Aprima Improves Medical Practices' Coding and Billing Accuracy with Intelligent Medical Objects' Tools
Clinician-friendly searching, extended code and terminology mappings now available for electronic health record users
Dallas, TX (Vocus) October 7, 2009
Aprima Medical Software (originally iMedica), a leading developer of electronic health record (EHR) and practice management (PM) systems for medical practices, today announced a strategic partnership with Intelligent Medical Objects (IMO®), a developer of medical vocabulary and corresponding software applications. Aprima will offer its physician practice customers code and terminology mappings, expanded search capabilities and IMO's vocabulary products, including IMO® Problem IT™ and IMO® Procedure IT™.
EHR users rely on The International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM), to derive diagnoses for billing purposes. ICD-9-CM codes are grouped into major categories and the physician has a choice of about 15,000 medical terms to describe a patient's medical condition. Due to the generalness of the categories and the limited number of terms available for diagnosis, physicians can often inaccurately describe or code a condition.
"With IMO, Aprima is able to make 180,000-plus terms available to its physician customers, enabling them to capture physician intent for patient problem lists, past medical history and assessments. This allows for enhanced documentation as well as coding for billing and outcome analysis," says Frank Naeymi-Rad, President and Chief Executive Officer of IMO. "With an all-inclusive terminology bank, a common ground for health vocabulary is created among researcher, pharmacist, patient, physician and reimbursement services, allowing for seamless communication of medical information and maximized focus on patient care as well as coding compliance."
Physicians using Aprima's EHR will have access to IMO's database of synonyms, acronyms, eponyms, abbreviations and even common misspellings of medical conditions to better find the appropriate terms they need. IMO keeps its data timely with 10 annual updates. This allows for better preparedness and response to unexpected health crises, such as H1N1 influenza.
Use of the tenth revision (ICD-10-CM) will be mandated in the U. S. on October 2013. Aprima physicians are mapped to ICD-9-CM and will receive maps to ICD-10-CM through IMO.
"This relationship allows Aprima to provide our customers with the most advanced medical lexicon available so they can improve coding and minimize the number of denied claims," said Neil Simon, Chief Operating Officer of Aprima. "IMO was able to integrate its software into our solution, offering our physicians immediate expansion on their coding capability, without workflow interruption. In addition, since we want prospects to sample the IMO functionality, we established a page on our web site where it can be evaluated for free."
"With this service, practicing clinician users will appreciate finding and using the terms that they want for clinical documentation." says Dr. Amy Y. Wang, Chief Medical Officer of IMO. The National Library of Medicine (NLM) and the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation has recently released the first version of the CORE (Clinical Observations Recording and Encoding) subset of SNOMED® CT™ to be the foundation for meaningful use measurement. "IMO® Problem IT's maps to SNOMED® CT support meaningful use and Aprima users will be in compliance with the NLM SNOMED® CT CORE subset when it is mandated for use," adds Dr. Wang.
Aprima's single database, single-application EHR and PM solution gives users access to the IMO data on demand, an advantage over other EHR/PM systems with separate databases. Aprima's unique, template-free design enables providers to follow their own protocols while its adaptive learning feature speeds adoption and deployment.
About Intelligent Medical Objects
Intelligent Medical Objects (IMO) develops, manages, and licenses medical vocabularies and software applications using the medical vocabulary for health care organizations. IMO's Clinical Interface Terminology products, including IMO® Problem IT™, provides seamless mapping of diagnostic terminologies to billing codes and medical concepts. IMO provides the tools necessary for health care organizations to authoritatively support uniform labeling of health profiles, services rendered, and outcomes across their enterprise. This intersection of clinical and financial data provides health care organizations with dependable quality information to deliver services, bear risk, and to enable efficient, cost-effective operation and accountability. IMO's products improve physician satisfaction, facilitate physician adoption, speed the coding process, reduce unnecessary physician-coder communication, and result in fewer rejected claims. More information is available here: http://www. imo-online. com].
About Aprima Medical Software, Inc.
Aprima Medical Software, Inc., founded as iMedica in 1998, develops innovative electronic health record and practice management solutions for medical practices. Reach Aprima at 866-960-6890 or aprimaEHR. com.
Media Contact:
Britt Rabinovici
KNB Communications
203-604-6904
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