CaroMont Health

Streamlining Healthcare Compliance: How CaroMont Health Leveraged MDaudit to Optimize Workflows and Enhance Efficiency

THE CUSTOMER PROFILE

CaroMont Health is a leading healthcare organization serving the communities of Gaston County and the surrounding regions of North Carolina. With a mission to provide compassionate, exceptional, and highly reliable care, CaroMont Health has established itself as a trusted and compassionate community healthcare provider.

CaroMont Health is comprised of a 476-bed hospital in Gastonia with a level III trauma center and nationally-accredited Cancer Center and Cancer Care program, a freestanding emergency department in nearby Mount Holly, and a network of more than 50 primary and specialty care physician offices. The health system is continuing to deliver on its commitment to offering a comprehensive range of medical services and resources to meet the diverse needs of the community through the construction of a 66-bed hospital underway in Belmont.

THE CHALLENGE

The coding compliance department of this growing nonprofit health system faced inefficiencies and duplicated efforts due to heavy reliance on manual processes and spreadsheets.

Previously, the department relied heavily on manual processes and spreadsheets, leading to inefficiencies and duplicated efforts. Despite having MDaudit at its disposal, the organization was not utilizing its full functionality, resulting in missed opportunities to streamline workflows.

When Marie Burcham, CaroMont’s manager of coding compliance, first came into this role and was trained on MDaudit, she quickly saw an opportunity for improvement. “We were performing some functions within MDaudit, but we would transfer the data into spreadsheets. It was just double work,” explains Burcham. Not utilizing the integrated solution within MDaudit led to disjointed workflows and inhibited the department’s ability to gain meaningful insights into compliance risk areas. As their responsibilities grew, the existing system proved inadequate in providing the visibility they needed to identify and address potential compliance issues effectively.

Auditing coders was a particularly time-consuming task, especially with a small department. “It was a nightmare,” remembers Susan White Fisher, coding, and compliance auditor at CaroMont. “We are a small department, with so much on our plates and we continue to get more. Just preparing audits in our old way of doing things took so much time.”

CaroMont Health recognized the urgent need to find a more efficient and comprehensive solution that would leverage the full capabilities of MDaudit and alleviate the burden on its small team. In their pursuit of a better way to manage audits and compliance, they were determined to optimize their processes and empower their staff with better tools and insights.

“We’re short-staffed, just like every other hospital, but with a small department and with all of this growth, I knew there had to be an easier better way,” says Burcham. “There had to be a way to have MDaudit do the work for us.”

THE SOLUTION

MDaudit eliminated manual processes, optimized workflows, and proactively addressed potential compliance issues.

As the 78-year-old health system continues to expand, it is crucial for CaroMont Health to remain up to date with changing innovations across care delivery and operations. “Our organization is growing, and we have a great team of physicians and senior leadership that are willing to look at technology as a way of helping us in that growth. That’s where MDaudit comes in. It is so much more than just audit software,” says Burcham.

Given the department’s limited staff, MDaudit’s user-friendly interface and automation help optimize their operations and ensure maximum productivity with fewer resources. The platform’s intuitive design and guided workflows facilitate easy adoption and utilization by the team, reducing the learning curve and allowing them to make the most of MDaudit’s capabilities. “I am just blown away by how efficiently MDaudit can help us do our job,” says Burcham.

MDaudit’s comprehensive set of features can streamline the entire audit process. By utilizing more of MDaudit’s functionality, the department has eliminated the need for manual calculations and spreadsheet transpositions. Financial calculations that were previously performed on separate spreadsheets can now be automated within MDaudit, saving valuable time, and reducing the risk of errors. This streamlining of processes has significantly increased efficiency and productivity for the team.

“The time that MDaudit has given back to us is invaluable,” explains Fisher. “It has allowed us to get back to doing audits. 95 percent of our time used to go into setting up audits. Now we can pull audits and risk worksheets with the click of a button, but it also shows us risk management areas that we didn’t even know we needed to look at.”

With MDaudit, CaroMont Health can more proactively and more confidently manage its compliance program. The platform enables the team to set up automated audits and monitor coding practices effectively. With improved visibility and proactive risk identification, the department can implement education and corrective actions promptly, reducing the likelihood of compliance breaches and potential financial penalties.

“If any outside agency were to come in and question our providers’ levels of service, I feel very confident that we could easily provide them the documentation necessary to show that our coding and documentation is consistently meeting their standards,” says Burcham. “MDaudit has an amazing product.”