Problem Statement

Each lab test has to be tied to a billing encounter before it can be billed, which means matching the requisition to the right patient in Epic and creating the encounter. When COVID testing volume surged, the sheer number of requisitions outpaced what staff could process by hand, so the intake step itself became the bottleneck: tests were performed but the encounters behind them piled up unbilled, slowing both billing and the throughput the lab needed to keep up with demand.

Automation Solution

This automation reviews scanned COVID lab requisitions, matches the patient in Epic, and creates the lab billing encounter, applying the U07.1 COVID diagnosis and verifying it against the requisition, so intake keeps pace with testing volume.