Point-of-Use Charge Capture Solutions Comparison

Challenges documenting surgical supplies at the point of use

Did you know that data integrity can support surgical billing reconciliation?

When all types of inventory are reported in a consolidated reporting method, charge capture increases by 84%. If it’s that simple why do hospitals have such a hard time applying it?

Recording product usage in surgery is not straightforward. Current systems have limited efficiency in dealing with the full range of products that are consumed in surgery.

Items used include owned stock, consignment, bill-only items, and within these categories there are items that don’t have a barcode, arrive without their outer packaging, or are non-sterilized items that are part of a kit or tray.

This complicated range of medical inventory makes it hard to record every item and its associated charge.

Because there are multiple types of inventory entering the operating room, items such as “trunk stock” arrive directly to the operating room (OR) or procedure room, so are only introduced to the hospital’s system at that stage.

This creates a problem in reporting utilization using existing and traditional techniques, which require the early introduction at the database level (via their Item Master) to be able to identify and recognize items at the point of care.

Many healthcare providers end up manually updating the EHR to reflect all the items consumed in surgery, and often a post-surgery reconciliation process is also required to fix data and add missing charges.

Billing Reconciliation of Surgical Inventory

But technology is changing the game.

Using Snap & Go‘s vision technology, healthcare providers are able to identify the item at the moment of use without having to preload it to the hospital’s EMR/MMIS/ERP system, or to the Item master data list.

The system can even check a product’s safety before it’s used – by validating item integrity in terms of expiry management—even though it hit hasn’t come through the warehouse distribution channels. This prevents ‘never events‘ and boosts patient safety.

Snap & Go is capable of killing two birds with one stone, well actually many more… it tackles the source of the problem and not just the symptoms.

With accurate data capture technology, your hospital can:

• Capture all of the information you need to be able to manage your facilities and get the best out of your operating rooms and procedural rooms.
• Ensure charges will never be missed again –every cost is accurately captured and passed through to your billing system for complete revenue capture and reimbursement.
• Improve hospital inventory management and stock replenishment by using our system dashboard and reports to steer procurement, cost-reductions and wastage reductions.
• Make smarter management decision by analyzing average costs and duration of procedures, compare between surgeons and procedures, and improve demand planning and productivity through supply chain data insights into your operations.

Just by capturing full and correct data at the point of care, healthcare management becomes smarter.

Usage reporting integrity

Another feature of Snap&Go‘s comprehensive and holistic solution is the maintenance of the hospital’s catalog item list.

If we take a barcoded product as an example, there is a very specific structure that must be maintained continuously. Even a minor deviation in the coding can lead to a lack of identification of the item when it’s scanned, and that will risk non documentation, mis-documentation and a whole chain of reporting glitches. When the point of use surgical supply documentation system is ineffective this can have two serious affects:

• Financial repercussions, such as patient billing, implants that are off-contract, and non-file data issues within the patient charting process.
• Regulatory issues such as UDI documentation and the regulatory pressures to be compliant, in addition to external audits.

IDENTI taps into a global SKU database that is continually updated by customers using the system, keeping it relevant and up to date. But should there be exceptions, IDENTI’s human back-office service validates the data obtained from Snap & Go algorithm. The issue is detected when a mismatch occurs in the database. Our back-office team then steps in to correct it, adding missing information, and then reporting it to the hospital so that their item master can be updated. And all of this is achieved without clinical staff being burdened with supply chain administrative tasks.

Snap&Go next-generation charge capture tool

Snap & Go decodes images of standard surgical products to accurately identify products used at the point of care, for example in departments like the Cath lab, and IR, OR and EP labs, where surgical and interventional procedures are performed.

Snap & Go utilizes advanced image recognition technology, combined with other data captured technology like OCR, AI and machine learning, all in one platform. Backed by a rich database source of UPN & UDI catalog information, Snap & Go’s patented data-capture technology is capable of achieving 100% accuracy of product usage documentation in surgery.

The following infographic demonstrates the comparison between traditional data-capture technology such as barcode, QR code, or RFID, and the comprehensive impact of Snap & Go’s computer vision technology.

Click to Download 

Reviewing the benefits indicates that the image capture technology is more than a regular healthcare inventory management system that can offer healthcare providers to treat symptoms, but rather is also capable of solving some of the most challenging problems surgical services have.

Snap&Go is a breakthrough tool for smarter healthcare management.

If you want to ensure your point of use supply documentation is complete and correct, without the need for additional admin or audits, contact us to find out more.