has changed significantly. In this case, the hospitals and clinics that adapt themselves to the new changes will be the ones that will not only survive but will also thrive in the long run. While data integrity in healthcare has been sidelined during the pandemic, ensuring it becomes an important priority now can make all the difference.

But how is that relevant to surgeries?

Patient data integrity in healthcare facilities can go a long way

Well, collecting and analyzing data properly can prevent losses, ensure smoother operations, and lead to boosted bottom lines. In fact, healthcare organizations that properly utilize data can make accurate forecasts, provide improved healthcare outcomes, and prevent medical errors. One of the key components of that is patient data – something which must be accurate at all costs.

Ensuring patient data integrity in healthcare facilities can be challenging, but using the proper tools can drastically reduce adverse effects.

For instance, patient data integrity failure can lead to duplicate medical records or overlays, patient safety incidents, detrimental healthcare outcomes, patient mix-ups, wrong procedures, and more. However, RightPatient is a solution that ensures patient data integrity right off the bat.

RightPatient ensures patient data integrity in healthcare facilities

RightPatient is a robust touchless patient identification platform that solves one of the most crucial but overlooked issues of healthcare – patient misidentification. However, it brings several other benefits to healthcare providers and their patients.

By ensuring that the accurate medical record is used every time the registered patient comes in, RightPatient prevents mix-ups and duplicates, ensures patient data integrity, and ensures that data quality is maintained at all times.

RightPatient has been proudly protecting millions of patient records at several hospitals for years now with positive patient identification – are you protecting your patients properly?

Improving Healthcare Outcomes with 4 Strategies

June 3, 2021/7639 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, Data Integrity, EHR, healthcare, Patient Data, Patient Identification, Patient Outcomes, Patient Safety /by Matt Gibson

COVID-19 has the U.S. healthcare system sweating through probably the most volatile phase in its history. Hospitals are opening up their doors and gradually receiving patients as things are getting much better with the distribution of vaccines. However, the danger of underlying issues that have plagued the healthcare system for decades still remains. Despite these problems, the burden of hospitals providing immaculate healthcare services is still there. That being said, here are some of the practices that can help hospitals with improving healthcare outcomes and reducing their issues.

Improving healthcare outcomes is a major priority currently

Administering proper care at the proper time and the avoidance of patient safety incidents is a major objective of hospitals. Thus, hospitals are under pressure to implement relevant strategies and solutions that will enhance their effectiveness. This includes partnering with other care providers to protect patient data integrity. While implementing some of these strategies can be pretty expensive, they do help with improving healthcare outcomes – here are some of the most important ones:

Ensuring efficient collaboration with the patients’ care providers

The right kind of collaboration is important in healthcare nowadays and CMS has established new conditions that require caregivers to work together. It has upped the ante on the degree of seriousness of it all.

So, what is the correlation between collaboration and patient outcomes? How does it work to improve healthcare outcomes?

Before terms such as interoperability and collaboration existed, people often were loyal to a single healthcare facility. This has changed, especially with data sharing, EHRs, and interoperability – patients are now free to visit multiple caregivers for treatments to their various conditions and ailments. There might be an interrelation between patients’ conditions and this provides ground for caregivers to associate to ensure that they obtain all the necessary data and up-to-date information that will enable them to make the best decisions with regards to handling the patient and thus improving healthcare outcomes.

A hospital that is open to collaboration and the implementation of required strategies and relevant solutions will go a long way in helping to improve patient outcomes. The CMS requirements mandate that caregivers support sending and receiving electronic notifications during ADT events that provide updated information about a patient’s condition. RightPatient is a useful tool that caregivers can use to ensure the proper identification of patients and prevent false alerts – more on that later.

Ensuring patient data integrity

The integrity of patient data is often overlooked when it comes to its effects on healthcare outcomes but it is crucial nonetheless. Inadequate positive patient identification can ultimately affect the integrity of patient data. This occurs when a patient is treated with the medical record of another patient or the data gets corrupted in the EHR as the wrong information gets saved in it. When the actual patient comes in for treatment, he gets the wrong administration due to inaccurate information. Thus, medical errors arise, leading to incorrect treatment plans, wrong medication, and more, which lead to negative healthcare outcomes.

Impersonation by a fraudster can also lead to the compromise of patient data integrity – it occurs during medical identity theft. This case is similar to patient misidentification, the only difference might just be that the impersonator does it deliberately. The fraudster receiving the treatment then gets his/her information added into the victim’s EHR thus corrupting patient data. If this passes on undetected, the victim could end up undergoing the wrong treatment procedure.

Therefore, a patient’s data has to be protected against tampering to further improve the healthcare outcome of the patients due to the reception of the proper treatment on schedule.

