Sharp HealthCare of San Diego represents the new breed of total health system; it is both a managed care payer and health care provider. Sharp Health Plan offers a commercial health insurance plan, while Sharp HealthCare oversees a network of four acute-care hospitals, three specialty hospitals, three affiliated medical groups and has nearly 14,000 employees. Providing care for San Diego County since 1955, the Sharp system serves about 3 million people and generates more than $1 billion in annual income.
Like many U.S. healthcare organizations, Sharp spent the past few years focused on achieving compliance with HIPAA regulations. Now the organization has turned its attention to lowering cost and streamlining operations. In 2003, Sharp implemented a solution utilizing software from Datacap and Hyland OnBase, which is having a dramatic impact on the processing of paperwork throughout the organization.
Sharp HealthCare serves nearly 500,000 members through a variety of plans and medical group affiliations. They receive an average of 7,000 HCFA and UB-92 claims per day, with an additional 2,000 attachments and correspondence. The results must be captured, processed and paid. With 65 employees manually entering data and adjudicating claims, Sharp management decided to automate their medical claim processing. They hired consultant Cathy Fuhrman of Fuhrman and Associates, in Huntington Beach, California, to help guide them through the selection process.
After a careful evaluation, Sharp selected the Taskmaster for Medical Claims capture system (formerly known as HCcs) and chose Datacap Solution Provider Knowledge Lake of St. Louis, Missouri to implement the solution. Sharp went "live" in the first quarter of 2004 at its centralized scan and processing center at the main system office.
Claim images are created by two Bowe Bell + Howell 8080vdd scanners. After capture and verification is complete, Taskmaster routes data to Sharp's adjudication system in the HIPAA-compliant EDI format. Images are then committed to Sharp's Hyland OnBase document management system, with indexes for easy retrieval. Paper claims are then discarded, saving warehouse space, while images are stored in a Storage Area Network (Sharp must retain claim images for a minimum of seven years).
Sharp began realizing benefits immediately. Because Taskmaster for Medical Claims automatically reads machine print on the claims, only eight operators are required to verify data accuracy and correct low-confidence characters or failed validations. Claims are processed faster and claim images are available to customer service at the touch of a key to answer member questions and facilitate expediting.
"The Datacap implementation went very smoothly," said Cathy Fuhrman. "And Knowledge Lake was great to work with. After only one month, users rated the success of the implementation at an 8 (out of 10), which is fantastic."
Impressed with the cost savings and streamlined
operations that resulted from Phase One, Sharp HealthCare has scheduled
enhancements to the system, including utilizing Taskmaster's remote scanning
capabilities.
Sharp also plans to use other documents related to patient care for storage in the OnBase System.
During Summer 2004, Sharp initiated a capture project for their Accounts Payable department. Working with Cathy Fuhrman again, Sharp evaluated several invoice data capture systems and selected Datacap Taskmaster, with Knowledge Lake handling testing and implementation. The new system will scan invoices and upload data and images to OnBase and a Lawson accounting system.
"Sharp HealthCare is taking advantage of the flexibility of Taskmaster," said Scott Blau, Datacap CEO. "By using a single scan and capture system for health claims, invoices, and distributed capture applications, they are maximizing their return on investment by minimizing cost of ownership." For more information about Sharp HealthCare, please visit their website.