Part V - What APA’s Customers Are Saying about its RIM Program: 17
Part VI – Let’s Talk: 19
Part-I - The Last Mile of EHR implementation - Moving towards a Paper-Lite Environment.
The Healthcare industry has now spent $100+ billion on EHR (Electronic Healthcare Record) Systems, to replace outdated Legacy Paper Records.
However, many healthcare organizations are still struggling with hundreds of legacy paper records left behind, and now sitting in vendor storage facilities, many well past their retention maturity, with zero value and unnecessarily adding thousands of dollars to the already spent cost of the EHR System and thus unnecessarily consuming valuable budget allocation in their annual budgets.
Above PAR Advisors' (APA) mission is to help its customers sustainably optimize and reduce the cost of their Left Behind Legacy Records Information Management Storage, Digitization (Scan & Host), and Shredding/Destruction.
APA’s integrated vision and mission is to assist Clients in achieving the industry’s goal of better patient care, streamlined data management, improved healthcare efficiency, and economic control of their left-behind legacy records information management storage and processes, (which include similar goals, as those of the technology industry) encouraging and taking necessary actions for vendors to provide better service utilities, better pricing transparency, and driving down cost of the their left-behind legacy records information management storage and processes.
APA RIM programs yield an average of 35% to 55% in cost savings / expense reduction within the first fifteen (15) Months and then have a strategy annual action plan to reduce the legacy left behind paper until it reaches a PaperLite environment.
APA’s RIM Transformation Model is geared toward working with your organization’s Financial, Operational, Administrative, and Supply Chain Management leadership and providing Data-Driven Facts that will impel the organization toward a Paper-Lite environment while ensuring that only the right services are utilized to Improve the ongoing Process and to Reduce Costs.
APA’s RIM expertise is driven by staffing from various industries, including healthcare, records management, information technologies, supply chain, banking, accounting, business analytics, and business management.
APA’s partnerships with AI and technology-oriented companies provide best-in-class leveraging solutions to transform our clients’ legacy paper processes and guide them toward a Paper-Lite model.
Part-II – Facts About Legacy Paper Storage:
In the U.S., most of the population already have an EHR Record (190 million Epic, 108 million on oracle and rest of the population on alternate platforms). Despite this massive utilization of EHR Systems, however, a vast amount of historical medical paper records remains, languishing on vendor storage shelves across the US and accruing an increasingly negative ROI.
The left-behind legacy paper storage amounts to an average of 20,000 boxes (40 million sheets of paper) and up to 500,000 boxes (1 billion sheets of paper) per organization, with many of these historical paper records no longer mission-critical and aged well past the applicable State or Federal statutes, guidelines, or mandatory internal policy regarding retention maturity.
A major GPO has estimated that the total cost of paper records in the U.S. healthcare system is substantial and simply daunting, constituting an estimated $18 billion to $22 billion in unnecessary annual expenses. This includes the cost of paper, printers, toner, physical storage space, and labor to manage said materials. This GPO has long advocated the importance of expense reduction, noting that “every dollar saved equals five dollars in new revenues.”
Sometimes, management may not even recognize the presence or scale of the issue, as the full RIM cost structure may not be included in the RIM model/budget but may be buried in some other part of the organization’s financial model/plan.
APA provides a Complimentary Multidimensional Pre-Assessment SWOT Analysis designed to review and map out the client’s current records information storage process, vendor support, and ongoing & contingent liability cost.
The complementary SWOT Pre-Assessment analysis utilizes the following path:
• We Listen - At Above PAR, we believe one needs to listen so that we do not miss out on details that can uncover what a client is going through.
• We then collect the necessary data and run Deep Analytics to identify the Core Challenges.
• We then detail the findings into a Pre-Assessment Situational Awareness Report with mappings into a Proposed Solution(s).
• Then, If the Client agrees with the proposed solution(s), we then move forward executing the same a Program to Achieve the Desired Solutions/Results.
Part-IV - APA’s Fix-It Execution Program:
The healthcare industry is famous for its “do no harm” concept of always diagnosing and understanding a patient’s condition before providing treatment. APA follows a similar methodology in its 16-Point Execution RIM Value Care Programs
01) Current & Forward Savings: This program aims to lower, stabilize, and control costs over 10+ years on the road to a Paper-Lite Environment. This includes a series of diagnostics and analytics against a structured cost/value base with a core goal of initially providing 35% to 55% cost savings within the first year and continuing to drive down costs until a Paper-Lite environment is achieved.
02) Catch Invoice Errors: Provides a service that reconciles the monthly invoices against the contractual rates and highlights any discrepancies before the invoices are paid, thus preventing client payment frustration.
03) Inventory Management: Provides expertise and management to ensure that the records are identified (indexed/metadata-driven) and that maximum value can be achieved.
04) X-Ray Silver Reclamation: Provides execution management of the process to purge and destroy assets and achieve silver reclamation on any RIM materials where it can be achieved, such as MRI Film, CT-scan film, Radiographs, Lithographs, etc.
