[Automated anesthesia billing by electronic anesthesia record keeping system].
There has been loss of anesthesia fee by errors of filling out billing sheets manually. A large loss of anesthesia fee was pointed out by the audit during the past several years. In order to prevent these billing error, we have developed an automated anesthesia billing system combined with an electronic anesthesia record keeping (EARK) system. The system derives all the anesthesia cost-related parameters from the EARK database and calculates anesthesia fee according to the logic of the Japanese health care insurance system. After implementing the system, anesthesiologists and circulating nurses became free from filling out billing sheets. The accuracy of the automated billing was proved by the comparison with hand filled sheets. The survey showed that the system prevented 2.5 million yen of billing loss in a month. Such an economic impact of the system proves the rationale of an EARK as a cost containment tool.
Okamura
A
A
Surgical Center, Hokkaido University Hospital, Sapporo.
Murayama
H
H
Sato
N
N
Kemmotsu
O
O
D000758:Anesthesia / Q000191:economics; D003195:Computer Communication Networks; D005249:Fees and Charges; D006751:Hospital Information Systems; D006801:Humans; D007344:Insurance Claim Reporting; D007349:Insurance, Health, Reimbursement; D016343:Monitoring, Intraoperative / Q000191:economics