Tag: patient identity

“Experian Health’s speed and ability to speak our business language definitely impressed us,” said ACS president, Tim Anderson. “Some of the claims were valid for only a few more weeks, and we were able to submit them in plenty of time. This is the best, fastest platform we’ve seen to reconcile duplicate and data-deficient records. It really helped us achieve the best possible resolution for our clients and our company.” Acadiana Computer Systems, Inc. (ACS) was contracted with numerous labs in Louisiana to submit billing claims, primarily to Medicare, for testing that occurred in the first months of the pandemic. Unfortunately, in the chaos and scramble to offer testing services as quickly as possible in nursing homes and testing sites, the labs struggled to collect needed information to submit valid claims – in particular the Medicare beneficiary’s MBI number, or even a Social Security number. As the pandemic response progressed, a similar challenge developed around the administration of vaccines, particularly in mass vaccination sites and other off-site vaccination centers. Providers struggled to get more than a name and maybe a birthdate, address, or phone number. This left a gap in ACS’ efforts to submit private insurance and Medicare reimbursement claims on behalf of their clients. ACS worked with Experian Health and our Universal Identity Manager (UIM) platform, delivering the Experian Single Best Record (ESBR) – the matching of records through aggregation of disparate information and delivering a single record that accurately identifies separate records that belong to one person. The platform uses multiple data sources to verify, match and consolidate disparate records into one “best record.” ACS assembled the records requiring more identifying data and prepared them for secure transfer to Experian Health. Experian Health securely accepted more than 75,000 patient records and ran them through the UIM platform in 24 hours. It was critical to assign an SSN to as many individual records as possible, and to confirm an associated MBI number for Medicare billing, if applicable. Results included: 69% assigned unique records 12% identified as duplicate records With the information delivered back from the matched records, ACS had all the necessary data needed to continue the billing process. Within a week claims were submitted, expected to exceed $20 million in collections when the process is completed. The ACS group was experienced, savvy and data ready. Their expertise enabled an elegant and efficient exchange and complemented Experian Health’s capabilities. ACS expects to continue to use Experian Health’s UIM platform throughout the pandemic and also for mitigating duplicate records and preparing claims for submission. Learn more about how our Universal Identity Manager (UIM) platform can help your organization eliminate duplicate patient records.

Knowing that clinical care accounts for only a portion of health outcomes, understanding how patients are affected by social determinants of health (SDOH) continues to gain attention as a critical factor in care delivery. COVID-19 has thrust the issue even further into the spotlight, with socially and economically vulnerable groups hardest hit by the pandemic. At the same time, the expansion of telehealth services over the last year has benefited some marginalized groups, who may feel uncomfortable visiting health facilities or may, for example, sometimes face challenges finding transportation to and from their visits. What’s clear is that when it comes to mitigating the impact of COVID-19’s lingering effects, patient identities based on clinical data alone simply won’t cut it. Providers need a holistic view of patients – both clinical and non-clinical.   Many providers do not have updated contact information for the patients they want to engage, in addition to missing patient-level insights such as housing, food, access to technology, transportation and financial stability data that could help better engage patients. Given the many complicated personal and structural barriers that may exist to accessing healthcare, providers lacking SDOH data in patients’ records are risking avoidable readmissions, unnecessary ED visits, poor care quality ratings and denied reimbursements.   Understanding patient needs and preferences via lifestyle factors – like occupation and technological knowledge – helps providers improve engagement, outreach and access. The results can be game-changing.   The benefits of an enriched, more robust patient record with SDOH Improved certainty of patient needs to achieve healthy outcomes Whether it’s missed appointments, lack of engagement, deferred treatment, or failure to comply with care instructions – if SDOH is the cause, providers need to know.  An enriched patient record that includes clearly defined SDOH risks and insights to those risks is invaluable.   For example, if a patient record includes recommended engagement strategies suggesting medication delivery, or ensuring medications are with the patient at discharge, due to the patient’s difficulty accessing a pharmacy, negative outcome risk is reduced. Significant provider blind spots that might otherwise interfere with desired health outcomes can be eliminated or extensively mitigated with access to this kind of data.   Consumer data gives additional insight useful in risk stratification efforts, allowing care teams to get granular and proactive if, for example, a patient’s lifestyle makes office-hour calls impossible, or if a lack of transportation requires the patient be informed that telehealth is available. Additionally, the data can flag if the patient prefers reminders by text, voice message or email. These considerations make a difference; 80-90% of modifiable contributors to healthy outcomes for a population are regularly attributed to the social, economic and environmental factors that comprise SDOH.   