Do you know that physicians waste two-third of their time doing paperwork? In the last two years, it has become overwhelming for them with a swelling number of patients, understaffed medical facilities, and challenges in recording and storing their data.
A study has confirmed that the amount of paperwork that doctors have to do is out of control. Physicians spent 27% of their time seeing patients in their offices and 49.2% of their time on paperwork. Even when doctors were in the examination room with patients, they spent only 52.9% of their time conversing with or examining them and 37% on paperwork.
The data is only the tip of the iceberg. We also have to consider medical insurance forms, claims, and the time spent filling these forms.
This study shows that the amount of paperwork is getting insane and worse over time.
The healthcare industry faces many changes like government regulations, technological innovations, and patient expectations that pose new challenges to healthcare organizations in 2021. Some of which are cybersecurity, patient experience, invoicing & payment processing.
The industry deals with sensitive client data exchanges every day. It is imperative to ensure that all client data is collected accurately, and precautions are needed to eliminate tampering of the medical document by assuring its safe storage and security.
What if there is a technologically proven solution to eliminate paperwork and enable a paperless document workflow with uncrackable security & safety?
Welcome to electronic signature technology! Using an eSignature solution, healthcare providers can speed up the collection of the consent of the doctor and patient while maintaining a level of compliance that meets traditional signatures or exceeds them.
Here are the core benefits of using electronic signatures in the healthcare industry:
1) Focus on the patients rather than the paperwork
For a long time, doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers have complained about the time-consuming paperwork, which they say is a massive waste of time. They cannot see as many patients in a day and can’t spend much time focusing on improving their medical condition.
These are the top 4 specialties in the medical industry spending most of the time on paperwork:
- Psychiatrists (20.3%)
- General practitioners (17.3%)
- Internists (17.3%)
- Paediatricians (14.1%)
LunarPen application helps reduce paperwork for your health staff to increase the quality of care received by the patient and focus more on saving their lives.
Electronic signatures help capture and securely store all the end-to-end details of patients in a single application, starting from paperless:
- Admission of patients
- Doctor’s prescription
- Progress report
- Discharge of patient
- Medical insurance claims
- Hospital bills
2) Fast track crucial processes in healthcare
Most healthcare processes were a bit different decades ago. In 2021, most hospitals practice the same age-old methods that waste both the patients and healthcare time. The hospital administrator would hand out registration forms for filling and signing patient information. It is still happening to plan & confirm doctors’ appointments, which would eventually get processed manually by the staff.
When it comes to medical records, we use hand-written signatures on every medical document.
After some time, the older document gets destroyed because it is no longer needed.
Below is the existing lifecycle of documents without electronic signatures:
Print – Sign – Scan – Store – Destroy
Digital transformation empowers the industry to sign documents on any digital device anytime, from anywhere. Secure cloud storage is responsible for the storage, retrieval, and disposal of records.
New lifecycle of documents with electronic signatures:
Sign – Store
You can see the complete reduction in process steps with eSignatures that helps fast-track crucial processes in the healthcare industry.
That means the moment you sign the documents with digital signatures, they are stored securely in the cloud without the need of printing-signing-scanning-storing. It brings several benefits to the ailing patient and the overloaded healthcare personnel, which are:
- Patients don’t have to carry their medical documents every time
- Doctors can make important decisions about patients quickly
- Save expenses related to printing, copying, scanning & document storage
- Verify the authenticity of medical bills with ease
- Tampering is impossible with online medical documents
3) Keep confidential patient data secure
Manual signatures have physical limitations, like they can be misplaced, copied, or damaged easily. They take longer to create, collect and store, making them easily prone to destruction, theft, and forgery.
Also, they fail to capture relevant information like the party’s intent to sign or the verifiable date and time of signing of agreements.
Electronic signatures successfully fill all the gaps left opened by manual signatures.
All critical documents are present on the eSignature application in digital format, assuring complete confidentiality of patient’s data against any attempts to steal it.
The eSignature application is accessible only by trusted healthcare professionals approved by the admin that keeps the data safe from unwanted sources. Additionally, the electronic signature technology uses multi-factor authentication to enhance security by requiring signers to express the intent to sign by utilizing the E-signature application.
There are several available options like secret Q&A, user id & password, uploading identification images, and many others for e-sign transactions.
Such security measures assure that only the permitted person can edit, access, and view the data.
4) Improve patient experience
Patients usually waiting in long lines, having little or no time to read forms carefully, and experiencing delays in getting access to doctor’s care are not the ingredients for a positive patient experience.
Digitizing documentation is the most effective method of eliminating the need for patients to be held up by paperwork. Every documentation is covered in electronic signature application, whether onboarding, discharge forms, or improving the efficiency of insurance claims processing.
Healthcare professionals and patients can read, accept and sign the forms from the comfort of their own homes, thanks to the remote capabilities of the application.
Furthermore, as the physicians are no longer required to do the tedious task of covering documentation, they can give much-needed time to the patients, which is a win-win situation for everyone.
