Filed audited records - need advice

[Love Coding!]

Hello,

I am a medical auditor for a Nephrology practice of over 80 physicians. I conduct retrospective audits and report to the physician about the outcomes of the audit along with a copy of the medical records audited. Once that visit has been paid to the physician, my staff and I file away the audit results with the audited records in a file cabinet under that physicians name. We also scan the records into a secure online databank, so maybe I am duplicating this process??

My question is 1. Is this necessary to do this and if so, how long do I keep these audited records.

My second question - Is there a website or some other piece of information that can guide me to properly store records such as these.

Any help will be greatly appreciated!
Thank you!

 

[martinni1974]

Good Afternoon,

My opinion based on your questions is as follows:

I would choose one method of storage. Since these are already reproduced documents provider attestation does not come into play here. Your documentation of the outcome of the audit/education (corrective action) should also be saved. My preference would be to just save electronicaly. For purposes outside of this scenario you would ofcourse use the originals weather that be from an EMR or written chart.

As far as retention time goes I would save these in alignment with the most conservative payer look back period which is technicaly up to 10 years (CMS/federal). Again these are reproduced for the purpose of coding/documentation compliance and provider education so other record retention laws such as in cases of malpractice, BME investigations etc wouldn't apply in this scenario.

Unfortunately there is no website directly addressing this topic however, it makes the most sense in my opinion to save these as long as the risk of having to back coding/billing & corrective action/provider education is viable.

Check out your payer contracts and CMS false claim act etc for maximum look back periods.

Good Luck!