Connecting the dots can improve care coordination SDOH data doesn’t just help flag general access issues; it can also help providers dig into specific challenges that may warrant referrals to community programs or additional staffing support. SDOH data may lead to the discovery that a patient is struggling to access healthy, affordable food and prompt a conversation about getting referred to an in-network nutritionist or local food partnership.   Patient-specific information can be merged with consumer databases covering a range of socio-economic data, initiating proactive conversations with patients that can solve non-clinical gaps in care.   Clarity of the “why” behind patient insights, for better communication and engagement Someone experiencing financial instability as a result of pandemic-related unemployment will expect a different financial conversation than someone who has lived in poverty for their whole life. Further, two patients with high readmission risk can have completely different social determinants of health impacting that risk.  Knowing that patients are affected by SDOH is only one piece of the puzzle. Understanding the bigger picture helps create a whole picture and enables personalized, sensitive, and helpful communication.   A turn-key SDOH solution that helps define the “why” behind the score avoids analysis paralysis and enables a quick, effective engagement strategy based on what really matters to patients. Supplementing patient surveys with consumer data is also important, as it provides deeper insights and recommendations for engagement strategies.   Of course, a connected system only works when the patient identity is accurate and tracks them from service to service. With a universal identity manager, you can have confidence that your teams are all working from a complete, current and insights-rich view of each patient.   Find out more about how Experian Health can help your organization make sense of SDOH data for better patient identity management and a more personalized patient experience.  

The urgency to move quickly and vaccinate the population has introduced an entirely new set of challenges for providers regarding patient identity. Many continue to leverage existing processes and solutions already in place, manually handling the pain points that come with them, but now at scale and at an unprecedented rate. As the rollout moves forward, the strain on provider resources will only deepen, as will the risks associated with patient misidentification. The data mess behind the scenes Many patients are registering for the vaccine through a patient portal. While the self-service nature of signing up for the vaccine via a portal is beneficial, patients are unfortunately able to register for a portal account more than once. In fact, some of our clients have reported seeing as many as 1,800 duplicate records created per day. Those duplicate records are generated from some individuals who forgot their log-in account information and opted to create a new account, and others who simply forgot they had an account. With the sense of urgency to secure a vaccination appointment, consumers are moving at a rapid speed and simply want to grab a spot with the quickest credentials available. Regardless, multiple registrations for a single patient will create duplicate patient information. Duplicate records are not only costly (the estimated cost of remediation is $96 per duplicate pair), but they are an incredible drain on staff productivity, and ultimately, they are detrimental to patient safety. Multiple records of a single individual pose a risk for potential allergies, reactions, medical history and more. Even more, it is detrimental specifically to the efficacy of the vaccine as it will be harder to gauge in real time how many patients have been vaccinated, and at what stage, and make it more difficult to truly understand what percentage of the patient population has actually been vaccinated. UIM: not another stop-gap solution Experian’s Universal Identity Manager (UIM) platform is tailor-made for a situation like this as it was developed to create a single view of the same patient with their most current information. The matching technology accurately identifies patients and matches records within and across disparate healthcare organizations, providing a more complete understanding of who a patient is, despite the data gaps or errors that may exist in patient rosters. With it, providers are not only preventing duplicate and overlaid patient records but UIM can also minimize errors and fraud in patient records. It additionally improves staff productivity by decreasing the need for record reconciliation—a benefit likely welcomed by many if they are continuing to see anywhere near 1,800 duplicate records per day. When integrated with a solution like Precise ID, providers can both reconcile duplicate records, and effectively stop them from being created in the first place. By automating the patient portal enrollment process, healthcare organizations can remove the manual processes associated with portal enrollment, optimize critical IT staff resources while securing patient information and support a positive patient experience. State-of-the-art identity proofing, risk-based authentication and knowledge-based questions help providers securely verify each patient’s identity as they enroll for the patient portal. Explore how Experian Health can help resolve and enhance identities as part of the vaccine management process and beyond, not only by resolving duplicate records, but also by enhancing records with the best demographic and social determinants of health data available.

