US Med Express

• Hundreds of repeat orders for medical equipment processed each month
• Rapid business growth increased workload for records team
• Manually faxing healthcare providers was error prone and time-consuming
• Risk of delays or interruptions to patient deliveries

For almost two decades, US Med Express has provided durable medical equipment (DME) directly to the homes of people across North Carolina and beyond. Working in close collaboration with Medicare, North Carolina Medicaid, and a range of other health insurance providers, the organization delivers incontinence supplies, enteral feeding equipment, ostomy products, and nutritional supplements for adults and children.

Molly Ezzell, medical record department supervisor at US Med Express, said, “Hundreds of people with long-term medical needs depend on US Med Express to deliver DME products to support their day-to-day lives. Our mission is to ensure our patients always get the products they need when they need them.”

To deliver on time, every time, US Med Express orchestrates a sophisticated set of regulatory compliance and supply chain processes. When onboarding new patients, the organization first secures written consent in line with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and then works with each patient’s healthcare provider and insurer to gather and review medical records and other documents. Every six to 12 months, US Med Express must review repeat orders for medical products to ensure that they are still suitable for each patient.

Ezzell confirmed, “In a typical month, we review hundreds of repeat orders, which requires back-and-forth communication with numerous healthcare providers. In the past, we handled this process manually using physical fax machines in our office. However, as the business grew, this approach became increasingly time-consuming and error prone.”

Previously, US Med Express employees would fax paperwork in batches. There were numerous opportunities for human error—from entering an incorrect fax number to accidentally combining separate sets of records.

“If something went wrong with sending a fax, it wasn’t always obvious that the documents had failed to send—or why the documents hadn’t gone through,” continued Ezzell. “To avoid the risk of delays or interruptions to patient deliveries, the company looked for a new approach to exchanging data with healthcare stakeholders.”