What does the ACA mean for your practice?
The Obama administration says that the number of people who have signed up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act has exceeded their expectations. During the third annual open enrollment period, 12.7 million people in the US signed up for or renewed their healthcare coverage. This high of a number was unexpected, since health insurance premiums through private insurers have been increasing. The Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Sylvia M. Burwell, says that now the administration’s main goal is customer retention.
With more people receiving coverage under the ACA, healthcare facilities have to be prepared to handle more patients. Medical practitioners will have to get information from new patients, which could leave their staff busy filling out and filing routine forms. This could also lead to longer wait times. With card scanners that automatically take in information from ID cards, the staff at a doctor’s office can quickly gather relevant patient information. Card scanners, such as MedicScan by Acuant, that also gather information from health insurance cards, also cut down on billing errors. By reducing the need for manual input, the error potential is very low and means practices will not have to wait on payment due to billing information errors. Further, patients won’t have to worry about reading their insurance card incorrectly, and filling out their forms the wrong way. This solution takes practices into the modern era of technology, making the patient experience fast and secure and streamlining the workflow. As more patients gain healthcare coverage in 2016, card scanning technology will become more of a necessity.
