Tech-Forward Approach Drives Efficiency, Effectiveness
When a company calls itself “tech first,” it often conjures up images of machines replacing people. If a company is tech first, then people surely come in second, right?
When talking about Moxe’s approach to solving complex challenges facing the healthcare industry, specifically the crisis of healthcare affordability, I prefer to use the term “tech-forward.”
While we are a technology company that uses technology to solve problems, our use of technology is intended not to devalue the work that people are doing, but rather to give them the best tools possible to enable them to be more efficient and effective in their roles.
Our first tech-forward solution
Moxe started taking a tech-forward approach by automating payer requests for data from health systems. To us, this was an obvious place to start: In most scenarios, health systems are required to give payers the data, and quality assurance for payer requests is straightforward. We knew a tech-forward approach made a lot of sense because it was taking a lot of human capital to fulfill these requests, and technology could augment most of the people-driven steps.
Now, we’ve realized the technology we built for automating payer requests lends itself nicely to Release of Information (ROI), and we are thrilled to bring a tech-forward approach to this space.
Tech-forward ROI
When we talk about a tech-forward ROI solution, we’re using technology to help guide release specialists through the ROI process to maximize efficiency and effectiveness. We want our Release Specialists to be able to focus more of their time and energy on what they do best—keeping sensitive data private and protected by applying rules and regulations and understanding how they impact what can be released, to whom—and less of their time on work that can be done more efficiently and just as effectively by technology.
While we initially started with an ROI automation tool for our customers, we decided it made sense to have a team of Moxe Release Specialists using our tool as well. Our in-house specialists have been invaluable in helping us fine tune our technology. They provide us with real-time feedback regarding what problems need to be solved and where we can help. They’ve helped our product development team create, organize, and prioritize a robust backlog of ideas and enhancements that will help us change the ROI industry.
As we look to the future of ROI, two goals are at the forefront of our roadmap this year:
- Efficiency: Help our team of ROI specialists to focus their time on keeping sensitive data private and protected, while automating things like data acquisition or data entry.
- Effectiveness: We want to optimize tools and technology to improve ROI quality. An example of this is moving from a world where only some release requests are ‘quality controlled’ to one where every request is, and those that require secondary or tertiary review land on the desk of an ROI specialist.
We’re grateful to our ROI team for the passion and expertise they bring to the table, and we’re excited to see how we can continue to transform the space with our tech-forward, people-elevated approach.
Because we’ve come from technology and have just recently added people to our solution, we’re at a huge advantage. We have a team of technologists who are experienced at solving healthcare data problems and don’t want to put a Band-Aid on a problem by throwing more people at it.
What’s the opposite of tech-forward?
While Moxe takes a tech-forward approach to data exchange and ROI to improve efficiency and effectiveness, many of our competitors are focused on only half of the “E & E” equation. They achieve greater efficiency by outsourcing to cheaper labor, but there is no focus on improving effectiveness. Unfortunately, often outsourced labor means offshore labor, which makes health systems uncomfortable. (You can read more about why using offshore labor can result in privacy and data security issues in my article for Journal of AHIMA.)
Because we’ve come from technology and have just recently added people to our solution, we’re at a huge advantage. We have a team of technologists who are experienced at solving healthcare data problems and don’t want to put a Band-Aid on a problem by throwing more people at it.
As organizations increasingly realize the value of taking a tech-forward vs. a labor-forward approach to Release of Information, they’re partnering with us to take advantage of our technology. Today, we are either contracted with or processing data for about half of our competitors. We’re happy to help empower them, and thus the industry at-large, to take a more tech-forward approach.
Will tech-forward ever become tech-only?
To us, being tech-forward is ultimately about embracing technology where technology should be embraced, but also knowing where technology is a bad fit.
Today, with a complicated, evolving healthcare regulatory landscape, even if releasing data becomes much more automated (great!), there will still be cases that require expert review. Examples of this include the recent HIPAA Privacy Rule to Support Reproductive Health Care Privacy, which is best initially implemented using a team of specialists and then automated (or not) using their expertise and learnings. Our hope is that by continuing to take a tech-forward approach, we’ll be able to continue to elevate the role that ROI staff play so their expertise can be used where it provides the most value.
Ready for more on Moxe?
Learn more about our modern approach to Release of Information with our ROI overview.
