ABSTRACT
An ambulatory care center was baffled by rising laboratory costs and erroneous laboratory test results. The center had hoped implementing an electronic interface between its electronic health record (EHR) and its off-site laboratory would decrease costs and errors. However, even after the implementation of the EHR, the center found that costs and errors were growing each day. After implementing the laboratory interface, the ambulatory care center hired a physician informaticist to assist. The physician soon discovered many errors in the setup of the EHR orders screen and the laboratory interface mapping. The physician informaticist also found several laboratory tests that were performed at the ambulatory care center. Instead of mapping those tests to identifiers for the outside commercial laboratory, she researched and mapped the corresponding Current Procedural Terminology codes to the EHR orders to automate billing.
