How technology can ease the admin burden for private healthcare

Given the parlous state of the NHS, perhaps more than ever the UK public is thinking of using private healthcare, possibly for the first time. What most patients won’t be aware of, however, is what goes on behind the scenes to enable private practice to happen.

 

Many practitioners, providers and insurers have to deal with unwieldy, paper-based systems. But a greater, more intelligent application of technology could help them focus on the one thing that really matters: the health of their patients.

 

There are four main areas where healthcare professionals struggle with burdensome admin tasks:

• Claims management
• Practice management
• Clinical governance
• Appointment scheduling 

Healthcode understands these problems: to combat them, integration with its family of secure, accurate and efficient online solutions can help ease the burden on healthcare professionals. Healthcode wants to change the way people in the private healthcare sector work for the better. The question is, how?

 

Claims management

 

Claims management encompasses creating, submitting, authorising and receiving payment for an invoice, both for private insurance companies and self-paying patients. This means all players in the process must view, use and share sensitive data. Healthcode’s solutions automate these tasks with a range of products to suit everyone – whether a patient, practitioner, hospital or insurer. 

 

Peter Connor, Managing Director, Healthcode

 

Practice management

 

Practitioners would happily allocate many hours to patient care if they could, but the reality is that private practice is a business, a fact that’s often pushed to the sidelines in favour of patient care. Keeping on top of admin tasks is vital but time-consuming, so help is needed from an efficient practice management solution. This is where ePractice comes in allowing practitioners to maintain full control of all their information, daily admin tasks, cash flow and data security, helping them to grow their business and create a seamless patient experience.

 

Desné Marston, Product and Marketing Liaison, Healthcode; Kingsley Hollis, Head of Business Development, ePractice, Healthcode

 

 

Clinical governance

 

Things have changed considerably over the past few years and good clinical governance is now at the forefront of healthcare, with everyone being responsible for ensuring safe and effective patient care. The IHPN’s Medical Practitioners Assurance Framework (MPAF) is now firmly embedded in the regulatory landscape and has focused healthcare professionals’ minds on the necessity for reliable shared data, to make sure that practitioners remain fit to practise throughout their career. The PPR (Private Practice Register) is Healthcode’s solution, giving an efficient and secure way to store, manage and share practising information and documents with the organisations (hospitals and insurers) the practitioners are linked to.

 

Julia Suckling, Head of Commercial Partnerships, Check4Cancer; Fiona Booth, Head of External Affairs, Healthcode; Desné Marston, Product and Marketing Liaison, Healthcode

 

 

Appointment scheduling

 

The UK’s private healthcare sector is made up of thousands of practitioners seeing patients at thousands of locations. We live in a digital world, so it’s strange that most healthcare appointment booking processes are still inefficient and labour-intensive. Paper diaries, email trails and answerphone messages are still commonplace. ICE, Healthcode’s integrated channel exchange, transforms the appointment booking process for patients, practitioners, hospitals, insurers, practices and clinics. Using APIs based on FHIR standards, universal live bookings are now a reality, offering patients the reassurance of a confirmed appointment at a convenient time and location using the practitioner’s online diary of choice.

 

Peter Connor, Managing Director, Healthcode; Richard Aris, Head of Business Development, Healthcode

 

 

Healthcode’s mission is simple: bringing innovative online solutions to the private healthcare sector. Their passion keeps them focused on providing quality service to healthcare professionals, so they have more time to dedicate to their patients.

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