USC and the University of Florida join 12 other prestigious teaching and research institutions

Two Leading Universities Select CodeRyte’s Coding Technology

Bethesda, Maryland (November 27, 2006) — USC Healthcare, Department of Radiology in Los Angles, Calif., and the University of Florida College of Medicine, Department of Radiology in Gainesville, Fla., have joined the growing list of university-based research and teaching hospitals who have embraced CodeRyte’s computer-assisted coding technology. The technology significantly improves coding accuracy, consistency and compliance support. These are critical factors to university-based teaching hospitals that have a high sensitivity to coding accuracy and compliance. Among other factors that led to the CodeRyte decision were the company’s advanced clinical research tools which enhance patient care.

“I had been looking for ways to improve productivity and efficiency within the hospitals and had managed to address many of the issues on the clinical workflow front; however, I realized that we still had problems with our billing function,” explained Rasu Shrestha, MD, Informatics Director in the Radiology Department at USC. "We were losing productivity and money because we were relying on manual processes and unproductive, expensive outside billing services. We’ve had good experiences with Natural Language Processing (NLP). Because of this, we selected CodeRyte and their NLP-based technology. CodeRyte’s solution has improved our back office efficiencies and increased coder productivity. We also like the advanced router decisions within CodeRyte’s workflow and their management tools, including the weekly trend reports, coding speed reports, and physician monitoring tools. We are also working with CodeRyte to develop data mining solutions that will further improve our productivity and enhance patient care.

CodeRyte’s data mining technology is also being developed into a tool at the University of Florida, College of Medicine in the Radiology Department to help meet JCAHO’s National Safety Goal Two reporting requirement which is aimed at improving the effectiveness of communications among caregivers.

“We will use this tool to help meet JCAHO’s regulation on auditing critical results reporting,” said Chris Sistrom, MD, MPH, Associate Chair for Research at the University of Florida College of Medicine. “CodeRyte’s technology will be used to flag results that might trigger the need for critical results reporting. The system will also find language where a call was actually made to report the critical result. Flagged candidates will be reviewed by a healthcare professional to ensure this is a legitimate case for reporting. Being able to present a report that records critical results communications will greatly streamline the audit process and help us meet this JCAHO regulation."  

CodeRyte's NLP technology delivers more accurate and consistent coding results, leading to fewer denials, faster turnaround times, more appropriate reimbursement and improved cash flow. Using CodeRyte’s products and services, clients are able to more efficiently manage labor-intensive coding processes while simultaneously improving their ability to monitor and enhance compliance. The company’s leading-edge clinical research and data mining tools also help healthcare professionals enhance patient care.