The adoption of HIPAA Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) specifications has had little impact on the volume of paper documents processed by the hospital business office.

This is somewhat surprising and contrary to some growing assumptions in the healthcare industry. But the reality is, after studying both EDI and paper document volumes steadily since 2001, we have detected no reduction whatsoever in paper document volumes.

The hope of the EDI standards instituted by HIPAA was that paper documents such as EOB's and RA's would be eliminated as part of the utilization of electronic posting files received from payers.  Unfortunately, this has not yet been the case.

While a few carriers are able to process electronic payment information, most currently do not, and all indications are that it will require a significant amount of time to substantially implement EDI.

The HIPAA EDI format that provides electronic remittance information equivalent (more or less) to a classic EOB is the 835 Healthcare Payment format. After tracking document volumes since 2001, we have found that there has not been a decrease in paper volume, in fact, there has been a slight increase on average. At the same time, we have seen a steady increase in the use of electronic remits.

There are several possible reasons why paper is still heavily used. One is that a paper copy of electronic remittance data is still needed by the business office for rebilling and other processes. Even if the hospital financial system can print a "mini-EOB" from EDI data, other information from the EOB is needed such as explanation and denial code legends. Also, hospital systems are simply not ready to accommodate EDI from a large number of payers.

It will be some time before wide-spread implementation of EDI has a substantial impact on paper volumes. It is arguable that there will never be a truly paperless environment and there will always be a need to manage a large volume of paper documents in the business office. Either way, utilizing document imaging makes sense for the hospital business office now.

Even if you believe that EDI will reduce paper volumes soon, the document imaging services offered by Healthcare Reports are a cost effective way to boost performance.

Imaging can be used temporarily for those EOBs and other documents that may soon be eliminated by EDI. Eventually, if EDI truly does reduce volumes, correspondence and other documents not represented in the EDI data can be managed using document imaging. Since our fees are based on volume, there is no risk to the business office. Our services provide optimum coverage regardless of future events.