Why cases are lost at capture, not at claiming

Reconstruction is the failure point

The details required to bill a case — patient, payer, items, duration — exist in complete form at exactly one moment: when the case happens. Any process that defers capture is a process that reconstructs those details later from partial sources.

A missed case is not a delayed payment. It is income that is never billed at all, and because it was never entered, it does not appear on any report as missing.

Why the logbook persists

The logbook survives because it is fast at the moment of use. Writing a sticker into a book takes seconds; the cost is deferred to whoever transcribes it and to whatever is lost between the two.

Capturing directly at the point of care removes the deferred cost without adding to the immediate one, which is the only way a change to theatre workflow is sustainable.

• Capture at the point of care rather than at the end of the list
• The record is created from the sticker rather than transcribed from it
• Eligibility is confirmed while the case is still current
• Corrections happen while the details are still known

The test for any capture process

If capturing a case takes longer than writing it in a book, it will not be done consistently under pressure, and a process that is not followed consistently is not a process.