Revenue Cycle Insider

Question: I work for an independent practice that is being purchased by a larger organization. The new owner has policies about each staff member being required to login to any computer via an RFID-tagged badge. Staff who are staying on are frustrated by the inconvenience and have concerns about privacy (or maybe it’s just the transition), but I’m trying to find ways to make the card wearing seem enticing. Any ideas?

Montana Subscriber

Answer: Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags are popular in healthcare facilities, including those providing outpatient care, for lots of reasons, especially security. While staff members are theoretically losing some aspects of privacy, as the badges can provide real-time location data, the organization, as a whole, can make sure different places in the facility are secure, boost infection control, and even simplify documentation collection while bolstering documentation integrity.

If you want a scary story, you can consider this data integrity issue: Rhonda Buckholtz, CPC, CDEO, CPMA, CRC, CENTC, CGSC, COBGC, COPC, CPEDC, in her AAPC DOCUCON 2025 presentation “Mastering Documentation: Best Practices for Addendums and Amendments (DEEP DIVE),” described a situation where a provider was being investigated for medically unnecessary services being rendered.

The medical record showed testing being changed multiple times, and an investigation exposed that the provider had shared their login password with several staff members, all of whom used the provider’s login to when updating a patient’s medical record.

“There was no way to prove who did what; her claim was that the staff had done it multiple times incorrectly, and then she had to go in and correct it,” Buckholtz explained.

This practice’s data integrity was compromised. “Violations like that trigger penalties, investigations, and sometimes, in this case, if it would have been proven, loss of a medical license. So, it’s really important we think through what these data integrity issues could be,” she said.

Using an RFID-integrated badge (and complementary technology, like having each computer equipped with a reader) can help avoid issues like this because each person has their own badge, and logging in can be as easy as bringing the badge to the reader.

Rachel Dorrell, MA, MS, CPC-A, CPPM, Production Editor, AAPC