Imagine this: You sit down with a new patient and ask about their medical history. They pause, squint, and say something like, “I think I had a surgery… maybe in 2018? Or was it 2019?” You check their chart. Empty. Their old provider’s records? Still pending.
Now you have two options:
- Treat them based on incomplete information and hope for the best.
- Spend hours calling, faxing, and chasing down records from multiple offices.
Neither is ideal. But for most providers, this is the status quo.
Our Record Retrieval System is Stuck in the Past
Healthcare has AI-assisted imaging, robotic surgeries, and predictive analytics, but somehow, getting a patient’s medical records still relies on fax machines and phone calls.
The result?
- Duplicate tests because prior labs or imaging reports are missing.
- Delayed treatments while staff chase down old records.
- Frustrated patients who don’t understand why their history isn’t already in the system (or why they are responsible for gathering it).
This isn’t just an inconvenience, it’s a fundamental failure in care coordination.
Why This Matters for Value-Based Care
For providers and organizations focused on value-based care, the inefficiencies in record retrieval aren’t just a frustration, they directly impact financial performance and patient outcomes.
In value-based care models, success depends on understanding patient risk, closing care gaps, and ensuring patients receive proactive, preventive care. But how can providers be expected to do that if they don’t have a complete picture of their patient’s health?
- Risk adjustment depends on accurate coding – Without historical records, providers may miss HCC codes and other key data that affect risk scores and reimbursement.
- Preventive care requires historical context – A patient’s past conditions, prior screenings, and medication history all inform what preventive measures need to be taken.
- Care coordination suffers without shared data – Value-based care relies on multiple providers working together, but without seamless access to patient history, collaboration is nearly impossible.
For providers in risk-bearing arrangements, missing patient history isn’t just an inconvenient, it’s a direct threat to financial and clinical performance.
How to Fix Your Record Retrieval Process in 5 Steps
If any of this feels highly relatable, here’s how to upgrade it:
1. Go Digital (and Ditch the Fax Machine)
If your staff is still manually faxing forms to request patient histories, it’s time to upgrade. Due to changes in interoperability, digital-first solutions can pull records electronically, eliminating weeks of delays.
2. Integrate with Your EHR
Manually scanning and uploading PDFs into the EHR is inefficient. Look for solutions that deliver structured data directly into the provider workflow so insights are available at the point of care.
3. Prioritize Summarized, Actionable Histories
No provider wants to dig through 1,000+ pages of unstructured patient history. Summarized views with relevant insights—recent labs, chronic conditions, past interventions—make clinical decision-making faster and more accurate.
4. Automate Pre-Visit Record Retrieval
Instead of scrambling for records once a patient is already scheduled, set up automated retrieval at intake so the data is ready before the first visit.
5. Ensure Your Data is Clinically Relevant
Not all patient records are equally valuable. Partnering with organizations that use AI and clinically trained models ensures providers see the most relevant history, not just a document dump of old records.
The Need for a Smarter Approach to Medical Records
Healthcare cannot continue to operate in a system where patient history is difficult to access, fragmented across different systems, and dependent on outdated technology like fax machines. The future of healthcare must be built on instant access to structured, clinically relevant patient histories, delivered in real time, directly within provider workflows.
This shift isn’t just about convenience, it’s about fundamentally changing how care is delivered, improving patient outcomes, and making value-based care truly work.
The first step? Moving beyond a broken system and rethinking how providers access and use patient data. Oh, and reach out to us at Credo.
