Category Archives: Tips

Going Paperless

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In your typical office environment going paperless can be a difficult task.  But why continue to keep the clutter around?  Why not find another way to reduce your carbon footprint, become more organized and enhance the security and privacy of your office documents.  Here are a few good tips on going paperless in your office.

Mail

If you receive any sort of junk or solicitation mail at work there are methods you use to opt out of this.  Log-on to Optoutprescreen.com and opt out of mailing lists so that you will stop receiving insurance and credit offers.  At DMAchoice.org you can opt out of direct marketing mail.  For more information on how to stop receiving unsolicited mail you can visit The Federal Trade Commission’s Consumer Alert.


Filing

So, if you’re truly going to take the big step and go completely paperless, that means you’ll have to eliminate all the current paper filed in your office.  For this you’ll need to have a nice talk with your IT department and try to obtain a scanner.  A basic scanner will work fine; after all, you’re just scanning documents.  If you’ve got a large amount of paper files, spending 30 minutes a day scanning will help to eventually eliminate all these files.  But before you start scanning, first create a clean and organized file folder system in your computer.  This will help you to quickly retrieve items from your computer.

Printing

Instead of printing actual paper documents, print them to PDF.  File these PDF’s in their appropriate folder.  Keep in mind again that a good folder organizational system  is very important here.  But in case you do lose files, there is the handy search feature built into Windows and OS X. Have a monthly report or memo to print out?  Speak to the appropriate people in your office and try to get the delivery method changed from paper to electronic.

Inter-office Paperwork

So here is the thing, not everyone in your office is going to go paperless.  Paper reports and documents will still be dropped on your desk.  Do a little research and see what reports can be emailed or saved to a file.  Talk to the people bringing you the reports and documents, and determine if they can be sent via email instead of printed on paper?  Now you’re not going to be able to eliminate all the paper this way, but that’s why you’ve got the trusty scanner right?

Back-up

Now that you’ve got everything safely stored into your computer, you’re going to feel a little at risk here.  Research cloud back-up options.  There are literally hundreds of them out there.  Be careful though, because not all are completely secure, nor do they all keep your information 100% confidential.  Do your research and be wary of anything that mentions syncing and sharing.  Syncing is technically backing up your system but it’s not the most secure method.  Look for companies that actually offer secure encrypted cloud backups.   Of course you can always back-up your system to an external drive and take it off-site.

 

Are you familiar with HIPAA 5010?

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HIPAA 5010 compliance date begins on Jan 1, 2012; this was adopted to replace the current version X12 version 4010A1.

ICD-10-CM is a diagnostic coding system implemented by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1993 to replace ICD-9-CM, which was developed in the 1970′s. ICD-10-CM is in almost every country in the World, except the United States.

HIPAA X12 version 5010 and NCPDP version D.0 are new sets of standards that regulate the electronic transmission of specific healthcare transactions. Covered entities such as health plans, healthcare clearinghouses, and healthcare providers are required to conform to the 5010 standards.

ICD-10-CM is similar to ICD-9-CM, however many improvements have been made to coding ICD-10-CM. For example, a single code can report a disease and its current manifestation (i.e. type II diabetes with diabetic retinopathy). Computer Science combined with new more detailed ICD-10-CM will allow for better analysis of disease patterns and treatment outcomes that can advance medical care. These same details will streamline claims submissions, since these details will make the initial claim easier for payers to understand.

You can find further information online at http://www.cms.gov/. There you will find detailed information on what you need to do to conform to the 5010 standards.