Konnect

Saving practice time for what matters most.

Dale Shepherd, Practice Manager at Pakuranga Medical Centre, says that SureMed means more time for clinical work thanks to now saving up to five hours every week on processing insurance requests.

On Monday mornings Dale Shepherd says the front desk at the Pakuranga Medical Centre will take over 200 calls in just the first two hours. Tucked in next to a busy shopping hub, the centre, where Dale is Practice Manager, is one of the largest in Counties Manukau and in New Zealand, with ten doctors, eight nurses and approximately 13,000 patients.

This scale of work, of course, means any gains in efficiency which allow for more clinical time are highly welcome. And since shifting to SureMed to electronically process insurance requests a few months ago, Dale says the benefits have shown up fast.

Indeed, she calculates that by using SureMed the practice is now saving around five man-hours every week. “It really has made a huge difference,” she says. “And that time we are saving can now be better spent on other areas of the practice. “

Before SureMed it took about an hour for the doctor to review an insurance request, the front desk staff to find and photocopy the appropriate records and then get the whole thing in the post. Now she says many of the same requests take only five-to-15 minutes because the process is largely automated with the information populated from within the doctor’s Practice Management System for easy review.

The practice handles seven to ten insurance requests every week. And while the time needed will vary, on average Dale says they are now comfortably saving half-an-hour on each.

“Quite frankly, I can’t wait until all insurers are using SureMed. It is helping us make big cost and time savings. Any time the doctors can save is always a bonus. And my reception front line staff aren’t being held up doing photocopying when their time is under such pressure and can be much better used,” she says.

They no longer have the “huge frustration” of having to repeat a laborious paper-based process every time a new request comes in for a patient who has sought a new policy from a different insurer. And insurers using SureMed’s electronic request seek only the information they require rather than requesting copies of entire patient histories, Dale says.

Because it is sent in an encrypted form the information is more secure. As practice manager she also likes the way payment is made within ten days.

Having taken on the role of the SureMed trainer for the whole practice, Dale says, “It’s like anything else, once you have done it once it really is very easy to use.” Even tech-shy staff have taken SureMed up quickly once they saw the gains to be made.

“What would I say to other practices? Just do it. Absolutely. Get on board. Because once you have started you won’t look back. “

“Quite frankly, I can’t wait until all insurers are using SureMed. It is helping us make big cost and time savings.”

Practice Profile

• One of New Zealand’s largest urban practices
• Ten doctors, eight nurses and approximately 13,000 patients

Time saved from using SureMed

• On average five man-hours per week
• Many requests cut from one hour to five-to-15 minutes
• Self-populating form removes need to trawl through large-practice paper records

Other practice benefits

• Dramatically reduced photocopying and photocopying time
• “Repeat” requests for same patient by different insurers handled quickly and easily
• Insurers seek only the information they require rather than entire patient histories
• Higher security of information through encryption
• Payment within ten days