According to a Feb. 17 press release, Cerner Corporation announced a new agreement with the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA), to assist in simplifying patient disability benefits claims through secure, clinical electronic health record (EHR) retrieval from health systems.
The release states that “The new agreement between Cerner and the SSA aims to speed the transfer of relevant, patient-directed medical records from the health system to the SSA, potentially cutting transfer times from weeks or months to seconds or minutes.”
That said, “Each year, the SSA requests more than 15 million medical records from healthcare providers to help make decisions on more than 4 million disability claims. Currently, most of the medical records SSA receives are in the form of faxed or mailed scanned images, a cumbersome process and the most frequent source of delay in the disability determination process.”
Some individuals with disabilities, according to the release, have lower levels of self-reported health and quality of life than those who do not have a disability. Quicker decisions on disability could help relieve socioeconomic challenges by providing faster access to monthly cash benefits. Also, this agreement could lead to fewer consultative medical examinations and earlier access to medical insurance coverage and other social service benefits.
The release adds that “Cerner and SSA's collaboration to automate data aims to ease administrative burdens, reduce costs and labor and eliminate the mailing of paper records. It also creates other potential benefits for healthcare providers:
- Reduce uncompensated care since faster disability determinations may result in patients having quicker access to Medicare and Medicaid benefits
- Automate payments from SSA
- Improve patient satisfaction”
Cerner will pilot the solution with three of its clients in the upcoming months and plans to expand the offering to additional clients who elect to participate.
Sam Lambson, vice president of interoperability, Cerner was quoted in the release saying that "Cerner is proud to help the federal government better support those in need by getting them the benefits they are entitled to more quickly and efficiently. SSA's work with Cerner will help streamline the process and is an important example of how systems that connect to each other can help improve our health and quality of life."
Pertaining to the federal government, Cerner is currently working with the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Defense, and the U.S. Coast Guard to modernize their EHR systems.
