Referring Physician Resources
Many referring physicians in the region who order imaging tests for patients fax their prescriptions to one of four outpatient centers of Medical Imaging of Fredericksburg (Medical Imaging). Early this year, the centers introduced a smarter system for handling faxed requests — one that improves Medical Imaging’s responsiveness and reduces follow-up calls to referring physicians, said Barry Nielsen, executive director for Medical Imaging.
Medical Imaging switched to an electronic fax and archive system, Order Facilitator®, a software module that takes incoming faxes from referring physicians and converts them into electronic faxes. According to Nielsen, the system recognizes the fax number of the referring physician’s office that sent in the request for imaging, and allows for efficient archiving and retrieval when the patient arrives at the imaging facility. Once a patient’s medical imaging test is performed, the electronic request is sent to a radiologist with the images for interpretation.
Under the old system, the volume of paper faxes made it difficult to keep patient information and faxed requests together. Each request had to be manually filed, and then searched, before the patient arrived at the facility.
“Now, our team spends a lot less time searching for orders, patients spend less time waiting, and we have also addressed concerns from referring physicians regarding calls to locate orders.,” Nielsen noted. “The system also supports HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) compliance, further protecting the privacy of patient information.”
Order Facilitator® has additional features that Medical Imaging will use in 2014 to assist in meeting medical necessity regulations, and integrate with physicians’ electronic medical record (EMR) systems, Nielsen added.
Medical Imaging has four locations which include Medical Imaging of Fredericksburg on the Mary Washington Hospital Campus, the Imaging Center for Women, Medical Imaging at Lee’s Hill, and Medical Imaging of North Stafford. Tests provided at the centers include 3T, 1.5 and open MRI, CT, CT angiography, PET/CT, fluoroscopy, ultrasound, digital mammography, breast biopsy, bone densitometry and x-rays.
Medical Imaging is a partnership of Radiologic Associates of Fredericksburg (RAF) and Mary Washington Healthcare. RAF’s board certified and specialty trained radiologists supervise tests, interpret results, perform procedures, measure and improve quality, and provide other services to the centers.