The Problem
Health care organizations around the US currently use ICD-9 and ICD-10 diagnosis codes for a variety of purposes. These include healthcare sectors like Physician Offices, Outpatient and Inpatient facilities, Home Care, Radiology, Laboratories, etc. They are used for the purpose of quality control, records keeping, billing, treatment authorizations, and any other type of standardized health care communication.
These codes are usually determined by manually examining the patients supporting documentation pertaining to the official diagnosis, treatment and history. The task of codifying this information has always been done manually by a person who understands the ICD standards, and providers must usually hire specialty staff or a service to obtain the skills required for this task.
In 2013, all health care organizations must begin using the ICD-10 diagnosis code standard. The ICD-10 standard has been greatly revised and restructured with many more possible diagnosis codes. Providers must ensure a smooth transition by addressing many aspects of their business, including workflows, training and retaining skilled staff, and converting IT systems. This represents a large commitment and investment to ensure an effective conversion to the new standard. With diagnosis coding at the heart of health care revenue, anything that can help the human workers perform their task more efficiently and with better understanding, the less costly and painful the entire process will be.
A Solution
Logtek is currently developing a Computer Assisted Coding solution. This will use Natural Language Processing to pull relevant patient data from electronic records. The CAC will then use advanced Machine Learning algorithms to determine a likely set of diagnosis codes and return them to a coding professional.
The returned diagnosis codes will contain supporting evidence for a person to review and approve for final coding of patient charts. This process provides feedback through review of the returned diagnosis codes, meaning that it will adapt to your decisions to provide better results.
We are currently prototyping various components of this CAC solution. If you are interested in participating with the design on this system, please Contact Us.