How Automating Patient Paperwork Can Boost the Patient Experience
In healthcare, prodigious paperwork comes with the territory. A lot of this paperwork is already digital, as most healthcare organizations and payers have moved to electronic systems, but not all of it is. Many patients are still filling out their onboarding paperwork, such as registration and insurance information, the old-fashioned way—on paper.
But filling out paper forms during onboarding is time-consuming and often adds to already long patient wait times. Providers often suggest that patients arrive 10-15 minutes early to deal with paperwork.
While many providers don’t think wait times or time-consuming tasks like filling out paperwork impact the patient experience—they do. In one recent survey, 24% of patients said they had changed providers due to long wait times, and another 24% said they had told family or friends not to use a provider due to long wait times.
While improving the paper-based paperwork process for patients won’t eliminate all wait times, it certainly can help. But there are also several other benefits of taking the paper out of the paperwork process to patients and providers.
Current Process Often Creates Fill and Sign Redundancy
In many healthcare practices, the typical process is to give patients a pile of papers to fill out. Depending on the requirements, applications for insurance benefits or eligibility can be up
to 50 pages long and require up to more than a dozen signatures. Once patients complete the paperwork, the provider still has to capture the information in their system manually. This process alone can take several minutes per patient. And often, patients don’t even go into the wait queue to see the doctor until the process is complete.
Even if providers don’t ask patients to fill out the paperwork themselves but type it directly into their system, they still have to manually enter the patient’s information and return it for the patient’s signature.
Either way, it’s not an efficient or fast process—and it’s often redundant with both parties entering the same information. Patients and providers would be better served with an automated process that eliminates manual entry.
From Redundancy to Efficiency
One way providers have eliminated the paperwork headache is by using Adobe Experience Manager Forms. The solution makes it easy to access and complete application forms on
a tablet. Providers can customize the documents to fit their requirements, then they can prepopulate patient forms from their existing patient record systems onto the new forms. New patient information gets entered in real-time, and any data captured is instantly propagated across fields, eliminating the need to enter the same information on multiple pages.
Once the forms are filled out, patients sign only once and have their signature copied to all required signature fields instead of signing dozens of printed pages. This also eliminates providers having to scan, store or retrieve those signed pages later manually.
Secure and Compliant, Yet Robust and Fast
Regulatory compliance with legislation like HIPAA means that healthcare providers need to always consider security and whether patients’ personal information will remain protected. Yet, at the same time, they need technology that delivers robust functionality. Adobe Experience Manager Forms gives providers the best of both worlds.
Built light enough to run quickly and reliably on a tablet, Adobe Experience Manager Forms is also built on an open, flexible framework that can adapt to changing regulations to ensure providers remain compliant. What’s more, all Adobe solutions comply with enterprise-level security standards as well as being HIPAA-compliant.
Simplified and Streamlined
Automating the paperwork process provides a faster and easier experience for the patient, and it’s also a better experience for providers. Adobe Experience Manager Forms lets providers take a multi-step interview and administrative process and simplify it substantially.
The solution can identify mandatory information, check paperwork for completeness, and easily attach required documents. This eliminates a lot of human error, reduces inaccuracies, and saves patients time handing over their information and waiting for providers to copy and return it.
By streamlining the back-end process with Adobe Experience Manager Forms, providers ultimately reduce the time it takes to register patients. This time savings can equate to several hours per day—saving providers millions of dollars annually—boosting revenue. But equally or more important, it also saves patients time, improves their experience, and keeps them engaged and returning.
About LeapPoint
LeapPoint Consulting is changing the way companies connect work, technology, and talent to solve big business challenges and drive successful outcomes. Established by Big 4 alumni who sought more flexibility and agility in meeting clients’ most critical business needs, LeapPoint is committed to making life and experiences fundamentally better for employees, customers and those they serve. As the go-to Adobe and Adobe Workfront partner in healthcare and across industries, LeapPoint’s break-through Connected WorkTM services are the essential framework for the Future of Work. To learn more about LeapPoint and its Connected Work services, visit www.leappoint.com.