How has the pandemic affected consumer attitudes around patient access? What do consumers want when it comes to accessing care? These are the questions providers must answer if they are to survive the pandemic and lay the groundwork for future financial success. Experian Health’s recent patient access survey offers a glimpse of what patients hope the digital front door will look like in 2021 and beyond. Wherever you are in the digital patient access journey, there's an opportunity to improve the experience for patients to one that will not only survive the tumult of the pandemic, but also thrive in the years ahead.

For many healthcare consumers, visiting patient portals to check medical records, schedule appointments, renew prescriptions and pay bills is a no-brainer. Accessible from multiple devices at any time of day, patient portals allow patients to manage their health from the comfort and convenience of their own home. COVID-19 has been a catalyst for even more patients to consider remote and virtual healthcare services. But with large healthcare data breaches increasing by nearly 200% between 2018 and 2019, one concern continues to lurk in the background: how do providers keep patient data safe? Knowing the industry is prone to dated cybersecurity measures, hackers zero in on the lucrative medical identities market, with their top targets including: patient medical records billing information log-in credentials authentication credentials, and clinical trial information. As COVID-19 encourages more patients online, the digital doors are open for even more identity thieves to try to steal – and profit from – sensitive data. Healthcare organizations need to be confident that the person logging on is who they say they are, both to reduce the risk of a data breach and minimize HIPAA penalties. One way to balance consumer convenience with data security is to automate the patient portal enrollment process with robust patient identification protocols, making it harder for hackers to access patient information but without burdening patients. 2 ways to automate patient portal enrollment 1. Ditch activation codes that are easily misplaced Many healthcare organizations give new patients an activation code to use the first time they log in to their patient portal. Unfortunately, these tiny bits of paper or codes hidden at the bottom of lengthy enrollment documents are easily lost or forgotten. The patient has to call the office, taking up valuable staff time and resources to figure out how to log on – the opposite of streamlined and scalable. Instead, providers should consider an automated portal sign-up process. Using a combination of out-of-wallet questions, device recognition, risk models and cross-checks with linked patient data, portal access can be secured through a single platform. It’s easier and more reassuring for patients, and with far fewer calls to IT support. 2. Find quicker ways to integrate patient identity tools with existing systems The more people who need to see patient data, the more opportunities there are for cyber thieves to sneak in and access that sensitive information. Being able to share data securely between multiple providers and across different platforms is essential. During the current COVID-19 crisis, integrating authentication tools with other healthcare information systems (HIS) quickly is a huge advantage. One example is Precise ID, which can now integrate directly with Epic’s MyChart portal, Allscripts’ FollowMyHealth platform and many other HIS systems within two weeks. Jason Considine, senior vice president and general manager of Experian Health’s Patient Experience Solutions says: “Patients want to feel reassured that their data won’t wind up in the wrong hands. That’s even more important right now, as COVID-19 means more patients are choosing online services instead of face-to-face contact. With staff and cashflow under pressure, it’s even more important to get systems up and running as fast as possible. That’s why we’ve integrated with leading HIS systems to help them achieve interoperability within just two weeks.” Patient portals have the power to transform the healthcare experience for patients, but only if they can trust that their data will be kept safe. Providers can protect their patients from identity theft by adopting a multi-layered solution that incorporates best practice and cutting-edge data security technologies. Find out more about how Experian Health can help you automate patient portal security to avoid medical identity theft, so you can save money, avoid reputational damage and create a positive patient experience.

