The healthcare industry is built in such a way that there are hoops, snags, and lots of red tape to get through in virtually any process no matter how small. Much of this is necessary for protection of all involved, including patients, administrative staff, and healthcare professionals.
However, some of the most common problems surrounding healthcare have little to do with hands-on care, and everything to do with the administrative side, and many of them are all about anything that can happen when handling insurance in any capacity. From beginning to end; from patients giving information, to front end staff entering that information, to sending claims information to insurance companies, and to claims processing, there are numerous weak points where errors can occur.
The fact is that nearly a quarter of all medical spending in the US has to do with administrative overhead, and so much of this can be blamed solely on challenges surrounding medical insurance. Some of the most common errors are things such as incorrect patient or payer information, outdated benefits information, lapsed coverage, and simple key errors on initial intake forms.
These issues have been present for many years, but the COVID pandemic beginning in 2020, has only exacerbated challenges that were already present.
Prior to the pandemic, many insurance companies did not cover telehealth visits and Medicaid, for instance, only covered them for rural patients. This might not have been a major concern before 2020, however the pandemic changed so much about how we do things in everyday life, and certainly the healthcare industry was deeply impacted.
The sudden shift in healthcare meant a sudden need for telehealth visits to become the norm rather than the exception. While this has obviously been convenient in many ways, it has also added to the potential for insurance errors. For instance, many remote healthcare professionals, who are obviously unaccustomed to dealing with the administrative side of things, do not have front end office staff and are having to handle insurance themselves.
While the errors and challenges surrounding medical insurance can seem overwhelming and chaotic, we do have the technology available to handle these processes in a different way. AI integration in other industries has helped to diminish issues of human errors when it comes to simple tasks like data entry. It can certainly do the same in the healthcare industry regarding insurance capture.
Automatic insurance card scan and capture can significantly reduce the occurrence of simple administrative errors that occur regularly. Not only is information no longer entered manually, but insurance verification happens quickly and automatically as well.
Using AI for automatic insurance capture saves hundreds of hours of time, billions of dollars, and helps patients have a clearer understanding of their financial responsibilities and financial planning surrounding medical procedures.