Avoiding preventable medical errors

The focus has also shifted to limiting the occurrence of otherwise avoidable medical errors. The statistics behind such errors are quite alarming. These are common as a result of technical errors, medication errors, medical record mix-ups, wrong information, and so on. Poor patient identification is also responsible for most of the preventable medical errors. Thus, if patients can be accurately identified, then it will significantly improve patient outcomes.

Preventing patient misidentification

The common problem in all the scenarios above is patient identification errors. It causes a huge problem for hospitals and health systems in general as discussed earlier. With patient misidentification, patient safety can be jeopardized with false alerts rampant during collaboration with other caregivers, sharing corrupted patient information, and the consequence is medical error. The bottom line is that misidentification can affect healthcare outcomes and it can even lead to the death of patients.

Fortunately, accurate patient identification with RightPatient can help improve healthcare outcomes.

RightPatient has been helping improve patient safety

RightPatient, with its touchless biometric patient identification platform, has become the top choice for several healthcare providers. It has helped them to enhance patient safety, improve patient healthcare outcomes, and reduce the occurrence of medical errors. The benefits are numerous for both patients and caregivers and this includes safety – it is contactless and perfect for use in a post-pandemic world.

Current Challenges in Clinical Research that Hamper Trials

June 1, 2021/7381 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, Clinical Trials, Data Integrity, Patient Data, Patient Identification, Patient Safety, Professional Patients, Research /by Matt Gibson

Clinical trials have existed for a long time but they became even more important when COVID-19 raged. Traditionally, all vaccines, medical devices, and beneficial drugs designed for specific diseases are created by carrying out intensive tests to ascertain their safety and viability in treating the disease through clinical trials. The process of a clinical trial can be excruciatingly long and laborious with several factors that could deter its progress and success. We will discuss the notable challenges common to clinical research, how it affects the process and the results of clinical trials, how sponsors and Principal Investigators (PIs) leave crucial issues out unsorted, and how to best take advantage of patient identity verification.

Preventing professional patients is possible with RightPatient.

Current challenges in clinical research

Arduous, dangerous, time-intensive, and complex are the words that can fully capture the nature of the process that surrounds clinical trials. The trial is supervised by Sponsors and PIs to ensure that there are no violations of the rules and regulations to the letter such as the enrollment of the right amount of patients that fit the required conditions for the trials. They are also tasked with the stringent management of several trial sites. Here are some of the challenges that oppose the success of clinical trials.

Patient recruitment can pose a huge challenge

The most recurrent aspect in the list of current challenges in clinical research that often occurs right from the conception of the idea of a clinical trial is the issue of patient recruitment. Some of the problems, in this case, include the unresponsiveness of patients, the attraction of patients with conditions that do not fit the subject of the test, or poorly performing research sites. These could end the clinical trial before it even starts. If we are to delve into the lengthy list of the challenges of patient recruitment, it would take an entirely different article of its own.

The focus here is that there can be no clinical trial if test subjects are not available or they do not fit the criteria for the trial. The problems that may arise from the trials may result from the fact that research data was not enough to affirm the drug/vaccine’s effectiveness. Irrespective of the promising nature of the agent, the drug may fail to progress to the subsequent phases necessary for approval for general use.

Designing trials that ensure success

The process of designing a successful clinical trial is also one of the top challenges because it has to satisfy everyone. At the start, it was not so complex, all rules and regulations were often in their infancy, and things were always pretty easy.

RightPatient-prevents-professional-study-subjects-in-clinical-trials

Current challenges in clinical trials – RightPatient addresses the overlooked one.

Modern clinical trials, however, have taken on a new shape of complexity with rules that must be adhered to from top to bottom. It must be simple for patients to understand and obey, it must proffer answers to rather difficult questions in the right way, and ultimately, it must satisfy the necessary stakeholders. Meeting expectations in a trial design is not easy. This makes it one of the most consistent of the current challenges in clinical research.

Ensuring and maintaining compliance with the rules and regulations

The healthcare industry is a highly monitored sector because of the gravity of the healthcare outcomes of patients in the system. The subsequent products of clinical trials such as drugs, vaccines, treatment processes, and medical devices represent outcomes, they are also subject to heavy regulations.

The existence and importance of the regulations are relateable but it also makes for a herculean task in strict compliance. The slightest discrepancy could hinder the trial and lead to a huge financial loss running up to millions. Maintaining and ensuring compliance remains a great challenge with unlimited imposed regulations.