For many of the 36 million Americans who have registered for unemployment benefits during the coronavirus outbreak, losing their job means losing their health insurance. Options for the newly-unemployed are limited yet complicated: while the federal government has declined to reopen enrollment under the Affordable Care Act, several states are supporting those without coverage by opening emergency enrollment periods for state-based health exchanges. Those that can afford it may extend their existing employer plan through COBRA, while those that can’t may apply for Medicaid. But unfortunately, millions will be left without coverage. Now, with these changes happening in both large quantities and at rapid speed, the process for checking a patient’s coverage status is more complex, time-consuming and susceptible to errors than in normal circumstances. Further errors may appear as patients are forced to switch care teams, leading to disjointed care and incomplete, inaccurate or duplicate health records. It’s a huge administrative and financial burden for providers, who must keep pace with changes to the health insurance landscape or risk a surge in denied claims as a result of patient misidentification. How should they guard against patient identity errors and minimize revenue loss in the wake of COVID-19? How to prevent mismatched patient records and avoidable claims denials A 2018 survey found a third of denied healthcare claims were caused by patient identity errors, costing hospitals an average of $1.5 million. We may see this figure creep up following COVID-19, unless providers move quickly to implement robust identity proofing and patient matching processes. Providers looking to do this should consider prioritizing the following three areas: Eliminate errors during patient registration Up to half of denied claims occur earlier in the revenue cycle, which is also when most duplicate medical records are created. Improving identity proofing during patient scheduling and registration is a logical place to focus, to ensure records are accurate from the start. This should include proactively checking for active coverage as early as possible. Using a Coverage Discovery tool that automatically finds available coverage will help avoid bad debt write-offs and give patients peace of mind. Essentia Health’s Patient Access team were able to find 67% coverage pre-service, for patient accounts that were previously considered self-pay or uninsured. Automate identity matching throughout the revenue cycle When patient records are incomplete, duplicated or overlaid with part of someone else’s record, denied claims become an accepted cost – but they’re often avoidable. Instead of time-consuming and error-prone manual checks, providers should consider using automated identity management software to ensure patient records are accurate and complete. Data-driven matching technology supported by a Universal Patient Identifier allows a single view of each patient to be shared safely and securely across multiple healthcare services. There’s no need for tedious reconciliation work and providers can be confident they’re submitting clean claims each time. Improve identity management protocols for telehealth and mobile services More patients turning to telehealth services and patient portals to minimize face-to-face contact, putting pressure on providers to solve the patient matching problem. And with payers expanding coding for reimbursements for telehealth and remote services, there’s an added imperative to make sure patient information is accurate in order to minimize the risk of claims denials. Victoria Dames, Senior Product Director at Experian Health, says portal access has increased by roughly 40% since the start of the coronavirus outbreak, and explains that the rise in telehealth and mobile services means identity proofing must be a priority: “If you don’t already have identity proofing and automated solutions for patient matching in place, you’ll have duplicate records. We don’t want that – it’s important to have one view of the patient. But we need to move quickly. Automating for identity proofing eliminates the risk of human error and it’s faster too, which is crucial right now. We know many providers want to get their identity management and claims management systems optimized quickly, so we have a team set up to help.” Using the right technology to verify patient identities and analyze claims, avoidable denials resulting from missing or incorrect information can be caught sooner. Contact us to find out how we can help your organization manage patient identities to eliminate costly claims denials during and after COVID-19.

