WAKEFIELD, MA – At the TEPR+ conference this past January in Palm Springs, Calif., Picis CEO Todd Cozzens pointed out that healthcare IT vendors are focused these days on developing products that not only improve clinical outcomes, but save money.
The attraction is primarily economic. Hospitals and healthcare providers looking to implement new technology in this sour economy, he said, are thinking about the bottom line as much as they’re looking to improve healthcare delivery – and software that can do both has a higher value.
Picis, the Wakefield, Mass.-based developer of IT solutions for high-acuity areas of the hospital – the emergency department, operating and recovery rooms and intensive care units – is building on that philosophy with the recent release of LYNX E/Point and InSight ED Charge Rules. Both applications are being offered by LYNX Medical Systems, Inc., a Picis company, and look to improve hospital charging for intravenous and injection services in the Emergency Department.
“Picis is the only vendor to tackle both the clinical and financial challenges of infusions and injections in the ED in an integrated way,” said Mark D. Crockett, MD, president of Picis’ emergency care division. “This replaces a time-consuming, inaccurate and manual process with automation driven by logic that supports proper documentation and revenue capture for these services.
“Missed or under-reported charges for these medications can account for 15 percent of ED patient services, so leaving them behind can have a huge negative impact (on) a hospital’s financial health,” he added.
LYNX E/Point is an Infusion and Injection model that gathers clinical data to calculate appropriate CPT codes and charges. InSight ED Charge Rules is an add-on to Picis’ PulseCheck Emergency Department Information System (EDIS) that prompts clinicians to enter more detailed information to facilitate the proper coding and charging of infusion and injections services.
CHRISTUS Health recently implemented LYNX E/Point in 18 of its acute care hospitals – and is implementing the system in three others – in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Utah, covering an estimated 670,000 ED visits each year.
“Due to the extremely busy and unpredictable environment in the emergency department, millions of dollars of charges go uncaptured every year in the average hospital — more than any other hospital service area,” said Cozzens in a press release announcing the CHRISTUS deal. “In these tough economic times, hospitals are looking for ways to preserve revenue and improve reimbursement for the quality of care they provide. As the proven market leader, LYNX solutions can be relied on to ensure that every hospital charges properly for the services it provides.”
“After a thorough market assessment, we determined LYNX E/Point was the best solution to improve our documentation and Evaluation and Management (E/M) coding and bring consistency to our facilities across many regions,” said Reggie Allen, system director of quality and clinical operations for CHRISTUS Health, in the press release. “With a 98 percent customer retention rate and an outstanding record of performance, we felt confident that they would be able to quickly deploy E/Point across our health system. We are already seeing better documentation and revenue capture of ED services in our live sites to match resources used and treatment of patients.”
“I feel very comfortable using E/Point to charge and I feel confident that CHRISTUS Health is seeing more revenue generated,” added Cynthia Ryan, a clinical education coordinator at Santa Rosa Children’s Hospital in San Antonio
