Oct. 1, 2009 (PR Newswire) --
CHICAGO and LUMBERTON, N.C., Oct. 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Allscripts (Nasdaq: MDRX) announced today that Southeastern Regional Medical Center will implement the Allscripts suite of care management solutions to streamline patient movement through the hospital, enhance continuity of care across the organization and prepare for Medicare's Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) program.
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Allscripts care management solutions are Web-based "software as a service" (SaaS) applications that can be deployed quickly and efficiently with minimal IT support. The full suite of care management solutions automates and streamlines the entire care management process in hospitals, from admission through discharge. The result: increased productivity, improved patient throughput, lower claims denials and better health outcomes.
Southeastern Regional Medical Center is a 337-bed facility serving more than 15,000 inpatients and over 71,000 emergency room patients annually. Southeastern also operates a 115-bed long-term care center, homecare services, both in-home and in-patient hospice, the Gibson Cancer Center, and the Southeastern Heart Center managed by the Duke University Health System.
"When selecting an electronic solution, we did our homework and decided that Allscripts is the right partner to help us improve our efficiency, decrease the time we spend charting, and allow us to better manage our patients' health and length of stays," said Teresa Vanderford, Director of Care Management for Southeastern Regional Medical Center. "Allscripts also makes it far easier for us to defend our organization from Medicare audits by proving, quickly and seamlessly, that patient stays were medically necessary."
The RAC program is a national initiative intended to identify and correct improper Medicare payments paid to healthcare providers in fee-for-service Medicare. Hospitals nationwide will be subject to the audits by the Department of Health and Human Services beginning January 1, 2010.
During a RAC audit, third-party auditors can look retroactively as far back as three years to see if hospitals have billed Medicare correctly. Hospitals may have to justify why a patient was admitted and wherever there is a discrepancy, the RAC auditors can take the money back from the hospital. The private contractors conducting the audits are incentivized to keep a percentage of the collections they make from the audits.
"Our goal at Allscripts is to provide software and technology solutions that allow hospitals and the care providers who work at them to focus on providing world class patient care," said Glen Tullman, Chief Executive Officer of Allscripts.
