Administrative staff play a crucial role in the success of any medical practice — but are you empowering your staff to act as efficiently as possible? If you aren’t currently using automations in your day-to-day operations, you may be able to completely transform your practice for the better by implementing them today. Streamlining tasks and reducing errors through technology can help you meet the increasing demands of patients and regulatory agencies.

Healthcare Workflow Automations to Support Your Administrative Staff

Healthcare workflows are sequences of interconnected tasks carried out by healthcare professionals within diverse work environments. Efficient workflow management should enhance billing efficiencies, speed up admissions and discharges, and facilitate quicker clinical decisions.

Technology has a pivotal role in digitizing and streamlining these processes. By automating workflows, healthcare organizations can centralize and simplify operations without the resources that hiring new staff requires.

Spend More Time with Patients Thanks to Automations

Even though automations can’t handle face-to-face interactions, they can still play a critical role in improving patient outcomes. In the clinical environment, automations can help streamline administrative tasks, allowing healthcare providers to focus more on patient care. When providers have more time with their patients, they can better tailor care and treatment plans.

Using Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems with built-in clinical decision support can help pinpoint evidence-based recommendations during patient encounters. Many EHRs can also recognize common treatment courses (including recommended medications) and their affiliated CPT codes.

Related Reading: 9 Time-Saving Workflows and Automations Your EHR Should Support

Optimize Insurance Verification and Claims Processing

Verifying insurance and filing claims can be complex, but the right billing software can help automate as many of the processes as possible. These workflows ensure eligibility is accurately and quickly confirmed, increasing clean claim rates and maximizing reimbursement. A good billing software will even streamline prior authorizations.

Automations within healthcare RCM don’t just apply to insurance verification — software like Benchmark PM can carry you throughout the entire billing cycle. Once your patient is in your office, you can double-check check you have all the correct information. Once their appointment is finished, an integrated EHR can automatically assign billing codes based on the encounter so you can quickly begin the reimbursement process. Once your claim has been submitted, you can schedule reminders to follow up, generate patient statements, and more all without leaving our billing platform.

Configure and Schedule Reports with Ease

Regular reporting within medical practices serves as a critical component for maintaining high-quality patient care and efficient operations. Through consistent reporting, healthcare providers can track patient outcomes, monitor treatment efficacy, and identify emerging patterns or trends in diagnoses and treatments. Moreover, regular reporting facilitates communication and collaboration among healthcare teams, allowing for the seamless exchange of information and coordinated efforts in patient management.

In addition to its role in enhancing patient care, regular reporting also plays a vital role in optimizing the financial health of medical practices. By tracking key performance indicators such as revenue, expenses, and patient volumes, practice administrators can identify areas for improvement and implement strategies to enhance efficiency and profitability.

For reporting to be effective, practices need to pull data consistently and frequently. Scheduling reports to run automatically can ensure you always have access to current data without adding to your staff’s workloads.

Automated notification systems can also facilitate prompt communication following patient visits. If you use a client-accessible tool like a portal, patients can receive test results, treatment recommendations, learning materials, and more without your staff doing more than pressing a few buttons.

Prescribe Medications and Treatment Plans

If you operate a practice that sees a high volume of patients with similar health conditions, you may benefit from configuring automations. For example, if you operate a physical therapy practice, treatment for recovering from a hip replacement will likely be similar from patient to patient. You can configure a workflow that you can apply to all patients who are diagnosed with a treatment protocol related to a hip replacement. This can encompass sending prescription requests to pharmacies, providing education materials to your patients, and even a recommended cadence for follow-up visits.

While no two patients are the same, pre-configured clinical workflows can certainly give you a solid starting ground so you can help more patients in less time. You can always further tailor treatment protocols based on any unique situations as they arise.

Reducing Human Errors in Manual Tasks

In the healthcare industry, human errors can have severe consequences. Tasks that require staff members to input patient data can pose serious security risks — but by implementing automation solutions, you can improve patient safety and save time. When your systems are interoperable, your electronic health records software can communicate with your billing software and practice management software. This integration allows data to automatically populate from one system to another, reducing the likelihood of errors.