Case Study: Our Lady of the Lake 740 bed hospital 10 hospitalists Baton Rouge, LA	Clients> Case Studies Testimonials
Dr. Richard Slataper had some management problems. As Medical Director of the Hospital Medicine Service at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge, he is responsible for the performance of 10 hospitalists in Louisiana's largest hospital. But, he found himself lacking critical data he needed to manage his department effectively. The traditional, paper-based, charge capture system could not provide an efficient way to extract the clinical performance of individual physicians. Furthermore, the system was fraught with deficiencies – charge sheets were often unreadable or lost, resulting in delayed submissions, coding errors and poor communications, as well as an unacceptable accounts receivable backlog. In addition, the hospital's manual charge capture system lacked a realistic way of separating the hospitalists' performance data from the data of the other physicians on the hospital's medical staff. The co-mingling of data resulted in widespread misattributions of performance data. Clearly, there had to be a better system. So, Dr. Slataper began investigating automated management tools that could solve the charge capture and data management problems. After studying all the available software options he chose Ingenious Med's initial product, IMBILLS - Network Edition. He used the software individually for over a year to assess its practicality. After the trial, it was adopted by the entire group. When it became available, the group upgraded to IMBILLS - Web Edition, the second iteration of IMBILLS.  Years later, they are using the most comprehensive version of IMBILLS which is now only a portion of an expanded suite of services, IM Practice Manager. With the installation of IMBILLS, the accumulation of individual physician data began immediately. Over time, the data accumulation has created an increasingly reliable body of verified and useful management information. The benefits of IMBILLS are dramatic. The program enabled Our Lady of the Lake hospitalists to code diagnoses more accurately and virtually eliminate lost or misread charge sheets, which has resulted in higher collections and fewer denials. "The data captured by IMBILLS has greatly enhanced our physician coding compliance. Our collections have increased and our coding is highly consistent with our clinical documentation," Dr. Slataper points out. Here are some of the measurable benefits he found: Average revenue per physician encounter: Prior to IM $49                       With IM $79 This resulted in a $700,000 annual revenue increase – an annual increase of $70,000 per physician. Number of encounters per year Prior to IM 20,507                 With IM 24,732 Accounts Receivable Prior to IM 110 days             With IM 35 days LOS Prior to IM 5.1 days               With IM 3.5 days "Obviously there are many factors that impact these numbers in a complex hospital environment," Dr. Slataper commented. "However, Ingenious Med’s product was the most significant operational change we made during that period." In addition to quantifiable measures, there are numerous more subtle, yet equally valuable benefits. "By justifying better physician to patient ratios, IM allows us to put good physicians in a position to practice good medicine," says Slataper. "From an organizational standpoint, IM allows physicians to better organize their rounds. This gives doctors an opportunity to spend more time with patients on medical issues. And because the system is Web-based, there is 24/7 access to all data by the entire team. This makes patient transitions between hospitalists far more efficient. For administration, the accuracy and efficiency of uploading billing data at the point of care increases revenue and reduces costs. For example, we were able to reduce 1/2 of an FTE biller in the first year." Dr. Slataper found that the Web-based platform was a major benefit, creating ease of access from any Web-enabled location. "Physicians and administrators working at supporting multiple locations would find this particularly significant… The Web platform freed us from the hardware problems of an internal PC network." Asked why he chose Ingenious Med, Dr. Slataper notes: The interfaces are highly intuitive making it comparatively easy for doctors to adapt to the system. There is excellent hardware flexibility. You can use a PDA, desktop or laptop computer to enter or access patient and practice data. This helps with physician acceptance. A patient census sheet can also be easily printed for cross coverage calls and checkout on our colleagues' patients. IM enables Dr. Slataper to customize queries and reports. This feature allows him to extract the management data he needs and helps minimize charge misattributions. It helps his hospitalist group to isolate and track their activity by minimizing the misattributions inherent in most hospital information systems. "I was concerned about the disruption of transitioning to an automated system, but it went quite smoothly," he says. "IM supported us with a trainer and 24/7 phone back-up. First and foremost, I learned the program thoroughly myself. It helps to have a 'go-to' person on site. Initially, we did some batch entry as a group. We had some fun at the sessions, by both helping each other and applying some light-hearted peer pressure to get everyone up to speed." IM enabled Dr. Slataper to improve his charge capture, coding compliance and practice management capabilities, and he eagerly anticipates Ingenious Med's future product releases. "As a company run by leaders in the hospitalist community, Ingenious Med understands the challenges of mobile, inpatient charge capture and data management. IM's focus on inpatient practice management has cemented IM Practice Manager as the leading software for hospitalists."