For this reason, it’s critical to access applicants’ medical records as early in the process as possible. However, many researchers and clinical trials recruiters run into obstacles, such as misdirected release of information requests. This can happen when applicants don’t have correct or current information for their healthcare providers, or when records have been reallocated after the closure of a healthcare facility.
Another issue clinical research requestors run into is a lack of response—or a lack of a timely response—from custodians. Release of information staff at healthcare facilities are often overwhelmed by the sheer volume of requests they receive, and their turnaround times can run much longer than anticipated. While they try to process all requests as quickly as possible, many of their ROI processes are still manual and time consuming. On top of that, they may be dealing with numerous subpoenas that, due to the legally mandated response time involved, usually take precedence over other types of requests.
In addition, researchers frequently have to deal with authorization forms for records release being declined. This can happen when they use authorization forms that aren’t state-specific, that are too narrowly focused on a single healthcare provider’s requirements, or that have tight expiration dates that don’t allow sufficient time for medical records collection.
When any of these obstacles occur and medical record fulfillment is delayed, researchers or clinical trial recruiters send custodians multiple follow-up faxes and emails, as well as place several phone calls per request in order to figure out where the bottleneck is and how the process can be moved along.
All of this is highly time consuming and detracts resources from core tasks. Furthermore, the start date of trials can be compromised. This can adversely impact the timely development of new medications and therapies—and, as a result, prolong the suffering of patients with serious conditions. Moreover, Pharmafile reports that delays impact study costs, as well as subsequent sales, and can cause potential losses of between $600,000 and $8 million per day.
You want the best researchers in their fields working on your clinical trials—so why not have the best medical records retrieval specialists supporting you during the all-important recruitment phase?
Let us show you how easy medical records retrieval can be with ChartRequest.