05) Digitization (Scan & Host): Digitization is provided in concert with one or more of APA’s strategic partners. This service provides a program that allows the client to digitize (scan and host their paper records on demand) and retrieve them on an on-demand basis, so they never have to experience delays, lapses, or additional burdens in retrieving scanned and hosted records. Boxes or files that are digitized are then eligible for immediate destruction and, thus, continue to improve efficiency and reduce costs. APA also partners with AI, cloud, and digitization companies to better utilize the massive amount of contextual data within their paper records. This is especially critical with IP records.
06) Longitudinal Linkages of Paper & Digital Records: Review the efficiency of ongoing programs to link paper records to digital records, provide efficiency improvements, and, where applicable, execute these programs.
07) AI should be applied to ensure active adherence in the need to continuously purge mature boxes/files of records in compliance with the organization’s Records Retention Policy.
08) Document Management Service: Provides expertise and management to encourage the client organization to retain records in electronic format and actively discourages the storage of paper copies.
09) Vendor Assessment Services: Provides a detailed understanding of the Vendor’s offsite facilities and protocols and looks for efficiency opportunities, including (a) secured access to records, (b) how the records are cataloged/indexed, and how the metadata is used to ensure consistency throughout the entire records inventory, and (c) that the records are always findable.
10) Internal Site Cleanup: Provides expertise and management to clean up sites and prevent them from falling into disarray (determining what to keep, destroy, etc.).
11) Request for Proposal (RFP): Provides an RFP process to define and vet vendor proposals on the client's behalf, ensuring that each RIM program is presented with the most favorable contract terms and pricing. Each RFP is tailored to the client's requirements.
12) Transition Management: Provides management of all facets of any transition from onsite to vendors, from one vendor to another, from a vendor to another site, or to destruction.
13) Intellectual Property (IP) Records: Helps improve information management with labeling, metadata tagging, and annotation to improve cross-referencing, speed of discovery, and IP value.
14) Retention & Information Governance (IG): APA’s strategic partner provides IG. This service provides a program that allows the client to build and tailor a Retention and Information Governance schedule using an archival database of governmental retention and privacy statutes (e.g., HIPAA, Gramm-Leach-Bailey, CCPA, GDPR, etc.) and internal policies.
15) Managed Services: Provides outsourced management for the client's day-to-day RIM Services using APA’s RIM efficiency experts, thus reducing the client's internal bandwidth requirements and operations cost.
16) Permanent Withdrawal (PW) or Purge & Destruction (P&D): In addition to Storage & Usage Cost, Records Information Management Storage also carries Contingent Liabilities Cost (an expense to which the client is obligated once a box is intake by the vendor but which will not be assessed until a later date) to remove records from the vendor’s storage via Permanent Withdrawal (PW) or Purge & Destruction (P&D). These actions include:
* Permanent Withdrawal (if you want to move to an alternate vendor or onsite), this charge includes other Associated Costs like Retrieval, Transportation, Fuel Surcharges, Handling, and “Dock Access”.
* Purge & Destruction of your Records from vendor storage, which includes other Associated Costs like Retrieval, Transportation, Fuel Surcharges, Handling, and “Dock Access”.
* Charges for these services are levied on a CF (Cubic Feet) basis with rates varying by client in accordance with the vendor/client agreement and applicable Rate Sheet(s). On average, however, the destruction cost per box is equivalent to the cost of storing a box for approximately seven (7) years (84 Months).
* Furthermore, most vendors now restrict how quickly these boxes can be Permanently Withdrawal or Purged & Destroyed, meaning a minimum amount of time that must elapse to complete the required action is imposed, subjecting the client to the additional burden of paying for those records that remain in storage while the vendor during the withdrawal or destruction volume each month. APA helps clients manage this process in an orderly and cost-reducing fashion.
The above individual services are most effective when combined with specific service tranches that help drive the process of a Paper-Lite Environment, based on the client’s unique needs.
APA RIM programs currently yield 35% to 55% cost savings/expense reduction within the first sixteen (16) Months, which continue on an annual basis with APA or alternatively the Client running the process on an annual basis, until a Paper-Lite cost-effective environment is achieved.
Part V - What APA’s Customers Are Saying about its RIM Program:
“Above PAR Advisors immediately engaged with us, developing the plan transformation, efficiency, and cost-effective process. They did a thorough audit, framed the issues fast, deployed the right skills, and inserted good infrastructure, and we were off and running. Good results were driven from the very beginning and continued to flow. Most importantly, there is no burden on the client’s staff capture of these savings, as APA handles all the heavy lifting. They are great to work with.” (New York-based healthcare teaching institution)
“Over the last two years, we successfully consolidated and centralized all record/paper storage. This project started with many areas full of paper and boxes not stored in compliance with regs, fire hazard issues, and multiple storage contracts with different pricing. I highly recommend speaking with Above PAR Advisors if you have similar issues.” (Regional Westchester-based specialty hospital)
Part VI – Let’s Talk:
APA can assist you in navigating this last mile and reaching the ultimate goal - A Paper-Lite Environment. Let’s Talk - Contact Us at
• Phone: 877-425-7051
• Email: sales@aboveparadvisors.com
• Visit us at: https://www.aboveparadvisors.com/-medical-healthcare-legacy-records-information-management
