Physicians Group Protects PHI While Experiencing Rapid Growth

The American Health Information Management Association’s (AHIMA) 86th Convention and Exhibit was held September 27 – October 3 in the San Diego Convention Center, and Health IT Outcomes editor John Oncea had the opportunity to speak with a wide range of attendees.

Oncea was able to speak with AHIMA members and presenters about everything from the effective management of health data, to the need for medical records to deliver quality healthcare to the public, to electronic documentation and health record management. In addition, several of healthcare’s leading vendors shared how technology is enabling HIM professionals better manage the ICD-10 transition, save health systems millions of dollars, achieve HIMSS Level 7, and achieve favorable electronic health record (EHR) implementations.

Alyssa Nole, manager of EMR operations for the Lehigh Valley Physician Group, attended AHIMA to explain how MRO helped manage LVPG's rapid growth, increasing in size to include more than 1,000 physicians at 160 practice locations. Due to this fast-paced growth, the numerous practices had variations in both PHI disclosure management processes and timelines for fulfilling patient information requests. After implementation of MRO's outsourced staff model, LVPG reduced the turnaround for ROI requests to a maximum of five days - with the team nearly always beating this timeframe - and realized cost savings through offloading ROI processes from the practices to a single on-site location. In addition, since January, MRO has begun staffing an additional 20 practices and will continue to do so until all of LVPG has transitioned to the staffed model.