Helping our Clients Enhance & Value Optimize their Operations
The Last Mile of EHR implementation - Moving towards a Paper-Lite Environment.
"Inadequate, Unnecessary, Uncoordinated, Inefficient and Suboptimal Business Process can eat up at least 35% and maybe over 50% of the more than $3 Trillion (in 2016 Dollars and now $4.9 Trillion in 2025 Dollars) that the country spends annually on Health Care" - Harvard Business Review – July/August 2016.
Above PAR Advisors' (APA) mission is to help its customers sustainably optimize and reduce the cost of their legacy Records Information Management Storage, Digitization (Scan & Host), and Shredding/Destruction.
APA RIM programs yield an average of 35% to 55% in cost savings/expense reduction within the first fifteen (15) Months, after which work for the remainder of the Retention Period is then assumed either by APA via an optionally extended agreement or directly by the client (after learning the necessary processes) until a Paper-Lite environment is achieved.
APA’s Program starts with a Complimentary Multidimensional Pre-Assessment/Spectrum Analysis designed to review the client’s current records information storage process and vendor support, the findings of which are then laid out in an APA Situational Awareness Report.
APA then follows through with a 16-Point Execution Options Program that is specifically designed to repair, transform, and optimize the current process, drive down cost, and put the client on the road towards a Paper-Lite environment.
Left-Behind Legacy Paper Records:
In the U.S., 190 million Healthcare Patients have an EHR record on an Epic platform, and 108 million patients have an EHR record on Oracle platform, which means of the 335 million people in the US (as of 2024), 95% have an Epic or Oracle Record, and it is likely the rest of the population has an EHR record on an alternate platform. Thus, almost the entire US population currently maintains an EHR record. Despite this massive utilization of EHR Systems, however, a vast amount of historical medical paper records still remains, languishing on vendor storage shelves across the US and accruing an increasingly negative ROI.
The left-behind legacy paper storage amounts to an average of 20,000 boxes (40 million sheets of paper) and up to 500,000 boxes (1 billion sheets of paper) per organization, with many of these historical paper records no longer mission-critical and aged well past the applicable State or Federal statutes, guidelines, or mandatory internal policy regarding retention maturity.
A major GPO has estimated that the total cost of paper records in the U.S. healthcare system is substantial and simply daunting, constituting an estimated $18 billion to $22 billion in unnecessary annual expenses. This includes the cost of paper, printers, toner, physical storage space, and labor to manage said materials. This GPO has long advocated the importance of expense reduction, noting that “every dollar saved equals five dollars in new revenues.” Sometimes, management may not even recognize the presence or scale of the issue, as the full RIM cost structure may not be included in the IM model/budget but be buried in some other part of the organization’s financial model/plan.
What can be done about the legacy paper records storage:
APA provides a range of sixteen (16) itemized services to assist its clients with gaining the maximum efficiency and driving down cost within their Records Information Management service category. We start the process with a complimentary Pre-Assessment that includes a Situational Awareness Report highlighting and detailing any open issues and recommending solutions. This APA RIM Transformation Model is geared toward working with your organization’s Financial, Operational, Administrative, and Supply Chain Management leadership and providing Data-Driven Facts that will impel the organization toward a Paper-Lite environment while ensuring that only the right services are utilized to Improve the Process and Reduce Costs.
APA’s RIM expertise is empowered by staffing from healthcare, records management, information technologies, banking, accounting, business analytics, and business management. Our partnerships with AI and technology-oriented companies provide best-in-class leveraging solutions to transform our clients’ legacy paper processes and guide them toward a Paper-Lite model.
APA can assist you in navigating this last mile and reaching the ultimate goal - A Paper-Lite Environment. Let’s Talk - Contact Us at (877) 425-7051 or sales@aboveparadvisors.com
What our Clients/Customers are saying about our RIM Programs:
“Above PAR Advisors immediately engaged with us, developing the plan transformation, efficiency, and cost-effective process. They did a thorough audit, framed the issues fast, deployed the right skills, and inserted good infrastructure, and we were off and running. Good results were driven from the very beginning and continue to flow. Most importantly, there is no burden on the client’s staff to capture these savings, as APA handles all the heavy lifting. They are great to work with.” (New York-based healthcare teaching institution)
“Over the last two years, we successfully consolidated and centralized all record/paper storage. This project started with many areas full of paper and boxes not stored in compliance with regs, fire hazard issues, and multiple storage contracts with different pricing. I highly recommend speaking with Above PAR Advisors if you have similar issues.” (Regional Westchester-based specialty hospital)
A) APA’s Complimentary RIM Pre-Assessment/Situational Awareness Program:
The healthcare industry is famous for its “do-no-harm” concept of always diagnosing and understanding a patient’s condition before providing treatments. APA follows a similar methodology. Our support starts with providing a Complimentary Multidimensional Pre-Assessment/Spectrum Analysis, which yields a Situational Awareness Report of the client’s records information storage, management, and operations, revealing all the open issues and what can be done to truly transform and optimize functions to improve quality, operational efficiency, and service delivery, drive down cost, and guide the organization toward a Paper-Lite environment.
