Dive Brief:
- Broader adoption of electronic business transactions could save U.S medical health plans and providers $9.4 billion a year, and dental plans and providers $1.9 billion, according to a new report from the Council for Affordable Quality Healthcare (CAQH).
- Manual transactions cost providers and plans about $3 more per transaction than electronic, according to the report.
- Providers on average spend eight — and as much as 30 — more minutes processing manual transactions, compared with electronic ones. Switching to full electronic transaction could save provider 1.1 million labor hours a week, CAQH stated.
Dive Insight:
Still, CAQH notes moving to electronic transactions for prior authorizations can cut transaction time from 20 minutes to six minutes and lower costs to $1.89, from $7.50 per manual transaction.
While electronic transactions of claims status queries and legibility and benefits verifications are up more than 5% in the latest annual survey, many providers are still seeking manual verifications—to the tune of 72 million telephone calls in 2015, CAQH says.
To increase adoption of electronic transactions, the nonprofit recommends industry stakeholders share best practices, look for ways to reduce barriers to adoption and review existing standards, codes, operating rules and policies around business transactions.