5) Legal compliance
There are numerous laws to safeguard businesses using electronic signature applications and provide the required legal compliance to paperless signatures for a smooth user experience in every industry. Check out the details of these laws that assure legal cover to eSignatures:
eIDAS: eIDAS facilitates electronic transactions between citizens, enterprises, and the governments of any state of the Union. It ensures a market for trust services and legally protects the electronic signature based processes. The tremendous benefit of eIDAS is that it is permissible across all EU countries and can be used to open up additional EU markets for businesses.
HIPAA: Compliance with HIPAA can be helpful to your business. They are trusted more in the market since patients and clients believe you keep their data secure. Its primary benefit is profitability. Loyalty to customers results in greater profitability for your company. A majority of insurance companies and employers in the US sponsor or co-sponsor their employees’ health insurance.
ESIGN: The ESIGN Act helps expedite the use of electronic signatures in all places where federal laws apply. It ensures that eSignatures are permitted in the courts as credible evidence. Additionally, it makes sure that electronic documents have indisputable proof of validity, effect, and enforceability.
UETA: UETA provides a legal framework for electronic signature use per state. It is used to deal with everything from transferable records to automated transactions and record retention. 48 US states have adopted it.
Digital signature complies with the requirements of all the laws and assists organizations in meeting compliance requirements across the health industry. It covers health plans, medical equipment manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, and providers by managing the signing process and ensuring that all information is authenticated and kept secure.
Case Study
Chupik Counseling has provided mental health services to central Texas patients for nearly three decades. Bread and butter for the therapists and counselors are therapy and counseling, offering evaluations, medication management, and additional services. In the year 2020, they opened five brick-and-mortar locations. During the severe global health crisis, their telehealth initiatives expanded rapidly.
Challenge
The CEO of the company, Jeffery Chupik, was a big believer in face-to-face therapy. Then in the year 2020, as the global pandemic struck, the entire world changed, shunning physical interactions and relying more on digital mediums for meetings.
It didn’t take long for staff to realize that they had no proper system to get patient consent for their telehealth services. They needed a solution to rapidly onboard new patients that didn’t rely on face-to-face meetings.
The Pain Point
Chupik required a rapid transition to telehealth to bring their onboarding and consent process online.
The Solution
Electronic signature made customer onboarding easier by including links to readymade onboarding document templates instead of PDF files. As the patient signs forms, their therapists automatically receive a digital copy of the patient with all the details.
Here are the features that clicked electronic signatures with Chupik:
Lightning-fast adoption
In a matter of a few hours, Chupik was able to get started with eSignatures. No complicated setup backed by quick and convenient signing.
Time-saving templates
It is easier to create templates easily for commonly used documents.
Conclusion
More efficient patient service is possible while maintaining compliance and standards by utilizing a digital eSignature solution. If you are a healthcare service provider and interested in using digital signatures to boost the efficiency of existing healthcare processes, please get in touch with us now.
Frequently Asked Questions
What documents could healthcare companies be signing?
Every document can be quickly converted into an online format using the readymade templates of electronic signatures. Healthcare companies can sign multiple documents like:
- Patient intake form
- Patient consent form
- Care documents
- Billing documents
- Provider agreements
- Claims processing forms
- Drug prescriptions
- Lab reports
- Staffing forms
- HIPAA forms
Are e signatures on medical forms and records legally enforceable?
Medical forms and records are among the documents that can be signed electronically, including prescriptions and medical records.
The Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA) and the Global and National Commerce Act (GNCA) must be taken into consideration when determining the conditions necessary for electronic signatures under HIPAA law (ESIGN Act).
Both the UETA and ESIGN establish that electronic signatures and forms have the same weight and legal effect as hand-written signatures and traditional paper documents, just as they do with hand-written signatures and conventional paper documents. A specific provision of the ESIGN Act specifies that the signed document’s legal enforceability cannot be denied in electronic format.
What are the requirements of e signatures under HIPAA?
Electronic signatures are not under HIPAA rule. They are acceptable if they are compliant with the ESIGN Act and the UETA Act.
The conditions of the UETA and ESIGN Act are:
Legal compliance: The contract, document, agreement, or authorization should comply with federal rules for e-signatures, must display the terms, and should offer the signatory the option to receive a printed or emailed copy of the contract.
User Authentication: For preventing disputes, the covered entities must implement a system to validate the identity of all parties in the contract. Two-step verification can solve this problem.
Message Integrity: It is necessary to implement a system to ensure the integrity of the agreement. This condition is similar to the HIPAA security requirements for electronic communications and therefore deserves the same level of importance.
Ownership and control: The requirement is to make e-signatures HIPAA-compliant to stored signed documents on servers of e-signature service providers.
How can eSignature technology be used in the healthcare industry?
Here are the other important uses of electronic signatures in the healthcare industry:
Customer documentation: Every patient has a file that keeps their documents intact. Often, patients need to sign the papers. Doctors can also eSign the documents during a patient’s checkup.
Approving medical procedures: All hospitals require consent from all patients before engaging in any process. It is necessary to prevent a patient from making a charge in court against the hospital.
The signing of medical certificates: A certificate issued by a medical professional verifies an individual’s ability and approval by the relevant healthcare provider. The medical profession can use eSignature solutions for healthcare signing of documents.
Medical receipts: An electronic signature is used instead of manual stamps to prevent faded or unclear stamps.