B) APA’s 16-Point Execution RIM Value Care Programs:
01) Current & Forward Savings: This program aims to lower, stabilize, and control costs over 10+ years on the road to a Paper-Lite Environment. This includes a series of diagnostics and analytics against a structured cost/value base with a core goal of initially providing 35% to 55% cost savings within the first year and continuing to drive down cost until a Paper-Lite environment is achieved.
02) Catch Invoice Errors: Provides a service that reconciles the monthly invoices against the contractual rates and highlights any discrepancies before the invoices are paid, thus preventing client payment frustration.
03) Inventory Management: Provides expertise and management to ensure that the records are identified (indexed/metadata-driven) and that maximum value can be achieved.
04) X-Ray Silver Reclamation: Provides execution management of the process to purge and destroy assets and achieve silver reclamation on any RIM materials where it can be achieved, such as MRI Film, CT-scan film, Radiographs, Lithographs, etc.
05) Digitization (Scan & Host): Digitization is provided in concert with one or more of APA’s strategic partners. This service provides a program that allows the client to digitize (scan and host their paper records on demand) and retrieve them on an on-demand basis so they never have to experience delays, lapses, or additional burdens in retrieving scanned and hosted records. Boxes or files that are digitized are then eligible for immediate destruction and, thus, continue to improve efficiency and reduce cost. APA also partners with AI, cloud, and digitization companies to allow clients to better utilize the massive amount of contextual data within their paper records. This is especially critical with IP records.
06) Longitudinal Linkages of Paper & Digital Records: Review the efficiency of ongoing programs to link paper records to digital records, provide efficiency improvements, and, where applicable, execute these programs.
07) AI should be applied to ensure active adherence in the need to continuously purge mature boxes/files of records in compliance with the organization’s Records Retention Policy.
08) Document Management Service: Provides expertise and management to encourage the client organization to retain records in electronic format and actively discourages the storage of paper copies.
09) Vendor Assessment Services: Provides a detailed understanding of the Vendor’s offsite facilities and protocols and looks for efficiency opportunities, including (a) secured access to records, (b) how the records are cataloged/indexed, and how the metadata is used to ensure consistency throughout the entire records inventory, and (c) that the records are always findable.
10) Internal Site Cleanup: Provides expertise and management to clean up sites and prevent them from falling into disarray (determining what to keep, destroy, etc.).
11) Request for Proposal (RFP): Provides an RFP process to define and vet vendor proposals on the client's behalf, ensuring that each RIM program is presented with the most favorable contract terms and pricing. Each RFP is tailored to the client's requirements.
12) Transition Management: Provides management of all facets of any transition from onsite to vendors, from one vendor to another, from a vendor to another site, or to destruction.
13) Intellectual Property (IP) Records: Helps improve information management with labeling, metadata tagging, and annotation to improve cross-referencing, speed of discovery, and IP value.
14) Retention & Information Governance (IG): APA’s strategic partner provides IG. This service provides a program that allows the client to build and tailor a Retention and Information Governance schedule using an archival database of governmental retention and privacy statutes (e.g., HIPAA, Gramm-Leach-Bailey, CCPA, GDPR, etc.) and internal policies.
15) Managed Services: Provides outsourced management for the client's day-to-day RIM Services using APA’s RIM efficiency experts, thus reducing the client's internal bandwidth requirements and operations cost.
16) Permanent Withdrawal (PW) or Purge & Destruction (P&D): In addition to Storage & Usage Cost, Records Information Management Storage also carries Contingent Liabilities Cost (an expense to which the client is obligated once a box is intaken by the vendor but which will not be assessed until a later date) to remove records from the vendor’s storage via Permanent Withdrawal (PW) or Purge & Destruction (P&D). These actions include:
* Permanent Withdrawal (if you want to move to an alternate vendor or onsite) this charge includes other Associated Costs like Retrieval, Transportation, Fuel Surcharges, Handling, and “Dock Access”.
* Purge & Destruction of your Records from vendor storage, which includes other Associated Costs like Retrieval, Transportation, Fuel Surcharges, Handling, and “Dock Access”.
Charges for these services are levied on a CF (Cubic Feet) basis with rates varying by client in accordance with the vendor/client agreement and applicable Rate Sheet(s). On average, however, the destruction cost per box is equivalent to the cost of storing a box for approximately seven (7) years (84 Months).
Furthermore, most vendors now restrict how quickly these boxes can be Permanently Withdrawal or Purged & Destroyed, meaning a minimum amount of time that must elapse to complete the required action is imposed, subjecting the client to the additional burden of paying for those records that remain in storage while the vendor metes out the withdrawal or destruction volume each month. APA helps clients manage this process in an orderly and cost-reducing fashion.
Summary:
The above individual services are most effective when combined with specific service tranches that help drive the process of a Paper-Lite Environment, based on the client’s unique needs.
APA RIM programs currently yield 35% to 55% cost savings/expense reduction within the first fifteen (15) Months, which continues until a Paper-Lite cost-effective environment is achieved.