At the end of 2019, Experian Health announced that every person in the U.S. population, an estimated 328 million Americans, had successfully been assigned a unique Universal Patient Identifier, powered by Experian Health Universal Identity Manager (UIM) and NCPDP Standards™ (the “UPI”). Universal Patient Identifiers (UPIs), created with a comprehensive view of patients from health, credit header, and consumer data sources, are thought to significantly reduce the challenges that stem from the misidentification of patients which span patient safety, financial, and operational inefficiencies. But what does 100% coverage mean? And what does this mean for the future of healthcare? To take a deeper dive, we sat down with Victoria Dames, an Experian Health leader in the identity management space to learn more. 1. It doesn’t get more perfect than 100%, so tell us more. What exactly does 100% coverage mean? Experian Health developed an algorithmic engine known as our Universal Identity Manager about five years ago. Since this time, we’ve worked closely with many providers, pharmacies and payers to help address their duplicate records. We’ve been monitoring our adoption and enumeration by unique patient identifiers against 328M individuals in the US population (2010 Census) and achieved this milestone at the end of 2019. Through our broad network of provider clients, which include hospitals, pharmacies, payers, and healthcare technology companies, patients who have received care from participating entities over the past few years have been enumerated.  As new patients enter the healthcare ecosystem, this number will continue to grow.  2. Why are universal patient identifiers (UPIs) needed and how do they benefit providers and patients? The Universal Patient Identifier (UPI) helps providers link the right records together, preventing duplicate records from being created. For example, think of all the ways duplicate accounts or variances can occur: address differences, name variations (Katherine, Kathryn, Kathy, Kat), maiden names and potential user entry error. With the UPIs, providers can link records together and have one complete record and view of the patient, ultimately leading to a better patient experience. It’s important to note that the UPI is not something the patient knows or sees, but rather part of the technology. It can be embedded within a hospital’s information system, for example. It simply links a patient’s records together, so a provider has a complete view of the patient’s identity. The flow of communication happens when participating healthcare organizations send Experian Health patient demographic information; the system provides the organization in return with the insights and identifiers that they need to better manage patient identities and prevent duplicate records. The UPI can be attached - if the situational requirement is met - to active claims in real-time transactions effectively improving the integrity of patient records. During this process Experian Health does not rely on or use any clinical information about the patient; Experian Health only leverages the minimum data elements needed to successfully match an identity.  3. How did you get numbers assigned to all Americans? When a healthcare organization enlists our help, we process all their historical records through the UIM, returning a Universal Patient Identifier (UPI). The initial run of this data helps resolve existing duplicates which can date back several years. Working with multiple providers and pharmacies, we were able to get numbers assigned to all Americans. The number will continue to evolve of course, as the population changes with births and deaths. 4. Are there privacy risks with this? Experian Health is a HIPAA-compliant Business Associate when it receives PHI from customers.  It takes its privacy obligations very seriously.  As to UIM, privacy risks are minimized by the fact that the UIM does not leverage any medical records, prescription histories, or provider systems. The purpose of the solution is to assist healthcare professionals to better match an individual’s identity through data assets that would normally be unavailable to a healthcare provider.  5. Does a UPI function similar to a credit report, meaning it provides a singular view of a patient’s medical history? It depends on the situation.  If a provider has a patient in their EHR twice under two spellings of the patient’s name in error, then yes, the UPI would link those two profiles, creating a singular view of the patient in that provider’s system. Additionally, the UPI generated by Experian Health is designed to help facilitate interoperability between healthcare providers.  For example, if your pharmacy has you listed under your maiden name of Smith and your doctor has your married name of Wilson, during the ePrescribing process, your ePrescription might not get associated with your prescription profile. If both providers have the UPI on record and submit it during the transaction, the systems will match the patient using the UPI. It’s important to note that the UPI is technology for entities and is not patient facing. 6. What is the direct benefit to consumers; will it help them control their medical data? Consumers will benefit depending on how a provider implements and utilizes the UPI. For instance, if a provider has two medical records, and they merge this into one record, the patient will see one consolidated record. Imagine two patient profiles for the same individual at a pharmacy.  One prescription is filled under each profile and the two separate prescriptions, if taken together, could lead to a severe reaction. If filled under two different profiles, the automated process to screen for drug interactions would not identify this harmful reaction. But the UPI directly solves for this issue. 7. What are the next steps and goals for Experian Health as it pertains to UIM? Our goal is to continue to partner with healthcare organizations to help prevent and resolve their duplicate records. We are continuing to invest in our technology and capabilities within identity, as we care deeply about patient safety and data integrity. Having a single, unified and accurate view of the patient is a challenge that plagues the healthcare system, and now we have a comprehensive solution that reduces the barriers to make healthcare safer.

