News

Texas hospitals add self-service check-in

September 5, 2006

MAITLAND, Fla. — Healthcare self-service solutions provider Galvanon Inc., a subsidiary of NCR Corp., announced in a news release that Harlingen, Texas-based Valley Baptist Health System has signed an enterprise contract to license the Galvanon MediKiosk patient check-in solution at its affiliated facilities.

Under the agreement, Valley Baptist will use Galvanon's self-service kiosks to automate patient-registration processes and enable real-time membership-eligibility checking at its network of hospitals and clinics.

The contract follows a successful pilot program at Valley Baptist's two outpatient-rehabilitation centers where patients used MediKiosk to identify themselves, confirm demographic and insurance information, make co-payments and electronically sign documents at check-in.  

The health system also is working with Galvanon to facilitate real-time eligibility checks for members of Valley Baptist Health Plan, an affiliate of the health system serving more than 15,000 members in the Rio Grande Valley. Upon arrival for an appointment, health-plan members can swipe their membership cards directly on the kiosk, triggering an eligibility check in the health plan's information system. The status of the eligibility check flows directly to the facility's registration system through Galvanon's common server platform, enabling the real-time exchange of data between MediKiosk and Valley Baptist's back-end systems.  Having access to eligibility information prior to the time of service will allow the health system to reduce claim denials and speed payment for medical services.

"Galvanon's technology fits seamlessly with our vision of developing the most efficient way to manage health information across the enterprise," said Jim Barbaglia, chief information officer of Valley Baptist Health System.  "By expanding our self-service strategy to include real-time eligibility checking, we will not only benefit from more streamlined workflow processes, but we will also have the resources in place to submit cleaner claims, reduce accounts-receivable backlogs and improve cash flow."