Hospitals are required to bill Medicare and most other insurance companies by assigning an evaluation and management visit level to each Emergency Department visit.

Stealth VL (SVL) is a structured process that will objectively calculate the appropriate level of service for every patient visit. SVL combines the severity adjusted “presenting problem” with weighted resources actually used during a visit to measure the total amount of emergency department resources provided to each patient during the encounter.

To use the SVL product, the user simply needs access to a high speed Internet connection. No software has to be downloaded and no support is required of hospital information technology staff.

Compliance and Reliability

SVL has been designed to meet all CMS principles related to the selection of evaluation and management visit levels in the emergency department. All of the data entered to determine the appropriate visit level is stored in a secure server for audit reporting and aggregation into valuable management reports.

Using SVL provides hospitals with the documented audit trail needed to demonstrate how each visit level was determined. Compliance officers can be certain that the visit level guidelines are followed explicitly for every visit, or know that the user has documented the reason for variance from the calculated level of service.

Features

Process Validation

A structured process for visit level determination is essential to avoid both over and under charging patients for services provided in the ED or Hospital. SVL is correlated with AMA’s Current Procedural Terminology, CPT, clinical examples for visit levels.

Predictable and Reproducible Level of Service

SVL will eliminate the frequent inadvertent selection of a visit level lower than appropriate to the services provided. It will also prevent inadvertent selection of a higher level than is appropriate for provided services. Using the SVL process, the appropriate level of service can be reproduced by multiple users for the purpose of management and audit reports.

Minimal Training

SVL relies on standard nursing documentation and clinical information required to be recorded in every patient’s medical record. Clinical Information Managers are not required to make judgment decisions about the complexity of the service provided in the ED or hospital.

Valuable Clinical Information

Data entered and stored on the secure web site will provide valuable information on the types of patients being treated at a specific ED or Hospital The information entered for each patient can be aggregated to provide important information regarding reasons for visiting the ED or Hospital and insight into diagnostic evaluation and disposition patterns for common presenting complaints.