Preventing professional patients

Professional patients is not a commonly discussed term whenever issues related to current challenges in clinical research are raised. Nonetheless, it is also a crucial issue. It goes by different terms like “professional study subjects” and “duplicate study subjects”, and they are individuals who are capable of thwarting the credibility of clinical trials. They are culpable for participating in multiple trials simultaneously or consecutively, thereby influencing ruining the overall results of the trials that follow.

A relevant illustration is that of a duplicate study subject that has been diagnosed with a heart condition and has participated in a trial and received dosages of an experimental drug. The subject then goes almost immediately to partake in another trial. The problem lies in the fact that the initial drug is still in their system and it will project wrongly on the second trial. There is also the danger attached to going to multiple trials as it will not only skew the results of the trials but will also be harmful to them.

These types of patients affect the integrity of clinical trials while also presenting a danger to their health. In addition, they could lead to losses worth millions and can lead to experimental agents being deemed as failures because of skewed results. Fortunately, RightPatient can prevent

If you are looking for the right tool to help in dealing with professional patients in clinical trials, you can count on RightPatient. It is a trusted touchless patient identification platform that has earned great reviews from top healthcare providers. It has ample capabilities and experience that could put an end to issues of professional patients effectively. The platform could help to save millions worth of losses, and mitigate delays in approvals, and enhancing the integrity of trials. RightPatient is the perfect way to prevent professional study subjects in clinical trials.

How Professional Patients are One of the Crucial Challenges of Clinical Trials

May 28, 2021/6498 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, Clinical Trials, Data Integrity, Patient Data, Patient Identification, Patient Safety, Professional Patients, Research /by Matt Gibson

Clinical trials have been around for years. They’re often a way of testing new treatments on people who are already requiring treatment for something. For those with terminal diagnoses, they may prolong life or improve the quality of their remaining time. Chronic conditions may be alleviated, and treatment once considered experimental and new may become mainstream after a successful clinical trial. They might allow the development of new drugs or instead, look at prevention or better diagnosis of disease. Clinical trials can help establish whether screening, imaging, or testing can assist early diagnosis or investigate how best to support those people diagnosed with a particular disease. However, all of these can be damaged by the challenges of clinical trials, and one of the overlooked ones is professional study subjects – let’s see how.

Clinical trials attract different types of individuals

For some, a clinical trial can simply be a way of getting a free treatment or being paid for the time the trial takes. Some patients will use any underhand means at their disposal to ensure their place on these trials, as for them, they are lucrative little earners. So many people are living with multiple illnesses that simply paying for all the medications can get expensive. Any chance that they find to try something for free is a lucky break for their finances. Then, many individuals are more altruistic. They simply want the chance to take part in something which might potentially change the course of treatment for other patients, some of whom may be their loved ones.

So, it was with the trials of the COVID-19 vaccines. The light at the end of the pandemic tunnel; a chance to gain a measure of protection against this virulent disease. Some people, however, were purely in the trials for their own ends. They wanted the vaccine first, both doses, and they would stop at nothing to get it – the majority of the trials face these types of individuals.

So how could these professional study subjects play the system like this and become one of the overlooked challenges of clinical trials? Lax patient identification is not the only answer, it’s far more complicated than that.

One way these professional study subjects game the system is to ignore the terms and conditions of the trial. They maintain they meet the criteria, when in fact they have an underlying condition that would automatically exclude them from taking part. Or they choose not to disclose that they are already participating in another trial when the rules of the second trial they are applying for clearly state that it must be the only trial they are enrolled in at any time.
Earning money may not be the sole motivator for everyone. Some people like to take advantage of freebies to save money on their medical bills. Others could have more nefarious reasons, like acquiring the drugs for recreational purposes. There is also a group of professional patients who hope the medicine or treatment being trialed will stop or slow down their disease, even if that’s not the prime reason for the trial. These patients are more likely to travel long distances to ensure they are in the group testing the new treatment, rather than receiving a placebo. They may also enroll in multiple sites under different identities. This has the potential to skew the results of the trial, which could affect the chances of a treatment being brought to the market.

Assuming a false identity is the way many of these professional patients get around the rules on participating in clinical trials. If they look alike, they could masquerade as their sibling, or simply purchase a forged identity online for a fraction of the money they stand to earn from the trial. For those who know where to look, fake documents are available for $50 to $100, and the earnings from a trial could run into thousands of dollars for each participant.
These professional patients are willing to game the system in any way possible. Even falsifying participation is not unknown – saying they took the drugs when they haven’t. That means they won’t show any effects, although they will still be treated as a trial member. If enough people on one trial game the system in various ways, the results could be irretrievably altered, and the rollout could be delayed or halted, no matter how promising the previous work had looked.

