Manual vs. Automated Sorting & Indexing Medical Charts: What’s the Best Approach?

Are you an IME, QME or a healthcare provider? How effective is your medical record management? Medical evaluators or healthcare providers- medical record management is an essential part of your practice. Organized medical records make your processes hassle-free and effortless. To keep them organized, you need to sort and index the records. But which method, do you find effective- manual or automated?

Each method has its own advantages and drawbacks. Selecting a suitable one depends on several factors, including the size of your firm, volume of medical records you process, and other available resources you have. Here we analyze the pros and cons of sorting & indexing medical records and which method suits you the best.

Manual sorting & indexing

Benefits: Reviewing and organizing medical records by human reviewers is called manual sorting & indexing. When dealing with smaller data sets or documents, manual sorting method becomes feasible. This ensures human oversight for complex cases. Only humans can handle handwritten records, illegible and poorly scanned documents to infer the data and organize them into proper order, where machines may fail. Manual sorting and indexing method also allows for flexibility in making changes in filing systems or new categories of records to be included in the data set.

Drawbacks: Manual sorting method has some disadvantages too. It can be slow and laborious and become more tiresome when handling large volume of data. It can also lead to human errors in missing or overlooking vital data. Delays in accessing medical data can impact the quality of patient care and meeting deadlines in medical evaluations. Excessive processing time, cost of labor, and reduced efficiency can impact your practice and become a burden.

Automated sorting and indexing

Benefits: Automated systems rely on software and technologies like optical character recognition (OCR) to sort and index medical records quickly. This method can be useful when handling large volume of medical data. These systems ensure the sorting and indexing process is completed in a short time, ensuring speed, and consistency. This will reduce delays and human errors, and improve workflow.

Drawbacks: Setting up of automated systems require huh initial investment, making it unsuitable for smaller firms. Investment cost involving expenses for software, hardware, and training staff can be huge. Moreover, these systems also depend on the quality of the input data. Poorly scanned records and illegible handwriting can be misinterpreted and wrongly categorized by these systems. It also lacks the expert insights from human reviewers.

Which is the best for you- manual or automated?

If yours is a smaller firm looking for budget-friendly options, go for manual sorting and indexing. For handling smaller data sets and complex cases needing expert insights, manual methods would be apt. you need not bother about the huge initial investment for highly expensive software and training.

If your firm handles large volumes of data or multiple medical evaluation cases at a time, you may need automated systems. Though initial investment is high, it can save you cost in the long run.

If you want to handle vast medical records but at the same time need expert insights in sorting and indexing, you can go for a hybrid approach. Use automated system for basic sorting and indexing and expert oversight for special and complex cases.

A smarter choice- Outsourcing

You need to handle more records, need expert insight but at the same time can’t afford to invest more on software- what can be the solution? Opt for outsourcing sorting and indexing. Outsourcing services make use of professionals for complex cases and automated systems for routine sorting and indexing tasks. They offer efficient sorting and indexing at affordable pricing.

LezDo TechMed combines high-quality software and expert insights to sort and index large volumes of medical records efficiently. They can scale any amount of medical records in a short period. You can track the sorting process through their efficient case management platform, CaseDrive.

Patrick Paul is a professional Medico-Legal writer.