Carestar Services Systems Solution Summary

CareStar Services Systems Solution Summary

CareStar Services provides medical claims documentation to a contracted client, CareStar Inc. The staff of CareStar Services consists of two workers, a visiting nurse and a medical records clerk. CareStar Services is a home based business operation owned by the nurse and the clerk is a part time employee. The documentation is collected by a visiting nurse at the homes of patients with open claims. Patients are interviewed about the current state of their health and services they are receiving. The visiting nurse makes voice tapes summarizing the meetings and includes recommendations to CareStar Inc. on the validity of the claim. The tapes are the raw form of the documentation provided to CareStar Inc.

Twice a week the tapes are hand delivered to the clerk to be converted into the required CareStar Inc. reporting format. The format is a Microsoft Word based document on templates supplied by CareStar Inc. The clerk listens to the tapes and makes hard copies of the completed, transcribed forms. The visiting nurse picks up the completed forms when she delivers the next set of tapes. Completed forms are faxed to CareStar Inc. and hard copies are retained in a locked file cabinet at the nurse's home. This system has been in place for six months and has been a successful process.

CareStar Services is interested in exploring a low cost alternative to the current system. They desire a system that would not require physical delivery of the raw data from the nurse to the clerk. Elimination of hard copy storage is also a goal, all records in the new system will be computer based. The new system must be accessible twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The goal is to make data transfers between the clerk and nurse faster and possible at all times, each direction. Data transfers to CareStar Inc. can be made electronically and is preferred over faxed transmission. The cost has to be minimal, offset by savings in traveling between locations and record storage.

Resources and limitations will influence the options available for the overhaul of CareStar Services current system. The distance between locations is thirty miles each way, a total of sixty miles for each data exchange. Both employees have a high speed internet connection established for home use and are willing to use it for the business without charge. The workers each have computers,