Specifically their Accounts Receivable Workstation software?
I work in the insurance billing department of a major hospital and we have been using it exclusively for the last 5-6 months.
Basically it’s set up so that each biller gets his/her claims (assigned by an alpha split. I have L-Z Blue Cross) all together at one time broken down by insurance carrier.
Supposedly this is to make us more efficient. It also allows management types to easily track our productivity (which is supposed to weed out those aren’t working).
This system was installed with only 3 hours of instructional classes and virtually no test period. It is riddled with problems.
Examples:
One day I started out with about 185 claims (I am required to work at least 50 per day). At the end of the day, I had gotten it down to about 100. Any claims not worked one day are supposed to reappear the next day until they are processed out (that is, paid).
The next day, it tells me I have 130. However, when I add the claims on the screen, I only count 30. The previous day’s 100 are now invisible! I work down the 30 and I leave with it showing 100, but no claims to be seen (this has happened several times before). The next day I am told I have about 60 claims. The ‘ghosted’ 100 are gone forever. I have no idea what they were since I never got a chance to see them.
One of the selling points of this software was that “other” hospitals were using it with great success.
The IS (same as IT) person in charge of this project is, apparently, an idiot. She claims to have fixed this (and many other) problem, yet it comes back again and again.
I questioned my supervisor (she hates the system, too) about the “other” hospitals’ use of the system:
Which version do they have?
Does it have the same modules?
How much training did the employees get?
What problems did they have and how were they solved?
What system were they using before? (we got monthly paper reports, which were much easier to work with)
Anybody work in the healthcare industry and come into contact with this?