Can We Improve Healthcare by Reducing Paperwork?

Blockchain Technology May Be the Innovation We Need to Finally Add Value to the Healthcare System

Dr. David Hanekom
CEO, Arizona Care Network

No one gets into medicine for the paperwork. Yet, some studies say that providers now spend up to 75 percent of their day on administrative functions. With a limited number of hours in the day, this naturally means less time spent with patients.

ACN introduced blockchain technology to address some of biggest challenges in healthcare by improving administrative efficiency, transparency, quality and satisfaction.

Having worked in the healthcare industry throughout the world, I know all too well how these factors influence clinical care and contribute to the rising cost of care. That’s precisely why I believe in this platform that delegates more authority to patients and physicians without losing control of costs and utilization.

Blockchain is a hot topic in healthcare because it automatically updates information across all participants of the chain, reducing or eliminating dependence on a centralized clearinghouse. This ensures information is timely and accurate. It creates a permanent record of online transactions that can be securely stored and selectively shared with targeted users on their personal device.

Financial services providers were early adopters of the technology, using blockchain as a means of transmitting funds and logging information. The idea was to lower the worldwide cost of cross-border payments, security trading and compliance. The agricultural industry use it to track food from farm to family, improving efficiency and consumer safety. Now, healthcare leaders are starting to see how the technology can be deployed to drive value for patients, providers and payers.

Consider that in 2015, administrative costs accounted for between 7 and as much as 30 percent of the more than $3 trillion healthcare spend. We are still dependent up on a legacy payment model that’s plagued by inefficient processes, data system silos and duplication of efforts.

Just think of the manual effort required of everyone in the healthcare chain – from patients, doctors practice staff, eligibility workers, case managers, billing agents and others. Patients alone may need to complete as many as 18 steps to secure coverage, confirm deductibles, and schedule appointments, and then make sense of bills that arrive from a variety of providers.

For patients, that means a simpler way of finding an in-network doctor, understanding their insurance benefits and the costs before services are rendered, securing authorizations in real time, and reducing the often duplicative paperwork associated with insurance billing and payments.

Best of all, the blockchain can improve clinical outcomes by giving doctors a 360-degree view of a patient’s health, enabling the entire medical team to communicate, coordinate and eliminate services that drive up healthcare costs without adding clinical value.

Disruptive technologies like blockchain are coming quickly and they have the ability to transform a broken healthcare system. It will be up to the modern CEO and CIO to understand and embrace these technologies to make healthcare and benefits work better for everyone – patients, providers, society and the economy.

Our vision is that providers can return to doing more of what they do best: spending time with their patients to help them achieve their best health.