| The largest private employer in San Diego, Sharp HealthCare is an integrated, regional health care delivery system that includes four acute-care hospitals, three specialty hospitals and three medical groups plus a full spectrum of other facilities and services. Serving a population of approximately 3 million in San Diego County, Sharp operates 1,847 beds, has approximately 2,541 physicians on medical staffs, 1,587 physicians in medical groups and more than 11,000 employees. The Sharp system represents $852 million in assets and $1.1 billion in income. |
|
Sharp HealthCare is not just known for the size of its operation, but also the
quality. This applies to patient care, such as operating a hospital ranked as
one of the 10 best in the country for having a baby, as well as employee
programs and technical expertise. Sharp has repeatedly been recognized as one
of the best places to work by The San Diego Business Journal. For six
consecutive years, Sharp has also been listed on Hospitals and Health Networks
magazine’s list of the Top 100 Most Wired Hospitals.
To maintain high levels of service and operational efficiency in several areas
of the organization, Sharp began evaluating ECM solutions, choosing to
integrate Datacap Taskmaster and OnBase, Hyland Software, Inc.’s integrated
suite of enterprise content management software solutions including core
capabilities in document imaging and workflow, COLD/ERM and records management.
Claims Processing Productivity Increased by 150%
The amount of time and labor required to manually process paper claims within
Managed Care Operations for Sharp Health Plan, Sharp’s non-profit HMO, and
other delegated HMOs made that business unit the first candidate for further
automation. Prior to using Taskmaster and OnBase, clerks would receive the
paper HCFA 1500s and enter the data into Sharp’s patient financial system,
Flowcast™ from IDX Systems Corp. Whenever someone needed to inquire about an
invoice, a clerk would have to be dispatched to pull the document.
Now claims are sorted in the mailroom, and two full-time operators scan the
documents using Böwe Bell & Howell 8080 document scanners. The forms are
captured and verified using Taskmaster for Medical Claims, specifically
designed to process HCFA-1500s and UB-92s. Taskmaster leverages the BBH
scanner’ and Kofax VRS capabilities to drop out the red outline of the claims
for optimal recognition accuracy. Taskmaster validates fields against the IDX
system and brings in dictionary data such as specific doctor ID numbers.
These data fields are sent to IDX via an existing EDI interface in a HIPAA
Compliant 837 format. A subset of these fields is also used as indexing values
by which users can search for these claim images within the OnBase repository.
The claims processing solution has allowed Sharp to deal with a dramatic
increase in claim volume - now over a million annually - without the need to
increase staff. Prior to implementing forms processing and document imaging,
individual adjusters were averaging 80 claims a day. Now the average is about
200. “We’ve also eliminated need for clerical support and no longer send four
boxes of documents a week to Iron Mountain,” says Cathy Fuhrman, manager
MCA-PMG ISD at Sharp.
In the future, Sharp plans to take advantage of Taskmaster’s support of the new
CMS 1500 claims format as well rules processing for easier configuration and
web service capabilities for additional security.
Invoice Data Capture and Image-Enabling Lawson™ Reduces AP Labor
The central Accounts Payable (AP) department at Sharp uses Datacap Taskmaster
and OnBase Workflow to process 15,000 invoices a month. After scanning, with a
Fujitsu 5750 with Kofax VRS, Taskmaster delivers invoice images and/or data to
OnBase for storage and routing and into Lawson™ Financials from Lawson Software
for processing.
In addition to streamlining invoice processing, the Taskmaster and OnBase
solution has also reduced demand on AP staff. Screens within both the portal
and LID versions of Lawson have been image-enabled with Application Enabler,
allowing users to retrieve relevant documents by clicking on the screens. “Call
volume has been reduced dramatically,” reports Mrs. Fuhrman. “There are buyers,
accountants and financial analysts throughout the system who used to request
copies of invoices, which would have to be faxed to them. Now they can go into
Lawson and pull them up themselves.”
Secure Access, Improved Customer Service, Endless Possibilities
Despite its size, Sharp is focused on personal service as demonstrated by a
commitment to exceeding patients' expectations in a caring, convenient,
cost-effective and accessible manner as well as maintaining its low employee
turnover and ranking as a positive workplace. The high level of user acceptance
and ease of training make it likely that Sharp will be successful in continuing
to realize productivity and efficiency gains from its Taskmaster and OnBase
solution. “The possibilities are endless,” states Mrs. Fuhrman.
Benefits
Complementary Product Integrations
For more information about Sharp HealthCare, please visit their website.