When an injury or illness arises, a patient’s first step is usually to visit his or her primary care physician. 

During this appointment, the doctor will decide whether he or she can diagnose and treat the issue, or whether it’s best that a patient transfer to another specialist. 

If it has been decided that a referral visit is necessary, a patient will likely be sent to a different building to see doctors that specialize in the issue at hand. 

At first glance, this process sounds like a good thing. After all, you wouldn’t want a primary care provider attempting to treat a brain tumor. 

However, being transferred from office to office can also hinder a person’s ability to get the care he or she really needs. 

Why does a lack of quality care coordination put patients in danger? 

And, why is it vital that you adopt a system that will help the doctors in your network keep up to speed with a patient’s previous records and diagnoses?

Keep reading to find out…

The Dangers of Poor Patient Care Coordination Practices

Patient care coordination is the organization of patient care services between two or more healthcare providers in an effort to provide a patient with appropriate solutions to his or her current health problems. 

Much like the idea that it takes a village to raise a child, it can also take a village of medical care providers to get to the root of what’s causing an illness. 

You would think that healthcare organizations would have the technology needed to ensure that a patient’s medical history made it into the hands of the specialist a patient was referred to. 

But sadly, that’s not always the case. 

There’s a reason medical offices have patients fill out extensive paperwork forms that ask them to list family history, current health issues, etc. 
(Find out how you can start relieving the burden of paperwork with our FREE medical records release software here!) 

And, there’s a reason that patients spend time talking with a nurse or physician’s assistant about what’s going on before they meet with the doctor. 

Here’s why: doctors often walk into appointments with a blank slate. 

They don’t always know what a previous doctor has done or why a patient visited the previous doctor in the first place. 

Here’s an example of how this lack of knowledge can get really dangerous. 

Patient A suddenly starts having vision problems. She goes to her local eye doctor thinking she simply needs a pair of glasses. 

She finds out that she has perfect 20/20 vision, and her vision issues are being caused by an eye that is starting to tilt toward her nose. 

Patient A also explains her past medical history, and her current struggle with nausea, headaches, and other issues. 

The optometrist knows there are multiple reasons this might be happening including deteriorated esotropia, thyroid issues, or brain tumors. He doesn’t have the experience necessary to treat the disorder, so he sends her to an ophthalmologist for a second opinion. 

Upon that second visit, the ophthalmologist continues to have concerns and decides he can’t diagnose the problem either. He sends her to a neurologist that specializes in brain-related tumors that cause eye disorders. 

The neurologist has no insight into patient A’s previous medical history of being treated for stomach ulcers, kidney stones, constant nausea, headaches, etc. 

Because of this, his only focus is on the eye and the brain. 

He does a scan and rules out one of the biggest concerns, a brain stem tumor. This is a big relief, but clearly, there is still a major underlying issue that he is aware of.

He prescribes special glasses and hopes that will solve the issue. 

Frustrated, patient A lists off her medical history and asks why all these other things have been happening. 

Alarmed that he was unaware of the problems at hand, the neurologist feels awful about almost sending a patient home with only a prescription for glasses. 

This same scenario happens to people every day. 

Thankfully, patient A spoke up. But, many patients don’t until health issues become very scary and serious. 

If only more healthcare systems had a better patient care coordination system, overseeing major problems like Patient A experienced wouldn’t happen as frequently. 

The Benefits of Acquiring a Better Patient Care Coordination System for Your Office

We hope that the biggest benefit of acquiring a better patient care coordination system for your practice would be healthier patients that receive better care. 

That said, we know that you’re a business. 

And, as a business, one of your top priorities should be ensuring your operation runs in a smooth, cost-effective manner. 

Here’s how a better patient care coordination system can help you achieve that goal:

1. Improved quality of care during care transitions: Patient care coordination software provides your office with an easy way to send and receive information between medical practices. With this information, physicians will be more knowledgeable walking into an appointment. This makes for a better patient experience and helps take the stress off the doctors in your practice. 
2. Reduction in duplication of services: The amount of time and money that is wasted on duplication of services is shocking. With a better patient care coordination system, your physicians will have a better understanding of what tests have already been run on the person they are seeing. This prevents a patient from having to remember every single blood draw, scan, etc. It also prevents doctors from having to order testing that isn’t necessary and wastes resources and time. 
3. Reduction in money spent on patients: Time is money. And when doctors are wasting their time running unnecessary tests or trying to put together the puzzle pieces of someone’s past medical issues, it doesn’t help anyone. Patient care coordination software can help your physicians and office staff get the info they need about patients upfront so less time and money is wasted. 

How ChartRequest’s Patient Care Coordination Software Works

1. Go to www.chartrequest.com and sign up for a release of information, care coordination, and referral management account.
2. Make an outbound request by simply selecting the provider and uploading your authorization.
3. Our software automates the reminders for the provider you are requesting from (fax, mail, and phone reminders) so that your request is completed in a timely fashion. You’ll get an email from us when the records are available, and you can log in to our secure care coordination platform to download and transfer to your system (or you can integrate and one-click transfer).
4. Receive inbound requests by adding our care coordination widget to your website or sending fax-backs to providers when they request records so you can automate the process.

If your office is in need of a patient care coordination system, we highly encourage you to get in touch with us.  

Please visit  www.chartrequest.com and sign up for a Release of Information, Care Coordination, and Referral Management Account to get started today!