NY Orthopedics, a healthcare organization with an incredible legacy in sports medicine, has been a partner with ChartRequest for over 7 years. With 15 bone and joint specialists serving across 9 locations, NY Orthopedics helps patients recover from spine, knee, hip, joint, and other musculoskeletal issues.
Founded by Dr. Stephen Nicholas, NY Orthopedics works closely with NISMAT to perform clinical, multidisciplinary research. NISMAT, or the Nicholas Institute of Sports Medicine and Athletic Trauma, was founded by Dr. James A Nicholas, the father of Dr. Stephen Nicholas and a pioneer in the field of sports medicine.
The experts at NY Orthopedics are dedicated to supporting patients recovering from physical trauma with top-of-the-line care. As orthopedic specialists, however, the providers at NY Orthopedics receive constant records requests. These may come from patients, legal professionals, primary care physicians, and other specialists.
Challenge
We recently had the pleasure of speaking with NY Orthopedics’ Office Manager Sharon Ramnath about her team’s experience with ChartRequest.
As leaders of innovation in sports medicine, NY Orthopedics has a reputation for expertise and professionalism. The doctors at NY Orthopedics even occasionally offer news channels their insights regarding professional athlete injuries and new research findings.
NY Orthopedics was an early adopter of release of information technology. Their first ROI vendor was, unfortunately, a swing and a miss. Throughout the duration of their previous contract, NY Orthopedics discovered multiple issues that ranged from frustrating to legally risky.
Immediately after signing with their previous ROI vendor, NY Orthopedics had to create space for the vender’s employee to work. In New York City, space for even a single desk is extremely valuable.
Despite the space issue, the team at NY Orthopedics had an okay overall experience with the vendor’s first employee. However, after a few months, this employee was replaced by another person, and then another.
Within 6 months of signing the contract, NY Orthopedics had 3 different vendor employees handling their medical record requests. The experience had begun to sour, and it got worse when requestors began complaining about delayed or incomplete records.
“We started getting complaints of people not getting full records or they were missing stuff… It became an issue, and that’s one of the reasons why, instead of staying with them, we opted to go elsewhere.”
With the looming risk of HIPAA violation for each request unfulfilled before the 30-day turnaround deadline, NY Orthopedics decided to find a more reliable solution.
Objectives
- Find a partner that integrates with the athenahealth EHR system
- Reclaim the space allocated to their previous ROI vender’s staff
- Provide patients with their requested medical records at no cost
- Release all requested records within the 30-day HIPAA deadline
Solution
A few months before seeking a new release of information solution, NY Orthopedics upgraded their EHR system to athenahealth. When Sharon began searching for a new release of information solution, she didn’t need to go far to find ChartRequest.
As a proud athenahealth partner for nearly a decade, ChartRequest was easy to locate on the athenahealth marketplace website. After discussing the needs of NY Orthopedics, we entered a Full-Service partnership to automate the secure, compliant release of information.
With a team of ROI experts and cutting-edge technology, ChartRequest can handle requests for medical, imaging, and billing records electronically. Because NY Orthopedics outsources the most tedious ROI burdens to ChartRequest, Sharon’s team can focus on more impactful duties.
“[My team is] focused on dealing with the attorneys, the insurances, and the doctors, trying to coordinate depositions, getting narratives done, and sending them out to the attorneys instead of having to just sit there and print records all day.”
Offering an exceptional patient experience at every stage of the healthcare journey is also a core goal for NY Orthopedics. The large volume of requests from legal professionals enables NY Orthopedics to provide patients with their records at no cost.
“It’s definitely made things better for the patients now that it’s so easy. I think turnaround time is 2 days for patients, whereas if we were doing it, it would take two to three weeks because of the volume of requests and the staffing that we have.”
Benefit
NY Orthopedics began enjoying the benefits of partnership with ChartRequest within the first 2 weeks after implementation. In addition to freeing up the deskspace of the previous vendor’s staff, ChartRequest enabled NY Orthopedics to keep its ROI team small.
“At the time, we had three people, and we were able to utilize one of them elsewhere. I’m pretty sure we would have had to hire additional staff, so we probably would have been a team of five by now for medical records, but we’ve been able to maintain just the two.”
Maintaining the same ROI team for over 7 years is not a feat many healthcare organizations can boast. During a time of staffing shortages and high turnover rates, NY Orthopedics has avoided the costs and hassles of hiring and training ROI staff by addressing a root cause of stress and burnout.
“There’s definitely a peace of mind, especially in this day and age with all the rules and regulations that we have to adhere to.”
ChartRequest works hard to ensure an excellent experience for all users. Our average Google rating of 4.8 stars reflects the dedication of our support team. In our interview, Sharon highlighted the responsiveness of support that sets ChartRequest apart from other vendors.
“Let’s say I have an issue and I send an email. I’ll usually get a response in less than an hour… I’ve been to a few conferences and people have tried to have me take a look at their platform. In one case I did look, and I said, ‘No no no no no, we’re sticking with what we have.’”
Do you relate to the challenges NY Orthopedics experienced before ChartRequest? If you’ve had negative experiences with a current or previous ROI vendor, we’d love to hear where they went wrong.
