Therapy providers across the U.S. were surveyed to get a better understanding of the issue of obtaining a physician's signature. The results showed that paper methods have led to lost productivity, compliance risks, and wasted time:
- 86% reported spending too many cycles printing, faxing, and chasing down physicians for signatures.
- 50% worried about the risk of non-compliance due to missed deadlines or not having the proper signed documents.
- 71% said their physicians spent too much time sorting through stacks of paper that need to be signed or re-signed.
Denise Norman, president of Transitional Care Management, provides a great summary of what providers face on a daily basis: “Anybody who's been in therapy knows that physician signatures and the plan of treatment is a thorn in anyone's side…faxing, getting doctors to come in, mailing things, going to their office, getting them to sign."
It's exhausting to think about the time and effort needed to get physicians to put their pens to paper!
Therapy providers don't need convincing that automating the signature process through technology would be helpful. We only have to look at electronic prescriptions to see the benefits of going paperless—including streamlined pharmacy workflows, reduced patient wait times, and improved visibility and tracking of prescription drugs.
The same benefits can be applied to patient documentation in the rehab environment. At Net Health, we've made this technology available through our Physician eSignature tool, CliniSign, which integrates seamlessly with our therapy management software. CliniSign empowers physicians to sign documents from anywhere, at any time, via their smart phone, tablet, or desktop computer.
Instead of being bombarded by stacks of paper waiting for them at their office, physicians can view and sign documents at their convenience. For therapy providers, the solution eliminates the paper chase, makes it easy to track and manage signatures, and reduces compliance risk by storing e-signed documents directly in the EHR.
CliniSign has been proven to save physicians between 10-30 hours per week signing documents. Overall productivity gets a significant boost, compliance concerns go away, and document signing is faster and more efficient.
The bottom line is this: paperless signatures are a simple way of solving a major roadblock to timely patient care.
To learn more, download our
Physician eSignature Toolkit.
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About Net Health
Net Health's mission is to harness data for human health. We offer EHR software and predictive, actionable analytics for medical specialties, including rehab therapy, wound care, home health and hospice and employee health. Our solutions are trusted in over 24,000 facilities across the continuum of care, including the nation's leading hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, senior living facilities, home health and hospice agencies and outpatient clinics.
www.nethealth.com