Tech Innovations for the Healthcare Sector: How to Bridge the Gap with Coding
In the year 2020, there are not many industries left that innovative technology hasn’t modernized and streamlined. The healthcare sector itself has seen numerous improvements and tech innovations in recent years. This including cutting-edge treatments, less invasive procedures, digital health records, mobile healthcare apps, and more (Medium/Healthcare in America, 2018). Most of these technologies alone have improved the level of care, efficiency, disease control, and access to better treatments (UIC, 2020). Medical coding not only serves the purpose of ensuring accurate billing and payment for providers, it is also essential to creating and validating a patient’s medical record. Identifying symptoms that become trends for under-served healthcare areas to be accounted for is also a major benefit of accurate and standardized medical coding. How medical coding adapts to new healthcare technology will have a great impact on preventive and corrective healthcare (Healthcare Business & Technology, 2020).
Bridging the gap between tech innovations and current healthcare policies needs a special touch. Luckily, YES HIM Consulting’s team of coders and auditors is qualified to help. Contact YES today to enlist our consulting services.
“Technology is moving at such a phenomenal pace that it’s hard to keep up,” says Dr. Riaz Montara in an article by Bizcommunity (2020). “Drugs alone are not enough to manage disease, and the disease burden will become unmanageable unless innovative solutions are implemented.”
What are the Latest Innovations?
Here are some of the latest tech innovations that providers are using in the healthcare field, as noted by Bizcommunity (2020):
- At-home health monitoring apps. Patients are starting to take more control over their health with the help of home monitoring apps. These apps can track blood pressure, glucose levels, and other factors. Additionally, these apps empower patients by providing a built-in risk analysis. This allows more interaction between doctors and patients, which can significantly impact the information registered in a patient’s medical record. This could also benefit medical coders to code charts with as much information as possible. The key element to consider, is how to make this information available for coders with HIPAA policies in place.
- Pharmacogenomics banks. Genomics are coming more into play with treatments, since there are tests that measure how genes react to certain drugs. Providers can record these reactions in a digital diary app, creating a virtual biobank of DNA for each individual. These advancements will likely result in new codes (i.e. New code for Vaping and the Coronavirus CITE our articles here). Or update already existent codes.
Virtual & AI Innovations
Virtual doctor visits. Patients are able to schedule a virtual visit with their doctor without ever leaving the house. During these visits, doctors can suggest medications and send prescriptions to the patient’s pharmacy of choice. Knowledge is power; once providers give patients more information about their health conditions, they are more likely to adhere to their doctor’s advice and take their medication. This “at-home” interaction is another trend that will not only provide more information about each patient, diagnosis, treatment, etc.; it will also provide a scalable resource to keep documentation of this information; coders can use this for accurate diagnostic code assignments.- Artificial intelligence (AI). As technology becomes more sophisticated, advanced AI with specialized sensors will be able to detect and diagnose diseases and conditions quicker. How AI “translates” this information into medical codes, for symptoms detection, for payers’ understanding, etc. will have an impact on data security, data capture, and data manipulation.
Additional Information
HIM consultants in the coding field should look into how this gap should be bridged with tech innovations. We explored the role of technology and technology-focused companies. Review our previous articles, “Is Your Medical Data At Risk?: Part One and Part Two.” In these articles, we examined the potential pros and cons. We also look at the HIPAA safety risks, and how can organizations effectively use and protect captured data.
Bridging the gap between tech innovations and current healthcare policies needs a special touch. Luckily, YES HIM Consulting’s team of coders and auditors is qualified to help. Contact YES today to enlist our consulting services.
