How Automated Document Management Works to Keep Your Healthcare Organization Compliant

Maintaining compliance is a vital, but challenging requirement for many healthcare organizations. Healthcare in the U.S. is one of the most highly regulated industries. HIPAA, the HITECH Act, protecting PII, billing practices, maintaining patient confidentiality—these are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to compliance in the medical industry.  

While there’s no one guaranteed way to ensure that your organization consistently maintains compliance, there is a tool that can eliminate some of the headaches around processing and protecting your most important data: automated document management.  

In this blog, we’ll look in-depth at where automation can fit into your existing document management processes and how it works to keep your organization compliant, regardless of your business’s size, complexity, or headcount.  

What Determines Healthcare Compliance Regulations? 

There are 3 main pillars of compliance standards found universally across various healthcare industry regulations. These are: 

• Patient safety 
• Patient privacy 
• Billing of services 

These 3 requirements ensure that patients receive high-quality care while keeping their most important, personal information secure. While these may sound like common sense items, the consequences of operating in an organization that neglects any of these 3 areas can be dire—for staff, for patients, and for the business at large.  

This is where automated document management comes in. Instead of tasking staff with mundane, repetitive tasks like manual patient data entry, extensive paperwork organizing and filing, or performing constant payment authorizations, an automated solution can streamline and simplify these processes while maintaining important security standards. 

Let’s take a closer look at how automated document management can impact your healthcare organization.   

What Automated Document Management Can Do for Your Healthcare Organization 

There are many ways that automation can impact your organization’s overall performance, but let’s start with a few big-ticket items that can make or break a business.  

For Your Operations 

Human error is one of the biggest risks to operational tasks—and healthcare organizations are no exception. With medical professionals on the front lines and the back offices reporting some of the highest burnout rates among working adults, it’s no wonder that even the most important, scrutinized processes can fall victim to costly mistakes. 

Enter automation. With common documents like patient intake forms, payment files, and other patient data often requiring manual input, your business’s back-office staff may face day-to-day operations bogged down with repetitive typing and filing. Document management becomes far easier with automation, as it works to sort through this important information more efficiently, sorting, itemizing, and storing these items far more rapidly than a single employee could. This frees up staff for other, more patient-oriented tasks, like establishing themselves as familiar, trusted resources for common questions and concerns.  

For Your Security 

PII is some of the most sought-after information for hackers and other cybercriminals. With an automated document management solution, this highly sensitive data can be further protected by controls of your organization’s choice. This can range from customized access permissions to encryption, ensuring that all data is secured based on its relevancy and risk level. 

Additionally, automation reduces the risk to physical files and documents as they will be digitized and stored in the system in the cloud.  

Where Automated Document Management Fits into Your Business 

As a very document-heavy industry, storing, managing, and protecting patient files is paramount. With automation, traditional processes can be transformed to be more efficient, effective, and secure. This can look like: 

• OCR technology that intelligently reads and interprets specified data from incoming documents.  

• Automatic storage of patient information once it’s been received from insurance providers.  

• A digital “file cabinet” that can be accessed anywhere, anytime by approved users. 

• Reduced staff time spent manually writing and processing patient documents.  

• Streamlined search, storage, and retrieval of patient files. 

• Automatic file routing that allows important documents to be shared easily throughout your organization.  

If your healthcare organization is looking for an automation partner to streamline your important processes, DocuPhase is here to help. Schedule a demo with one of our automation experts today!