The title of this blog post might recommend something exotic or perhaps foreign or perhaps mysterious to a couple readers. Effectively, it may be just that. but you will do virtually anything to get a bit of attention for Provider Data as a Service (PDAAS), a topic you feel is very important for the customers and all healthcare leaders to more effective understand. especially with the requirement for accurate Provider 'demographic' information that is needed to meet interoperability standards.
The 'Rosetta Stone' .like the famous stone translating Egyptian hieroglyphs into the Greek alphabet for comprehension.. also translates Provider demographics into an accurate and also useful and comprehensive Provider Directory.
What exactly is this 'Rosetta Stone' link?
Maybe you have or haven't guessed, however just in case, here is the answer:. Facility Demographics. Really? and more particularly unique facility information that represents the practice location and also name of each and every business delivering medical. As well as you dont mean simply billing, mailing, or contact locations. but actual particular practice information where medical is actually delivered.
In fact we go and so far as suggesting that you should not have a particular accurate, useable Provider Directory without having having an accurate, useable Facility Demographic database.
Allow s start with Healthcare facilities. All of us know them: Group Practices, Doctor Hospital Organizations, Hospitals, Mental Health Institutions, SurgiCenters, Walk In Medical, Ambulatory Care facilities, Solo Practices, etc. However do you include Medical center addresses with unique detached facility locations or departments? Do you include solo practices that are part of the group network? Do we include the 'needed departmental descriptors at big educational hospitals? Those are separate Facility locations where individuals are seen and also medical delivered. So you tend to be not speaking simply about affiliation information, even though that is important too, but the actual physical delivery of medical.
Really creating a list of individual medical Providers is definitely not especially difficult. In fact if you have a low tolerance for accuracy (allow s state 50% initially) then we can learn just how to format and also download a number of electronically available files. However we typically will like to segregate that from your internal files we have been maintaining more than time because of the unknown top quality of the external files (much more about that later). Taking a snapshot of healthcare Services descriptively without unique Facility Demographics has been done by many of our clients. before they became our clients.
The tough part of a particular accurate, useable Provider Directory is finding and also keeping the relationships of Services across Healthcare Facilities, and to do that you need the many accurate, useable Directory of Healthcare facilities.
Why do we say that?
For several reasons: First, there is a lot of change in Provider Directories but personal information about Providers does definitely not change all that dramatically. A great individual Provider rarely changes their personal information unless there is a name change (marriage, etc.), an additional medical specialty, more certification, or new Healthcare License numbers. On the other hand the changes that occur continuously tend to be changes in Practice address, as well as affiliations, and phone numbers as well as fax numbers, etc. So if you want to be accurate and also useable you have to maintain with Facility information.
Second, Provider information is typically generated based on patient contact. Guess how patients identify Providers? By name, yes.(names can be duplicative or perhaps incomplete, etc), but then it is WHERE the patient was delivered healthcare. And that could be a Group name, a Clinic name or perhaps other organizational name OR the practice address-street/suite/building Or perhaps a phone number, etc. As well as to make it even more complicated, we know Services practice in several bodily places. In brief the Facility name as well as address and also phone amount are important means of accurate Provider identification.
3rd, Providers offer 'individual information in initially being licensed in a state or perhaps in applying for a particular NPI. They self report personal information such as name, medical school, specialty, NPI and/or UPIN. And also they initially self report a particular address. After this initial application, the 'personal information' stays the exact same and therefore no further 'self reporting' is required however sorry to say this appears to apply to Facility addresses where a great deal of change does occur. In other words Services tend to be understandably busy as well as tend to be not motivated to self-report practice information and practice information changes whenever just about all other 'personal information remains the exact same.
4th, the relationship of Services to a certain practice location and also facility is important in maintaining the relationship of All Providers to this place. Due to the fact Facility change information can be revealed in dribs as well as drabs of input, it is important to assess that information in the context of all Providers connected to that facility. For illustration, if the address or phone number of one Provider in a 6 man Group practice changes, it is a particular important step to determine whether just about all members of the group now tend to be at the new place, whether the Provider is setting up a satellite office for the same group, whether or not the Provider has left the Group for an additional Group or perhaps solo practice down the road, whether the Provider has moved out of the state, whether the Provider has retired, etc. In brief, unique Medical Facility information and also the linkage to Services in that facility is an important step in keeping Provider accuracy.
Thus to summarize:
The 'Rosetta Stone' of Provider Directories is.accurate Provider Demographics, yes, but equally if definitely not more important is accurate Facility Demographics.Practice Place is the key driver of change in a Provider Directory, it is a fundamental source of Provider identification for individuals, it is not self reported by Services, and it is a key determinant in analyzing and leveraging discrete information that can apply to larger groups of Services.
Unique Healthcare Facility location information is a key foundation for FolioMed's 'Provider Data as a Service' and a key reason for our outstanding accuracy.
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