The evolving landscape of behavioral healthcare has necessitated that medical providers (psychiatrists, nurse practitioners, etc.) be more efficient with their time in order to accommodate a higher caseload due to service expansion while still providing exceptional care to consumers.
In Colorado, Medicaid expansion has led to an over-52% increase in residents covered by Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program from July-September, 2013 to January, 2015.[1] This increase in consumer health care coverage put pressure on our existing medical staff.
WellPower conducted a Lean process improvement event to develop potential ways to improve medical staff capacity and service utilization. We found that the burden of unwieldy electronic health records (EHR), the demands of evaluation and management (E/M) coding, and expectations around timely documentation have been detrimental to medical providers’ productivity and satisfaction.