Medical Management One Blog

Verifying insurance benefits prior to a patient’s office visit is an administrative procedure most successful practices perform. With new advances in network technology, this task has become easier to accomplish — and with much greater accuracy.

Most importantly, electronic verification of benefits provides both healthcare practitioners and their patients access to patients’ most up-to-date insurance information, ensuring the ease and accuracy of decision-making in subsequent diagnostic testing, laboratory, and/or referral considerations. With access to current benefits, providers send patients for additional work-up of their health concerns to specialists and facilities approved by the patients’ insurance plans.

Electronic verification of benefits also decreases both the patient’s check-in time as well as front-office staff time during the check-in process. Patients no longer have to make several visits to the front desk and front-office staff do not have to manually enter patients’ demographic data (also reducing clerical errors).

The decision to implement an electronic insurance verification system will introduce a more convenient patient experience, from check-in to check-out — and after hours, when medical decisions are still made. Given the complexity of maintaining Electronic Health Records (EHR), it is useful to note that it is not necessary for an electronic insurance verification system to be integrated with a practice’s EHR — and, as a stand-alone service, the system proves more cost-effective without sacrificing functionality. Consider the Clearwave kiosk and network — able to integrate with your EHR, but may also efficiently collect and transmit data independent of it.

CVS/Pharmacy, Walgreens, and other big box stores continue to make headway into the health care industry beyond dispensing medication.  Still, many primary care physicians have yet to respond to this phenomenon in a manner that adequately and competitively serves patients’ needs.

One proactive response to in-store clinics is to bring the prescription medication closer to the dispensing provider: establish a Medication Dispensary in your office.  The benefits of point-of-care dispensing include:

• Increased patient satisfaction, owing to the convenience of immediately available medication.
• Increased patient compliance, also owing to the convenience factor.
• Reduction in pharmacy-related phone calls, both incoming and outgoing.
• Greater oversight of patients’ therapy, including the ability to remind patients of refill dates.
• Immediate knowledge of drug-drug interactions and formulary preferences via electronic communication with insurance.

Because your Dispensary would communicate with Prescription Benefit plans in the same manner as outside pharmacies, there is no difference in cost to your patients — and you likely saved them the time and travel expenses incurred when filling prescriptions elsewhere.

Consider the benefits of satisfying both patients’ expectations of convenience and your own expectations of patient compliance through an on-site Medication Dispensary.