The world of healthcare is extremely complex, and as such, has been divided into many, many fields and specialties. For example, for an average appointment to get a prescription, you will need a receptionist to schedule your appointment and check you in, a nurse to take your vitals and record why you’re there, a doctor to diagnose you and prescribe you medication, a billing agent to receive payment for the hospital, and a pharmacist to fill your prescription.
There are many benefits of this division, such as helping the provider be more knowledgeable in their specialty to give you better care, and streamlining your care by having a team of people work together to cover all of the areas. However, these benefits only come to be if there is communication and sharing between these specialties. A breakdown in interoperability in just one area of healthcare has a ripple effect on other areas and makes the care experience more complicated and frustrating.
To get a more up-close look at interoperability challenges in healthcare and their ripple effect, we reached out to our incredible Healthcare IT Today Community to ask — what interoperability challenges exist between clinical, billing, and payer systems, and how are they impacting revenue cycle efficiency? Their responses are below.