Remember the old phrase, “What you don’t know can’t hurt you.” Or can it? Applying for life insurance can be more difficult and pricey than in years past.  Insurers are now scrutinizing potential client’s medical records more than before, which means if there are mistakes in your medical records it could hit you where it hurts-your wallet.

The Institute of Medicine estimates that as many as 98,000 people die each year in hospitals from medical errors. If these errors are turning up in hospitals, you can bet they are turning up in medical records, which can result in being denied life insurance or at least paying higher insurance premiums.

 “You need to make sure you know what’s in your medical records and correct any errors before you apply for insurance,” says Carolyn McClanahan a certified financial planner and former medical doctor.

Medical mistakes happen all the time; they can arise from mistyped diagnosis codes or transcription errors, even inaccurate diagnosis. “Part of the problem is that the U.S. healthcare system relies mainly on paper records, which makes it harder…spot errors.” says Joy Pritts, research associate professor at Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute.

By having your own medical records, in an electronic format, you will be aware of any errors that need to be corrected. This is a huge dividend when it comes to applying for insurance and securing the lowest premium possible.

After all it’s your health shouldn’t you own it?

If you a regular user of MediConnect’s RapidRetrieve, you’ll be very happy to know the company has recently updated the interface and added new features to make it easier than ever to use the system to quickly order, retrieve and manage your medical records.

Next time you login one of the first things you’ll notice is a picture and contact information of your assigned account manager. This should make it easier for you to reach your AM and adds a personal touch so you know better who you are working with. You will also notice navigation is more intuitive as you place your orders.

In addition, new features have been added including:

• Excessive Fee Batch Approval/Denial–This feature allows you to set an approved provider fee limit associated with your pay-as-you-go payment options. If the provider fee of a medical record will be over the approved set fee, your approval will be needed. When this occurs a window opens allowing a user to approve or deny fees in batches simply by clicking convenient check boxes.
• Mouse-over notes–Whenever you place your mouse over the Request ID number within RapidRetrieve, you’ll automatically see the last three notes on the request. This is beneficial for the Excessive Fee feature and enhances the ability to quickly review “need more information” notes without opening additional windows.
• Inter-Office Notes–You can now write inter-office notes directly in RapidRetrieve. This allows you to write notes to others in your office to coordinate activity, or as a reminder to yourself.
• Electronic Invoicing–You can now choose to receive electronic invoices in RapidRetrieve. The electronic invoices are easy to read and understand, summarize all outstanding invoices for efficient invoice tracking, can be downloaded in either PDA or CSV format, and are automatically encrypted and decrypted for secure delivery. (A small fee will now be charged for paper invoices.)
• Pay-as-you-go–RapidRetrieve now provides a convenient pay-as-you-go payment option making it faster for you to access ordered records. You can choose either auto-pay, which automatically bills a cred card on file, or manual pay, which bills a credit card when records are ready to download.

Sokolove affiliates now have increased access to conveniently order medical records online through MediConnect’s RapidRetrieve or their integrated case management software. (MediConnect integrated CMS includes TrialWorks, Needles, Amicus Attorney, SmartAdvocate, Case Manager Prop, or directly through LexisNexis Total Litigator.)

Following a competitive review, The Law Offices of James Sokolove selected MediConnect Global as a legal vendor to provide medical record retrieval services for its more than 400 affiliated U.S. law firms.

In addition, all affiliates have access to other services related to their medical records retrieval including bates stamping, optical character recognition (OCR), chronological and categorical organization, certifications, medical summaries, and more.

Affiliates can order medical records immediately at www.mediconnect.net or www.mediconnect.net/sign_up.asp.

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One of the greatest opportunities we have here at MediConnect Global is to interact with and learn how our customers conduct their businesses. We can better understand how our technology solutions and services can enhance, automate and streamline their needs.  Updates and enhancements developed for one customer can be benefit all our customers.

Today, most enhancements to RapidRetrieve are designed to meet the specific needs of customers—needs they’ve voiced to us to make their lives easier and more productive.

This week MediConnect announced three such new enhancements to its RapidRetrieve online medical records retrieval and digitization system. The enhancements include full chronological sorting of medical records, medical record review by physician, nurse or legal consultants, and insurance policy number validation.

Additionally, MediConnect enhanced its Partner Program by creating a new software development kit and Partner Portal. This will allow software companies, integrators and resellers to build and provide RapidRetrieve functionality directly in their case and agent management software and services—again, making it easier to quickly order and obtain digitized medical records.