What are the obstacles RN's face when trying to document charges for a patient?

[gscott]

I am currently studying the process of charge capture in a hospital and need some RN perspective. We currently have paper fee tickets across our system and it is difficult for the RN's to remember all they do for a patient and to write it down accurately so their functions can be appropriately billed. I get that the RN focus is on patient care and not paperwork. Before our switch to a new EMR is complete, what can I do to make it easier for RN's to list their charges? We already have a multi-day fee ticket that resides on the chart itself. Should someone else pull the charges from the medical record? Would it be easier to scan barcodes at the chart pulldown outside each room? Any feedback would be great! Thanks again, you all add a much needed view to my engineering world.

[mcknis]

we do the same thing as you guys do...paper charging. I cant wait until we get to the barcode system that we have been dreaming of, but we are waiting for that d/t finances from admin. It would definitely decrease the risk of problems when barcoding comes into play, but until it happens, we just have to remember to chart as much as we can.

[RN_Canada]

I am assuming you are in the US?

Nurses in Canada would never have to do anything like this............

[nkochrn, RN]

We have paper MARS still for a while. We have a charge box at the bottom where we check off if the patient has and IV, PCA,Gomco, Bladder Scan, Traction, CPM, hypo/hyper therm unit or Telemetry. At night we copy the MARS and send them to CS to charge. All chargeable items that we use we scan into the computer system using a barcode.