Throughout 2010 MBA Medical Business Associates has directed a significant amount of their focus and capital on an effort to improve the billing efficiency and availability of information to anesthesiologists and other providers practicing in a hospital setting. MBA’s goal has been to use technology to improve the exchange of information between hospital-based providers and their business office. Isolation from the billing and business operations of their practice has historically been a source of inefficiency, financial strain, and additional risk for physicians who spend most of their time in the hospital.
According to MBA President Michele Andersen, “Because they spend the majority of their workday in the hospital, with limited access to the billing and business operations of their practice, anesthesiologists and other hospital-based providers typically have to invest more time and effort to assure their services are being billed properly and that they are getting paid for every service they provide. In addition, there is often a redundancy in paperwork and data entry, which not only reduces efficiency, but also increases the risk of billing errors.”
MBA Medical is Here for Providers
MBA’s initiative to help providers in the hospital setting was designed around a three-way exchange of information between the physician’s practice management system, the hospital systems, and the physician. The first objective of this initiative was to assure that any individual piece of information about a particular case need be entered only one time. With that in mind, MBA sought to partner with a company willing to custom design a practice management system to import patient and case information from the hospital while also offering an interface for physicians to enter additional case information independent from the hospital system. The interface envisioned by MBA incorporated a variety of options for providers to utilize including an internet portal, a computer-based program, and a smart phone application. The equally-important second objective of this initiative was to provide physicians remote access to all pertinent information about their cases through the physician interface. Aside from providing valuable reporting capability, this would also allow providers to confirm that their services have been billed correctly and ultimately get paid correctly.
MBA found a willing and capable partner in Kansas-based PHI Software. After months of collaboration focused on aligning their individual missions, sharing ideas, and testing different stages of design, MBA and PHI are confident that they have a solution to the problems that have plagued hospital-based providers for years. Beginning in September, PHI’s custom-designed PhyGeneSys practice management system will be the new platform for MBA’s expansive array business solutions for anesthesiologists and hospital-based providers.
“We are very proud of the system that has resulted from our ongoing collaboration with PHI. We look forward to a long and successful alliance with them as well as the stability and efficiency we will be able to offer our clients as a result of that partnership,” adds Andersen.