What to Look for in a Charge Capture Solution Vendor

Does your healthcare organization have the right strategic charge capture partner? Looking at your strategic suppliers for 2023 for charge capture? Here are four criteria to evaluate:  

1. Robust charge management 
2. Experience and expertise 
3. Innovation 
4. Security and safety 

Robust charge management 

When you’re evaluating Charge Capture solutions, take the time to do an in-depth evaluation of the charge management capabilities. Is the solution you’re evaluating a complete and robust charge management solution?  

There are solutions on the market that look slick, but it’s important to look beyond just the user interface and evaluate how powerful the underlying logic is and how deep the analytics go. “One thing we’ve heard recently is that the charge scrubbing engines in other solutions aren’t as robust as ours. With medaptus, the majority of charges don’t need to be touched by a human,” explains Malachi Charbonneau, General Manager, medaptus. By offering a full charge management solution, we ensure that the entire process, from the moment you generate a charge to the moment it gets sent out for billing, is as automated and efficient as possible. 

Charge Pro is an award-winning (winner of Best-in-KLAS for 10+ years) complete charge capture solution that seamlessly integrates with your EHR to capture more revenue and automate charge processing. It includes a suite of charge management modules and functionality designed to solve common and costly charge capture workflow challenges.  

• Does it take your coders a long time to review charges? Do they still use Excel spreadsheets? Choosing a charge capture solution with customizable coding rules and work queues helps automate and expedite the charge review process.
   
• Is it difficult to get a clear picture of the status of all your charges in one place? Are you searching through multiple inboxes, files and systems to find out which charges are out the door and which are pending? A true enterprise charge management solution lets you see all your charges in one place, so you always know which charges are under review, which charges passed through the rules engine and went straight to billing and which charges require more documentation.

• Do coders have to switch between multiple systems to reference the documents they need to enter charges? A robust charge capture solution will have document integration that allows coders to enter charges while viewing documents within the same screen and system, saving time and increasing accuracy.  

• Do coders have to review and scrub every single charge? Manually checking to make sure that all the information required to process each charge is extremely time-consuming. Using a solution with an automated charge scrubbing engine eliminates the need for coders to check every single charge. The engine will only flag charges that are missing information, saving coders a significant amount of time and getting charges out the door faster. 

• Are you constantly waiting and wondering whether your charges have been reconciled or are still pending? When you have a robust charge capture solution with real-time charge reconciliation, your charges are reconciled instantly, and you’ll never have to wait for an update again.  

• Would you like more transparency with your providers on the status of charges entered, adjustments required and their RVUs? Medaptus’ enterprise platform tracks all encounters and any edits made to streamline charge submission and provide clarity to stakeholders on charges entered. 

“Our charge capture solution, specifically the charge management modules, have been designed to ensure healthcare organizations maximize revenue and minimize the number of charges that have to be touched,” says Charbonneau.  

Today, leading healthcare organizations, including Watson Clinic, Baptist Health South Florida, CoxHealth, University Physicians Association, BayCare and more, are capturing more revenue because of our Charge Pro solution. 

“If you’re looking for the best-in-class charge management solution, we are the best. We’ve worked with customers over time to address their current challenges and innovate to address future challenges,” says Charbonneau. 

Experience and expertise 

In addition to features, the second thing you want to look for is a company’s experience and expertise. Ask: 

• Does the company have proven experience working with healthcare organizations long-term? 
• How many years of industry experience and expertise does the company and its team members have? 
• Does the company offer other workflow automation solutions? 

Medaptus has been trusted by healthcare organizations and physician groups across the United States for 20+ years. The company was founded by two young physicians in 2000 who developed a platform of provider workflow applications. They secured their first customer, Lahey Clinic in Burlington, Massachusetts, in 2001 and their mobile charge capture and coding solution was rolled out to hundreds of physicians.  

 

Today, the average tenure of the members of our customer support and implementation team is close to ten years and the majority of these team members have previous experience working with large healthcare institutions.  

“Newer companies offering charge capture solutions don’t have the 20+ years of experience working with large institutions and groups that we do. Our entire organization knows how to work with and support healthcare organizations. It takes years to get to this level, especially in such a complex environment,” says Charbonneau. 

“We know how healthcare organizations operate, what their strategic objectives are and how our solutions align with them, which is why we’re seen as a valued long-term partner,” says Charbonneau.  

Innovation 

A commitment to continuous innovation is a sign of a strong long-term strategic partner. Ask questions about the company’s product roadmap. 

• Do they have a product roadmap? If not, this is a red flag. 
• What new features and functionality are on the roadmap? 
• How do they identify and prioritize feature development?  
• How much influence do customers have on shaping the future of the product? 

At medaptus, our roadmap is driven by market demand. We work closely with our customers to develop new features and functionality that solve their specific charge capture challenges. Then, we roll those features out to the rest of our customer base. Our Documentation Integration and Consult modules are a testament to this process. Both modules were developed for specific customers and now all of our customers benefit.  

Right now, we’re continuing to invest in further enhancing our analytics, providing deeper insights and more visual reports. We’re also working on an enhanced user interface for the physicians’ experience to make the solution even easier to use.  

“We’re always listening to our customers, innovating and expanding our features and functionality based on their needs and the market. We have a clear product roadmap and always will as we continue to innovate and deliver even more value to our customers,” says Charbonneau. 

Security and safety 

When you deal with confidential data such as ePHI, it’s vital that your charge capture system is safe and secure, with the latest standards. Our application is hosted in Amazon Web Services (AWS). We regularly monitor for website activity, SecureWorks and CrowdStrike monitor for security-related events, and PTP monitors and manages our VPN firewalls in AWS.  

As well, our Medaptus “Security and Compliance Framework” consolidates security practices which aligns with NIST, HIPAA, HITRUST controls, or best practices. 

We contract with an independent third party to do quarterly penetration tests, biannual network scans, and daily asset vulnerability scans. As well, Medaptus’ code base is evaluated via third-party vulnerability testing each release to further harden our security as new code is delivered to customers. 

We also have active uptime monitoring for site responsiveness and availability; and our technical operations team is available every day if issues are detected.  

Final Thoughts  

Whether you currently have a charge capture solution and are looking to transition to a new one or you’re looking to adopt a charge capture solution for the first time, getting to know the company behind the solution is worth your while.  

Book the demos, evaluate the right criteria, ask the right questions to ensure you choose the right long-term strategic partner. Your physicians and your bottom line will thank you!