What are the Advantages of Electronic Data Interchange

The complexity of American healthcare has resulted in a highly elaborate and meandering process that begins with the scheduling of an appointment and ends with providers getting paid. The complicated workflows that happen between a patient booking a consultation and the doctor getting reimbursed is made possible using electronic data interchange in healthcare.

 An electronic data interchange system at a hospital has become indispensable for running everyday operations. As the name suggests, a healthcare electronic data interchange solution is a medium of exchanging data between medical organizations using standardized message formats, in a secure way. These medical organizations could be hospitals, clinics, ambulatory care centers, insurance companies, pharmacies, testing laboratories, radiology centers, and so forth. Before the EDI data exchange system was implemented, there were close to 400 information formats in use.

 The different formats had been made by different companies and organizations involved in the healthcare industry used different ones. Needless to point out, it led to errors in conversion, difficulties in interoperability, security lapses, and high IT overhead. But electronic data exchange in healthcare ironed out those kinks and brought about a uniform, consolidated system of exchanging important medical data among stakeholder organizations. 

 The best advantage of a healthcare edi software is that it reduces the turnaround time for information, and in doing so, streamlines many administrative workflows. As a result, the processes involved in submitting claims, processing them, and replying to them are accelerated significantly. In addition to that, a medical EDI software solution also has numerous benefits. Let’s have a look at some of them - 

 

Streamlining Claims Processes

 

Before the implementation of electronic data interchange, the administrative communication between the providers and payers was slower. But thanks to EDI in healthcare, providers can access patient information and send the claims across to payers faster. Moreover, any queries from the payers too are processed and replied to faster. As a result, the whole series of activities around claims and reimbursement is accelerated and streamlined.

 

Data Security

 

The HIPAA (Healthcare Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) stipulates that organizations handling people’s medical information must ensure a certain level of data security. Failure to comply results in serious legal consequences that might include heavy fines and even jail time. But a medical EDI ensures a high level of security while exchanging patient data with encryption before transmission. Before it is sent across, the data is transformed into a format standardized throughout the medical industry. 

 There is little chance of data breaches as there are layers of security before and during transmission. So the electronic data interchange software solution solves the security problem and also ensures compliance.

 

Improved Operational Efficiency

 

An edi solution enables the rapid exchange of information between all organizations involved in the healthcare stakeholder ecosystem. Moreover, it also allows multiple transactions to be programmed to be sent simultaneously to multiple entities. Needless to point out, this greatly increases the efficiency and productivity of day-to-day operations at hospitals. Things like verifying eligibility, claims, billing information, and so on are communicated instantaneously.        

 

Conclusion

 

Electronic data interchange has brought speed, efficiency, and security to all aspects of data interchange in healthcare. The result is a win-win for all stakeholders involved.