Health Information Management

2014 ROI benchmarking survey: Hospitals continue to rely on internal release of information staff

HIM-HIPAA Insider, January 5, 2015

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HCPro’s Medical Records Briefing (MRB) asked HIM and release of information (ROI) professionals about their ROI practices for its first quarterly benchmarking survey of 2015. (The survey was completed in October 2014.) Half of the survey respondents are HIM directors or managers (52%). Other respondents identified themselves as non-managerial HIM staff members (18%) or ROI directors or managers (4%). The majority of respondents (65%) work in hospitals.

MRB asked respondents to check off all listed ROI issues that presented a challenge for their organization. Survey respondents said that the most common challenge is handling requests from adult children that are not noted on the patient's record as next of kin or contacts (38%). Other challenges include:
  • Requests from quality organizations (35%)
  • Requests from divorced parents for children's ­records (34%)
  • Requests from adult children for expired patients' records (26%)
  • Requests from journalists or others for records of famous patients that expired more than 50 years ago (1%)
 Some respondents wrote in other challenges, including:
  • Requests that are not completed correctly
  • Requests for behavioral/mental health and substance abuse records
  • Determining the legally authorized representative
  • Legal requests, subpoenas, warrants, and court orders
  • Requests from Social Security Disability
  • Requests from domestic partners
Continue reading "2014 ROI benchmarking survey: Survey respondents share challenges, successes" on the HCPro website. Subscribers to Medical Records Briefing have free access to this article in the January issue.



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