Healthcare is a document-intensive industry where the use of paper forms in the transmission of healthcare data is a slow, inefficient and expensive process.
As an answer to the great demand for faster, more efficient healthcare processing, the Federal government formed the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI). This, in coordination with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) has paved the way for the transformation of documentation systems in healthcare. Pursuant to the rules of HIPAA, data in healthcare was standardized and is now transmitted via Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). This major development has greatly helped to simplify the job of medical scheduling service providers.
How EDI Works in the Medical Scheduling Industry
Healthcare EDI is a systematic way of transmitting data. It provides a secure electronic data interchange among major players in the medical, healthcare, insurance and medical scheduling industries. It is a secure and efficient way for processing and transmitting healthcare information.
EDI works with standard messaging formats. It enables different organizations in the medical and health care industries to communicate with and understand one another especially in the areas of processing payments, claims, and eligibility.
Healthcare EDI uses software that converts documents into machine language and assigns transaction codes to every document. Each transaction is assigned a unique name and number. The data is then transmitted to the recipient’s EDI software and converted back into document form to make them readable as they reach the recipient.
Benefits of EDI in Healthcare and Medical Scheduling Industries
The global healthcare EDI market was valued at $3.63 billion in 2018. It is also expected to reach $6.72 billion by 2026, according to Verified Market Research. EDI is a fast-growing industry especially in the healthcare and allied industries. The rising popularity and rapid growth of this new data transmission system is largely attributable to the benefits it can deliver:
Standardization
The objective of HIPAA in using electronic data interchange is clear: To establish standards that ensure privacy, security, and accuracy of data in electronic healthcare transactions including workers comp medical scheduling.
Cost Savings
Healthcare transactions through EDI minimizes the use of paper and the legwork involved in processing healthcare documents. The processing of digitized transactions can help to generate significant savings.
Security
EDI in healthcare is regulated by HIPAA. Its transactions are accessible only to authorized users. It works to ensure the safe and secure transmission of data between us and our counterparts in the healthcare industry.
Enhanced Productivity
We are all aware of the fact that the electronic processing of data is hundreds of times faster than manual processing. This increases output and reduces not only the processing times but the number of people required to work on healthcare transactions. The decrease in processing time allows our staff to work on other important tasks and enable them to serve our clients more efficiently.
The accuracy of data, increase in processing speed, and reduction of costs are just a few of the benefits we gladly offer to our customers.
Contact us at (866) 214-5920 to learn how we can help your business!
