Fuse Exhibits Scientific Abstract at AAPM 2024: The Impact of Daily Charge Capture Review

Fuse Oncology is excited to be both exhibiting and presenting a scientific abstract at the American Academy of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) 66th Annual Meeting & Exhibition beginning July 21 in Los Angeles. Our presentation, “The Impact of Daily Charge Capture Review,” is the first study of its kind to examine charge capture accuracy inter-institutionally, revealing that comprehensive charge capture review via an automated checking system can increase adherence to standardized workflows and decrease charge capture errors and documentation errors. 

While a previous study examined charge capture data from a single site, our study confirmed what we’ve heard from radiation oncology clinics nationwide for years—providers of various sizes are struggling with charge capture accuracy and have very limited visibility regarding overbilling, underbilling, and error and omissions in documentation. There has been little to no opportunity for decision-makers to attain real-time feedback; instead, charge capture inconsistencies and errors are revealed much later after time-consuming, expensive audits. Unfortunately, charge capture accuracy has not been well studied or documented. 

Matthew Terry; B.J. Sintay, PhD; David Wiant, PhD; and I sought to evaluate the scale of systematic charge capture errors as well as potential improvements that could be achieved by implementation of automated review via a commercial software system, S!GNAL. A real-time process of checks has never been possible at this level of precision, and we are excited to share the results—after examining 65,633 billable events ($108,685,229 in exportable charges) at seven sites over three months—with AAPM attendees. S!GNAL successfully enables clinics to perform automated daily audits per patient to ensure that charges are captured and charged accurately. The results are tangible and quick. We highlight one clinic that had experienced an error rate of 9.3% and reduced it to 5.3% after only one month using S!GNAL. 

Traditional manual auditing processes fail rad onc clinics because humans make mistakes and things slip through the cracks. Using AI, Fuse’s software technology combs through large amounts of data—including natural language processing for interpreting documents—regarding discrete treatment plans, types of treatments, delivery appointments, and other key pieces of information to make predictions about charges based on each patient activity in every individual clinic. It also integrates with multiple EHRs and OISs to fuel predictions. S!GNAL automates the most complex and timing-consuming functions of charge capture to simplify and improve processes via standardization. 

Without standardization of clinical workflows, it’s really difficult to manage and understand if you’re capturing charges and billing accurately and consistently. Standardization—or the setting of rules—around treatments gives clinical teams guidance on what to do and how to stay accurate with coding to maximize revenue for services performed and minimize overbilling. When there are discrepancies and deviations from what was intended, S!GNAL notifies the user. We’ve seen that when customers increase their standardization to processes, compliance to rules increases and charge capture errors decrease. In the study, results demonstrated that over a three-month period, activity standardization at clinics rose 3.6% and charge capture error rate declined 1.4%. 

In a healthcare environment that’s managing tight margins and financial toxicity due to overbilling, accurate charges are imperative. Several hospitals and healthcare systems have reported to require significant payback due to overbilling. 

Our study on display at AAPM demonstrates both the pain points currently being experienced by rad onc clinics nationwide and a proven solution in the form of automated charge capture review to bring significant relief. We built S!GNAL as part of a larger interoperability platform called Syntyant that will continue to facilitate seamless workflows, reduce errors, and enable more efficient radiation oncology delivery. We’ll be demonstrating applications with Syntyant, including S!GNAL and our ChatGPT-powered FuseDocs, built to nip documentation issues in the bud. Let’s talk at AAPM!