The real impact of incorrect addresses in healthcare
In healthcare, patient misidentification is a significant concern with potentially severe consequences for both patients and care providers. Correcting inaccurate addresses is crucial. The issue is prevalent: on average, more than seven patients share the same name at a healthcare organization. These duplicate names can make it difficult for healthcare professionals to identify the correct patient, especially if medical records are incomplete or outdated. This can lead to serious medical errors due to misidentification. Therefore, healthcare organizations must ensure accurate patient information, including addresses, emails, and phone numbers, to guarantee proper identification.
Poor patient data quality, such as incorrect address data, has further implications. Here are five ways address data quality impacts healthcare organizations:
Inaccurate or incomplete address data is shown to lead to substantial financial losses for healthcare providers. Illustrating this, we know that 35% of denied claims in the US healthcare system result from inaccurate patient identification, including faulty address information, costing the US healthcare system over $6 billion annually.
Healthcare organizations often face an unnecessary increased operational cost due to the need to manually manage and correct inaccurate address data. A Patient ID Now study reported organizations were spending an average of 109.6 hours per week resolving patient identity issues and required four to five times more employees to maintain data without the use of automated address verification tools.
Misaddressed mail containing sensitive medical data can result in HIPAA violations and costly fines. This not only affects the patient’s privacy but also exposes healthcare providers to legal and financial risk.
The American Health Information Management association revealed that 29% of survey respondents were unaware of their duplicate error rate, highlighting a critical gap in patient identification management (PIM). This issue is further compounded by the finding that 24% of an organization's patient records are duplicates. These statistics underscore the urgent need for healthcare organizations to prioritize and address PIM to ensure accurate patient records and improve overall healthcare delivery.
Patient misidentification, often due to incorrect addresses, can cost the average healthcare facility $17.4 million per year in denied claims and lost revenue.
Losses in revenue have far reaching consequences that can affect multiple departments and functions, such as delaying the updating of outdated medical equipment, maintaining efficient operations and ensuring patient safety.
Fixing data quality in healthcare: where Loqate comes in
Accurate address data and maintaining the utmost data quality is crucial for the healthcare industry to maintain efficient operations, ensure patient safety, and protect financial health.
Loqate have given Rhapsody the ability to offer a single best record containing verified referential address patient data
Address verification by Loqate offers healthcare businesses the unrivaled data precision and reliability they need to make location data-driven decisions such as:
- Consolidate patient and provider data with verified data.
- Standardize address formatting with verified data.
- Improve the quality of care for patients by minimizing incorrect deliveries and improving communications.
- Make informed clinical decisions and communicate in a timely manner with verified and accurate patient data.
- Create a standardized accurate record for every patient no matter where they are located.
- Seamlessly verify address data with a single verified and enriched address record.
- Maintain compliance with local or regional regulations.
- Increase response times with accurate address data on file.
Using Loqate, we have been able to match patients with the appropriate providers in a very streamlined and beneficial process, therefore adding value to the lives we are responsible for.
By addressing the challenges of patient identification and implementing robust address verification processes, healthcare organizations can significantly reduce operational costs, improve patient care, and enhance overall efficiency.
Don’t just take our word for it, hear what our customers Rhapsody, Rush Health and Queensland Health have to say about working with us.
