Patent Application Titled “Personnel Track And Trace Audit System For Healthcare” Published Online (USPTO 20190348163)

2019 DEC 03 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Health & Medicine Business Daily -- According to news reporting originating from Washington, D.C., by NewsRx journalists, a patent application by the inventors Kantrowitz, Allen B. (Miami, FL); Mun, In Ki (Nanuet, NY), filed on May 9, 2019, was made available online on November 14, 2019.

No assignee for this patent application has been made.

Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Medical practice management software (PMS) is a category of healthcare software that deals with the day-to-day operations of a medical practice. PMS software frequently allows users to capture patient demographics, schedule appointments, maintain lists of insurance payors, perform billing tasks, and generate reports.

“PMS systems are designed for small to medium-sized medical offices. Versions of PMS software are designed for or used by third-party medical billing companies. PMS is often divided among desktop-only software, client-server software, or Internet-based software. The desktop-only software is intended to be used only on one computer by one or a handful of users sharing access. Client-server software typically necessitates that the practice acquire or lease server equipment and operate the server software on that hardware, while individual users’ workstations contain client software that accesses the server. An advantage of client-server software is in allowing multiple users to share the data and the workload, while a major disadvantage is the cost of running the server. Internet-based software that is based in the cloud is a relatively newer PMS based offering. Internet or cloud based software decreases the need for the medical office or practice to run their own server and worry about security and reliability. However, Internet based software removes patient data from the practice’s premises, which can present a security risk.

“Practice management software is often connected to electronic medical records (EMR) systems. While some information in a PMS and an EMR overlaps--for example, patient and provider data--in general the EMR system is used for the assisting the practice with clinical matters, while PMS is used for administrative and financial matters. Medical practices often hire different vendors to provide the EMR and PMS systems. The integration of the EMR and PMS software is considered one of the most challenging aspects of the medical practice management software implementation.

“Medical billing is a process that involves health care providers and insurance companies (payers), and pertains to the payment to the health care providers for medical services rendered to clients of the insurance companies by the health care providers. A billing interaction begins with an office visit or hospital admission of a patient, when a physician or their staff will typically create or update the patient’s medical record. After the doctor sees the patient, the diagnosis and procedure codes are assigned. The procedure codes assist the insurance company in determining coverage and medical necessity of the services. Once the procedure and diagnosis codes are determined, a medical biller will transmit the claim to the insurance company. The insurance company will then review the claim and pay based on their findings and percentage payout policies.

“Currently, bill coding is typically performed with software packages that generate user interfaces (UI) that utilize long drag down menus of patients and services. The use of multiple and lengthy pull down menus is tedious, time consuming, and prone to error, and practically proper billing event capture is not done routinely with lost billing and inaccurate time logs that miss services performed by medical personnel.

“Point of care (POC) functionality often uses a radio frequency network that allows a handheld device used by the caregiver to communicate in real-time with a health care information system, and as a result, there is no need to upload or download information to/from the device. Bedside verification systems interface with a healthcare facilities information system to obtain data regarding patient identification, physician computerized order entry, and medication administration records (MAR) with the bedside unit dose administration event. Patients and unit dose medications are often associated and identified with a set of unique barcodes that may be scanned by the handheld device to confirm a patient’s identity and medication information against the available data in the MAR to ensure safe medication administration and for reducing preventable medication errors.

“Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags may be used in conjunction with radio frequency networks for tracking and determining the location of people, equipment, and objects in a location or a facility. Radiofrequency identification (RFID) tags are broadly classed as to passive and active tags. While a passive tag lacks a power supply in electrical communication with the tag, an active identification tag has a coupled power supply and actively broadcasts a signal. Generally, a passive tag tends to be less expensive, more compact and has a longer operating lifetime than a comparable active tag, at the expense of requiring more complex tag interrogation systems.

“While there are available medical practice management software and point of care systems for managing, recording, billing, and administering patient care, there continues to be a need for improved methods and systems that improve the timeliness, convenience, and accuracy of capturing information of medical billing.”

In addition to obtaining background information on this patent application, NewsRx editors also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent application: “An automated system for medical billing is provided that includes one or more radio frequency identification (RFID) sensors positioned in various rooms or areas of a medical facility. The RFID sensors are in communication with: a first set of individually coded radio frequency identification (RFID) tags assigned to each member of a team of healthcare workers in the medical facility, a second set of individually coded RFID tags assigned to one or more pieces of equipment in the medical facility, and a third set of individually coded RFID tags assigned to one or more patients seeking medical care in the medical facility. A software platform run on a processor that collects information from the one or more RFID sensors determines probable tasks performed by the members of the healthcare team based on the locations and time spent by the healthcare members with the one or more pieces of equipment and the one or more patients being attended to, and where the determined probable tasks are associated with a corresponding billing codes. A prospective bill is generated that is quicker to edit and confirm that de novo generation. A method of system usage is also provided.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. An automated system for medical billing, said system comprising: one or more radio frequency identification (RFID) sensors positioned in various rooms or areas of a medical facility in communication with: a first set of individually coded radio frequency identification (RFID) tags assigned to each member of a team of healthcare workers in the medical facility, a second set of individually coded RFID tags assigned to one or more pieces of equipment in the medical facility, a third set of individually coded RFID tags assigned to one or more patients seeking medical care in the medical facility; and a software platform run on a processor that collects information from the one or more RFID sensors to determine probable tasks performed by the members of the healthcare team based on the locations and time spent by the healthcare members with the one or more pieces of equipment and the one or more patients being attended to, and where the determined probable tasks are associated with a corresponding billing codes.

“2. The system of claim 1 further comprising a user interface (UI) generated by the software platform that provides informed billing suggestions to healthcare workers.

“3. The system of claim 3 wherein the UI is formatted for display on a smartphone, a tablet, a laptop, and a monitor connected to a computer.

“4. The system of claim 1 wherein the software platform further comprises artificial intelligence (AI) tools to provide intelligent suggestions as to the probable tasks with corresponding billing codes as performed by members of the healthcare team.

“5. A method for medical billing comprising: a healthcare worker from the team of healthcare workers logging on to the software platform of claim 1; and reviewing a received informed billing suggestion on a user interface (UI) generated by the software platform and accepting, editing. or declining the informed billing suggestion.

“6. The method of claim 5 wherein if the informed billing suggestion is declined, the healthcare worker uses a pull-down menu to select a task and a corresponding billing code.”

For more information, see this patent application: Kantrowitz, Allen B.; Mun, In Ki. Personnel Track And Trace Audit System For Healthcare. Filed May 9, 2019 and posted November 14, 2019. Patent URL: http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220190348163%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20190348163&RS=DN/20190348163

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