Did you ever have someone tell you, “there’s no magic pill” for reaching a goal? It’s a somewhat ironic analogy, given that so many people struggle to take their meds as prescribed. Following a medicine schedule actually takes a lot of organization and discipline, never mind the financial and emotional cost of having a daily reminder that you’re not well. It’s estimated that 50% of patients don’t take medications as prescribed. Sometimes a patient is busy and misses a dose. Maybe they forget whether they’ve taken it already and accidentally take double. Perhaps they feel better and decide to stop a course of meds early. Or maybe they can’t get to the pharmacist to get their refill on time. Unfortunately, medication non-adherence (MNA) can have a more direct impact on a patient’s condition than the specific treatment itself, according to the World Health Organization. Non-adherence is thought to contribute to nearly 125,000 deaths and 10% of hospitalizations each year. It costs the health care system between $100–$289 billion each year, and according to a study by Walgreens, for every 1% improvement in adherence, $50 can be saved in healthcare spending. The causes are varied. Of course, patients have a role. But healthcare organizations operating at various points along the care continuum can also play a big part in helping or hindering patients in sticking to their prescriptions. Doing so is in everyone’s interest, as tackling non-adherence can help reduce readmissions and avoid more serious medical conditions, improve patient loyalty, yield financial savings and create a better experience all around. Here are three ways different healthcare organizations can help patients stay on track with their meds: 1. Keeping accurate patient records from hospital to home When a patient is hospitalized, it’s fairly easy for them to stick to a medicine schedule. Drugs are dispensed in the same building and brought right to the patient’s bed at the appropriate time. The problems arise when the patient goes home. They may leave hospital with new prescriptions which can be confusing and if they already have a prescription, the admission itself can disrupt their usual routine. As things stand, hospitals tend not to be reimbursed for interventions to improve adherence, so these are less likely to be prioritized during care transitions. But given the likely improvements to patient outcomes and consumer loyalty, and the fact that hospitals could save $37 for every dollar spent tackling MNA, these interventions are worth a second look. A simple but effective place for hospitals to start is in improving patient identities. When your clinical teams know they have a 100% accurate and up-to-date record for each patient, including their current prescriptions, they can help the patient stay on track and prescribe new medicines with confidence. New identity management platforms such as Universal Identity Manager can help you keep track of patients and their meds, reducing the risk of medical errors and avoiding billing mistakes associated with duplicate prescriptions and preventable readmissions. This ‘golden thread’ of patient information can also improve communications within and between providers in your health system, such as Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), pharmacies and other community providers. 2. Understanding and addressing wider barriers to adherence Common barriers to adherence often relate to a patient’s circumstances at home, such as not being able to get to the pharmacy because of a lack of transport, or because the opening hours don’t fit with their work schedule. For patients juggling work, childcare and other responsibilities, refilling their prescription can easily slip down the to-do list. Pharmacies can help by offering logistical support such as automatic refill programs, home delivery and help with organizing medication into pill boxes. But how do you know which intervention will be most relevant? This requires a wider understanding of the make-up of your patient population and their needs, preferences and behaviors. Understanding the social determinants of health can help you identify the specific barriers to care for your healthcare consumers, so you can put in place the right response. 3. Develop patient engagement strategies to help patients take their meds It’s not just those directly involved in providing care who can help improve MNA. Payers can help in two major ways: firstly, by supporting members to overcome barriers such as cost and confusion, and secondly, by working with hospitals and pharmacies to help them develop effective strategies to reduce non-adherence. For example, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona (BCBSAZ) has introduced a text messaging service to send reminders to members about their prescriptions, with a $45-50 discount on copays for those that refill on time. It’s hoped this program will tackle behavioral barriers to adherence such as procrastination or forgetfulness, while also addressing price concerns. Chris Hogan, Chief Pharmacy Officer at BCBSAZ described the program “as being a very high tech, modern, simple and effective addition to our overall initiative to improve medication compliance.” This kind of personalized patient engagement can be very effective in helping patients to stay on track. With ConsumerView, you can access a wide range of high-quality demographic, psychographic and behavioral consumer data, to help you offer personalized support such as digital reminders to your patients. You can develop engagement strategies tailored to the specific needs of your patients in just a couple of clicks. Could one of these strategies help your organization do more to improve medication management? Learn more about how we can help you help your patients – and your bottom line.

