New EHR Regulations Help Cut Red Tape for Physicians
Health and Human Services recently announced a new rule to cut red tape for doctors, hospitals and health plans. The new EHR regulation will adopt operating rules for making healthcare claim payments electronically.
The new set of operating rules for electronic fund transfers and electronic remittance advice is expected to save physicians time and increase patient satisfaction, according to the American Medical Association. Instead of waiting to learn a patient’s fiscal obligations for medical services, physicians can immediately determine the amount and settle payment before the patient leaves the office.
According to a study documented in the HHS News Release, the average physician spends three weeks a year on billing and insurance related tasks. In addition, in a physician’s office, you need two thirds of a full-time employee’s work for ever physician employed there to perform the necessary tasks. Many physicians in both hospitals and private practice receive and deposit paper checks, and manually post and reconcile healthcare claim payments in their accounting systems.
The new operating rules build upon industry-wide healthcare electronic fund transfer (EFT) standards that HHS adopted in January of this year. Combined, the operating rules are projected to save between $2.7 billion and $9 billion in administrative costs.
The rule is known as Administrative Simplification: Adoption of Operating Rules for Health Care Electronic Funds Transfers (EFT) and Remittance Advice Transactions. The full press release is available here; for the full regulation please check www.ofr.gov/inspection.aspx.