Who better to help design a software package for physical therapists than a physical therapist? That's the logic Jerry Stone applied 10 years ago when he founded ReDoc, his Nashville-based medical software company. After two decades as a physical therapist and frustrated by the overwhelming documentation requirements of the job, Stone decided to tackle the problem himself.
"I saw there was a need to alleviate the paperwork involved," he recalls. "Having a lot of experience in that field, I was able to work with some software developers and develop a tool that automates all of this paperwork and decreases the paperwork time by about 50 to 60 percent for the treating therapist." The ReDoc Suite of software modules answers the needs of physical therapists, occupational therapists and speech language pathology therapists.
What was Stone's goal? "Mere efficiency," he says, "having information flow throughout a patient's treatment cycle." He notes that patients sometimes see a therapist three times a week for weeks, months or longer. That means paperwork is not only time-consuming, it's also redundant. "Simple things like writing the patient's name and diagnosis are eliminated with the technology. It really does eliminate redundancy almost completely," he says. It also eliminates the need for transcription.
ReDoc guides and prompts a therapist to ensure complete records that meet a multitude of requirements. Within categories on the screen, the user employs drop-down lists to choose answers. "It's set up to reflect the clinical workflow and the thinking process of therapists," Stone explains. Not only are compliance issues addressed both for the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, coding concerns for those and other payers are covered as well. The software's "coding alert module" helps ensure that the therapist doesn't order treatment not covered by the patient's payer as medically necessary. The alert offers the therapist clinically similar options from which to choose.
"When you have an injury or a neurological problem that requires long-term care and long-term rehab, there is a lot of clinical documentation that has to take place in order for the therapist and the healthcare organization to get reimbursed," he says. "So one of the other goals, in addition to automating the information, was to keep the treating physical therapist from making mistakes at the point of care because of some change in one of the codes that they didn't know about."
ReDoc emulates the clinical terminology and the clinical standards of practice as defined by the American Physical Therapy Association, the American Occupational Therapy Association and the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Reports created by the software include full-length initial evaluations for case reviews and internal audits, plan of care, daily treatment notes, re-evaluations for referring physicians and payers, discharge summaries and other periodic physician communications.
With ReDoc's "ChartSentry" feature, paper charts and other paper documentation can be scanned and automatically interfaced with the other ReDoc capabilities. "What you have is essentially an electronic filing cabinet," Stone says. "ReSig" allows staff to digitally sign and store copies of their clinical reports without having to print them. How does it work? The therapist sends the report to a virtual print driver that creates a PDF image file of the report, which can't be edited. The therapist then digitally signs and saves the clinical report by entering a password. The file is then available to any staff member with the proper security privileges to access a shared directory where the chart is stored.
Finally, ReDoc interfaces with billing "so there's no discrepancy between what the therapists did and what they bill for," Stone says. "Usually those discrepancies are just human error, but they can get you in a lot of trouble."
ReDoc is supplied to users on compact disc with instructions for installation. Periodic updates on CD keep the system up to date. Training is available via phone and the Internet. When larger facilities install ReDoc on several computers, a ReDoc representative usually conducts training onsite.
"ReDoc is a therapist-oriented company, with seven therapists working here using technology to help other therapists with their business and workflow needs," he says. More than 5,000 therapists are using ReDoc across the United States.
