Once the contingency plans have been refined, a final determination will be made on what additional personnel may need to be available. Although no one can predict the future with certainty, our community can be assured that St. Elizabeth is making all appropriate preparations to continue delivering safe, quality patient care into the year 2000. All information contained in this disclosure is subject to the protections and limitations of the Year 2000 Information and Readiness Disclosure Act. The much-anticipated advancement gives healthcare practitioners, hospitals and others access to programs via the Internet, avoiding the need to purchase, install and update expensive software and systems. In addition to eliminating the need to purchase hardware and software, the service allows providers to select from monthly pricing plans that fit their needs and further reduce their costs.
All information is encrypted to ensure confidentiality.
In addition, backup systems have been put in place to provide the reliability needed for such transactions. However, small and medium sized providers and rural hospitals will especially benefit from our service. That s because the costs of most systems have been out of reach for them. In fact, nearly 1.6 billion paper claims were filed last year. Filing claims by paper is more labor intensive and delays the claims paying process as compared with electronic filing.