RightPatient prevents professional patients

Using a touchless biometric patient identification platform like RightPatient can prevent one of the overlooked but crucial challenges of clinical trials. It can detect blacklisted participants who try to use the trial to their own ends – eliminating professional patients in clinical trials. This increases the integrity of the trial and ultimately improves results. Because it allows accurate recording of someone’s participation in the trial, it prevents fraud, wasted effort, and delayed approvals – saving millions in the process and preventing trials from being shut down.

Clinical trials can benefit from using the RightPatient platform to correctly identify their trial participants. The trials will have accurate data, and the patients’ records will be correctly updated with their participation and the outcome.

The Advantages of Telehealth and Why Hospitals Must be Cautious With It

May 26, 2021/8208 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG, healthcare, Medical Identity Theft, Patient Data, Patient Errors, Patient Identification, Patient Outcomes, Patient Safety, Privacy, Telehealth /by Matt Gibson

Telehealth has been around for a while now, even if it only came to prominence during the last year. A paper from the University of California, Davis suggests that telehealth started in the early 1960s. Authoritative websites run by major healthcare providers have been around for at least 20 years. The last year or so has seen remote solutions come into their own, with regular consultations held by video call, support groups for all kinds of ailments moving to online platforms, and routine telephone screening used to allocate patients to the appropriate staff member – exposing virtually everyone to the advantages of telehealth.

Given the pandemic, people were told to shelter in place. The healthcare system had no spare capacity to deal with seeing patients face to face. Patients were told not to attend the hospital or their regular clinic. Elective surgeries were canceled and routine appointments became virtual, conducted first by telephone and then by video call. The stuff of science fiction suddenly hit the mainstream – slowly demonstrating the advantages of telehealth.

Medical staff members are dealing with ever more complicated cases, among other things. Anything which can simplify and streamline this necessary engagement has to be tried, at least. The pandemic allowed a trial that otherwise might have been seen as driving patients away.

Remote healthcare has been growing in the last few decades. From emails requesting medical records or consultant second opinions, to routine online forms to fill out for regular repeat prescriptions or book appointments, the ability to integrate technology in healthcare is clear. Many primary healthcare practitioners no longer accept requests for repeat prescriptions by telephone but instead require patients to fill in their details online. Imaging reports can be filed online and shared electronically with a patient’s care team, while telephone or video consultations can save a patient having to visit the clinic unless a physical exam is necessary. This may allow the patient to fit the call into a scheduled break at work or arrange for others to take care of dependents for a short time.

The advantages of telehealth everyone loves

Telehealth does not necessarily even need anything more than a cellphone connection. A video connection may be preferable in some cases, but most screening and initial consultations can be carried out over the phone. No costly and time-consuming travel for the patient, no risk of delays for the practitioner. In these times of social distancing, it is best to minimize in-person contact, and telehealth is ideal for this. Patients who have been advised to shelter in place can still receive advice, treatment, prescriptions, and counseling with no risk to themselves or their specialist.

Telehealth also speeds up the sharing of information between healthcare teams. A report and images can be shared by email over a secure link far quicker than a physical package can be delivered. Sharing patient information online can expedite care, which in turn can improve patient outcomes, quality, and safety in healthcare.

Telehealth needs to be used with caution

While there are numerous advantages of telehealth, it still needs to be used with caution. Technology can be used to help healthcare, as long as it is used securely and correctly. No one wants a patient safety incident resulting from misdirected confidential information or an incorrect bill, after all. Telehealth is more than simply a way to help hospitals improve their finances. Facilities need to ensure they can demonstrate to patients and staff that telehealth is secure as well as slick. It can allow patients to access healthcare when they wouldn’t otherwise be able to, as it will put them in touch with a regular member of their team who is familiar with their case. This means a higher quality of care than if the patient was simply searching online for treatment options.

One option which is not mentioned so often is that telehealth visits can be billed faster. Good for the provider, not so great for the patient, who may also have to attend an in-person appointment for a physical examination after screening. Both the initial virtual consultation and the appointment on site are likely to be chargeable, even though initial screening has often previously been free. Some providers may decide to offer a package of mixed virtual and face-to-face appointments, but should always make this clear to the patient.

Telehealth is not for everyone

Telehealth is convenient for those who are busy and anyone who can get to grips with new software quickly. For patients who are not technologically aware, anyone who lives off the beaten track, in rural locations, or off-grid altogether, it is likely to be more of a challenge to access. Virtual consultations have their place, but in-person healthcare must remain for those who cannot or choose not to access it online.

Some patients will, after all, have reservations about virtual appointments due to concerns about data and personal security. A biometric touchless patient identification platform like RightPatient may help calm their worries. Because it is biometric rather than in-person or touchscreen activated, it can prevent medical identity theft during both telehealth or in-person visits.