Prevent Financial and Legal Issues by Avoiding Duplicate Health Records

Are you struggling with the issue of duplicate health records at your healthcare system? It’s a serious problem in the healthcare industry - duplicate health records, disorganization, and document errors all lead to not only medical risks for patients, but also to problems with billing and finances. According to a 2021 survey of 1,500 health technology managers by Black Book, an estimated 35% of all denied claims resulted from inaccurate patient identification or information. That cost the average hospital $2.5 million in 2020 and the U.S. healthcare system over $6.7 billion annually. These numbers prove how critical it is to keep health records maintained and organized, and to avoid duplicating them to save time, money, and patient relationships. 

RELATED: HOW TO MITIGATE HUMAN ERROR IN HEALTHCARE SYSTEMS

What are Duplicate Health Records? 

Duplicate records are two or more records assigned to the same patient in a healthcare system. Additionally, a patient’s record may sometimes be mixed with data from another patient, creating a combined record that’s extremely dangerous for both patients. Healthcare documentation has always been a challenge due to the large amounts of information that need to be recorded and retained. While digitization of health records does make organization easier in some respects, it also makes it easier to accidentally duplicate records and quickly become disorganized. Here are some of the ways that duplicate healthcare documentation occurs: 

• Data entry errors 
• Inaccurate information from patients 
• Poor data transmission between hospitals or systems 
• Changing identifiers 

Why Does This Pose Such a Risk? 

Duplicate records are a huge risk in healthcare document management. As noted, they can cause issues like: 

• Danger to patients
• A weakened patient-provider relationship 
• Billing errors 
• Erroneous insurance claims 
• Accusations of fraud and resulting legal action
• Financial distress within the healthcare organization 
• Low quality research due to bad data 

This is why it’s so critical to ensure that duplicate health records are avoided at all costs. 

RELATED: 3 BENEFITS OF DOCUMENT VERSION CONTROL SOFTWARE

Avoid Duplicating Records by Implementing DigiDoc as Your DMS

Obviously, duplicate records are a serious risk for patients and organizations alike. Luckily, they can be avoided with the right healthcare document management software (DMS) and careful attention to detail. Document version control - a feature that manages all versions of a document and ensures that the most recent version is being used - can be extremely helpful in this scenario. Here are a few other tips for avoiding duplicate health records: 

• Ensure that patient registration in a healthcare system is extensive and standardized, and that each subsequent registration follows the same process. 
• Run data analytics regularly to look for any issues. 
• Implement a DMS within your healthcare system to keep documents organized and up to date.

Have questions about duplicate health records or want to explore document management solutions? Our team is here to answer your questions and walk you through DigiDoc.