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

Dr John Cameron at Westmere Medical Centre has found using SureMed to respond to insurer information requests saves time, allows him to provide higher quality information, and is even giving him some of his weekends back.

Up until recently, whenever Dr John Cameron, a general practitioner at the Westmere Medical Centre in Auckland, received a new life insurance information request he tended to stash it with, or under, other non-urgent papers on a side desk where it nagged as a demand that never quite went away. Inevitably, John would end up coming in on a Saturday afternoon to clear a few requests at once. He had just done this the weekend before we spoke. And his still-fresh annoyance with the old insurer request forms underlined the difference he says SureMed is now making for his practice and in improving his lifestyle as well.

Instead of taking up to 30 minutes to locate records and complete, his first two SureMed forms were each done in under ten minutes. He finished them entirely from his desktop, and didn’t need to scout out and photocopy records. All the information he needed was self-populated on to the SureMed form from within his practice management system (PMS) for review. And perhaps best of all, because he knew the requests would be quick, he could fit them in around his day.

Instead of hanging over him, both SureMed forms were turned round within 24 hours. The process even automated direct payment to the practice for the service within ten days.

“Simple, easy and logical,” is John’s assessment of the SureMed service. “You can do this quickly and effectively, and you know the dollars are coming. It’s great. It’s just done.”

With 3800 enrolled patients and four general practitioners, Westmere is a thriving practice. And like doctors everywhere, John says its top priority will always be patients who need referral, with insurance requests coming well down the list.

There is an emotional benefit as well. One of several doctors who provided early input on the content of the SureMed form during its development, he says the old paper-based forms varied with every insurer. Along with having to write comments by hand, this often left him frustrated with the way information was sought. Now, the combination of a simple, more logical form and losing less time, that he could be spending with patients or enjoying on the weekend, results in less irritation – and a task that is easier to get done. 

“Anything that stops you getting angry or wasting time has got to be a winner,” he says. “This area has been something that everyone knew was a problem but no one got around to fixing. I’d say to other GPs, give it a go because SureMed works and it is going to improve your lifestyle.”

“You won’t be doing these things at an inconvenient time, you can do them whenever suits.” He says you can even start to get some of your Saturday afternoons back.

“I’d say to other GPs, give it a go because SureMed works and it is going to improve your lifestyle.”

SureMed includes a fully electronic option that integrates with the GPs Practice Management System (PMS), which has proved popular with GP practices since launch at the end of last year.   

However SureMed also supports ‘paper’ requests, where a practice is not set-up for electronic delivery, or a GP prefers to continue working with paper.

Hamish McLachlan, Director of Operations for Konnect Net Ltd, which has developed SureMed, says he expects most doctors would choose to receive and complete insurance requests electronically. “However we are happy to work with practices in whichever way they choose in ensuring requests from insurers are securely and speedily processed”.

SureMed’s electronic system has shown that it can save doctors time by automatically sourcing information from within a doctor’s Practice Management System (PMS).

Doctors who have used SureMed have praised its ease of use and speed.  Dr John Cameron, a general practitioner at the Westmere Medical Centre in Auckland, says “This area has been something that everyone knew was a problem but no-one got around to fixing.  I’d say to other GPs, give it a go because SureMed works and it is going to improve your lifestyle”.   

Mr McLachlan said that Konnect was aiming to have all major insurers enrolled to use SureMed this year.

Auckland technology start-up Konnect says it is close to finalising its first deals in Australia after signing up more than 1000 New Zealand doctors to use its automated life insurance information exchange system. 

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10620012

Developed by Auckland-based Konnect, the new service, SureMed significantly cuts the time it takes GPs to respond to insurer information requests, with some doctors who have trialled the system recording time savings of well over 50%.

Confirming that SureMed has recently signed up its 250th practice, accounting for over 1200 doctors, Hamish McLachlan, Managing Director of Konnect, said he was delighted with the speed of uptake.

While insurance requests are currently paper based, SureMed automatically retrieves the relevant information from a doctor’s electronic Practice Management System (PMS) and then displays this for review by the doctor before it is returned to the insurer in a secure encrypted form.

“SureMed reflects a new approach to making a cumbersome process faster, easier and more secure for everyone. We are really pleased by how positively and quickly doctors and insurers have signed on to start using it,” Mr McLachlan said.

One of several GPs to trial SureMed, Dr Bevan Roy of the Ellerslie Medical Centre, said it had successfully rationalised a time-consuming task. “After you have done one or two you will be asking yourself why no-one has done it before,” he said.

Six major insurers, ING, Fidelity Life, AMP, AXA, Tower and AIA (collectively accounting for about 65% of the market), have signed up for SureMed. Milton Jennings, CEO of Fidelity Life, said it would significantly reduce the current three week average wait to turn around an application. “SureMed will create one of the most efficient systems in the world for processing applications and enormous efficiencies for GPs. Our clients will also benefit from a faster turnaround time from application to policy issue,” he said.

SureMed is one of several products Konnect has developed to make it easier for GPs to handle commercial transactions. Mr McLachlan said New Zealand has been an ideal test bed as general practices here have been leaders in using PMSs

The company plans to launch the service in Australia this year, where there is also a high proportion of doctors using PMSs.

Delivered as part of the most recent update to Medtech’s Practice Management System (PMS), which is used by around 80% of New Zealand practices, SureMed is a new electronic service that radically speeds up medical insurance requests.

“Typically doctors who have trialled the system want to start using it straight away,” Hamish McLachlan, Managing Director of Konnect, which has developed SureMed, said. “Once they see how easy it is to use, they say they are not going back to the old way.”

Developed throughout 2008 by Konnect as part of range of products that make it easier for GPs to handle commercial transactions, SureMed was trialled by practices in Auckland’s ProCare PHO and other doctors earlier this year. 

Practices with the latest version of Medtech can begin using SureMed by downloading and completing the SureMed registration form from www.konnect.co.nz/konnectGP and returning it to Konnect.  SureMed then automates the entire process from the insurer request through to the delivery of information, using a secure encrypted form via Healthlink, and payment for service.

The system is designed to be easy to download and use, and Konnect will be happy to assist any practices seeking additional information or support.

Our support team is available and eager to assist you on 0800Konnect.  We’re here to ensure that SureMed is working as it should, and to answer all queries and address any issues as quickly as possible.

Our hours of operation are 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday.   Outside of those hours you can leave a message and we will promptly get back to you.

So if you are a user of SureMed or are interested in using our service, please don’t hesitate to give us a call, we’d love to hear from you.

GP feedback received during this process has driven a number of changes that help make the service fast and user-friendly for doctors. We are now in the final stages of in-house testing of the changes, which include useability enhancements, a reduction in the number of questions / greater clarity on remaining questions, and improved data quality, ensuring that we maximise the opportunity to pre-populate the SureMed eform.

During field-testing we also received GP feedback asking Konnect to look at a range of other process improvement opportunities. Our initial focus is on implementing SureMed, but once this is established we plan to further explore some of these opportunities.