  When a doctor pulls up a patient’s record, it should be a safe assumption that the information on the screen relates to the patient sitting in front of them. It should contain every detail of the patient’s medical history, along with their current address and accurate personal information. It certainly shouldn’t contain anyone else’s data! Yet all too often, patient records are plagued with inaccuracies. Around 30% of patient data in electronic health records is incomplete or inaccurate, and up to half of records are not linked to the correct patient. The ONC estimates that around a fifth of patients may not be matched to their entire medical record within an organization, while more than a half of records shared between organizations contain errors. Despite all of modern medicine’s ground-breaking achievements and our increasingly digitized world, the ability to share information between different payers and providers in a reliable and secure way remains frustratingly out of reach. Could a universal patient identifier unlock interoperability? Imagine a healthcare ecosystem where administrators and clinicians can safely exchange information without worrying about whether it’s inaccurate, incomplete, or incompatible with each other’s systems. Interoperability could make life easier for healthcare staff and patients alike. While regulations such as the Affordable Care Act introduced many carrots and sticks to drive up adoption of electronic medical records to support interoperability, they also revealed a critical gap in healthcare: the need for a universal patient identifier (UPI). This is an identifier that would help manage patient identification across the whole healthcare ecosystem. A UPI would allow providers and payers to follow patients throughout all their major medical and life events and be sure that the information they hold for their member or patient is 100% accurate, current and complete. Instead, the absence of a UPI, compounded by the sheer volume and fluidity of patient data, has created significant issues downstream. Billing errors, unnecessary treatment and testing, HIPAA breaches, prescriptions filled for the wrong patients and many other issues all play a role in the growing number of preventable medical errors (estimated to be the third leading cause of death in the US). Striving for truly interoperable patient information should be a priority across the entire healthcare industry. Still, while federal funding for a UPI is currently being considered by Congress, we’re seeing more and more industry-led responses to help improve patient identity management. 5 benefits of using a universal patient identifier for interoperability Improve patient safety How can physicians be sure they’re recommending the right treatment for a patient, when there could be a vital piece of information missing from their medical history or allergy list? How can a pharmacist feel confident handing over a prescription, when there’s a chance the patient in front of them isn’t the same patient named on the script? A UPI can help avoid ‘wrong patient’ events and allow providers to share information to spot trends in recurring errors so that action can be taken to prevent them in future. Lower healthcare costs The West Health Institute found that that medical device interoperability could save the U.S. healthcare system more than $30 billion per year. For individual providers, UPIs could improve productivity by reducing the amount of time clinicians and hospital staff spend trying to sort out inaccurate records. And with nearly a third of claims denied as a result of patient misidentification, this could mean savings in the region of $17.4 million for the average hospital. A better patient experience Patients are right to be frustrated when their physician doesn’t have up-to-date records about them, or their provider sends appointment reminders to an old address. Expecting patients to fill out multiple forms (often multiple times) is inefficient and hardly contributes to a positive patient experience. A tool such as Universal Identity Manager can help providers exchange timely data, eliminate duplicate records and coordinate care, so the patient is supported throughout their healthcare journey. Stronger privacy Electronic records linked with a UPI allow healthcare organizations to phase out manual processes—which is not only more efficient, but also helps minimize the risk of patient data falling into the wrong hands. It’s much easier to keep the data secure when it’s contained in a single record, compared to multiple versions of a record filled with scribbled notes and random updates that could easily end up attached to the wrong record. Experian Health’s Precise ID gives healthcare organizations a HIPAA-compliant way to authenticate patients and reduce the risk of a data breach during enrollment. Better data to tackle the social determinants of health As consumer data opens up new opportunities to improve population health, a network of shared data will be essential for identifying trends in the social and economic factors that affect medical outcomes. Interoperable data sets and technologies can enhance the way public health data is collected and used, for better patient outcomes and population health. Interoperability currently remains a challenge, but the tools exist to improve the way information is shared and used across the healthcare ecosystem. By integrating clinical data into the patient access workflow, you can increase productivity, reduce costs, and ultimately improve the patient experience. Contact our team to find out how this could help your organization achieve more efficient, accurate and actionable data sharing.