Forms Automation Simplifying Patient Admissions

This is just a sampling of the forms required at many hospitals to admit a single patient:

• ABNs (Advance Beneficiary Notices)
• Patient Privacy Forms
• Patient Rights Forms
• Medicare, Champus, HMO Letters/Forms
• Consents for Financial Responsibility and Release of Medical Information
• Face sheets
• Labels
• Bar Coded Wrist Bands
• Embossed Plastic Cards
• Copies of Insurance cards
  

It seems that the paperwork and processes required of admissions staff gotten out of hand in the last few years. The latest additions to this line-up include the Patient Rights Form, Patient Privacy Notice and the ABN (Advance Beneficiary Notice). Few HIS companies, however, seem to recognize this as an issue in their ADT systems: the ADT system prints a Face sheet and (maybe) an embossed card. To produce and fill out the remaining forms, you’re apparently on your own.

So how do you help a busy, inexperienced admission clerk to:
1) Pick the right forms to complete?
2) Print them with proper Patient Identification?
3) Get the patient to sign them all?
4) Keep the form as part of an electronic record?
5) Avoid repeating the process at another facility of the hospital the next day?

One thing is obvious: some kind of form or document automation system is needed to keep this ship afloat.

What does a forms automation system do?

1) Rather than relying on admissions to select the right forms to give to a patient for signature (large opportunity for error and confusion), forms automation automatically selects the forms needed. For example, if ABN is a "yes" in the ADT process, it will automatically print with appropriate data. If Financial code is MC in the ADT process, a Medicare letter prints automatically for that patient.

2) All forms are printed with full patient ID so nothing has to be stamped with a card or labeled.

3) Automated systems provide signature tablets so that when a patient signs a paper form, an electronic copy of the form with signature is automatically saved to the EMR.

4) Automated systems allow an insurance card to be scanned using a credit card size scanner which fits next to the keyboard rather than being copied on a shared copier… this is much faster, and much easier.

5) Automated forms systems pass copies of all documents to the EMR so that the process doesn’t have to be repeated the next time the patient arrives for service.

Consider some kind of system to be mandatory.

Contact several forms automation vendors (there are several excellent companies serving health care) and see what they can do. Please include FormFast as one of your options. We welcome the opportunity to help you find the process improvement solution that works best for you.