Frequently asked questions
Onboarding
Signup Process
Why do I need to upload my ID and take a selfie?
We perform identity verification by cross-checking your likeness between a government-issued ID and the real-time capture of your image. Verification of your identity is required by law in order for us to authorize you to access patient data.
Why do I need to input my NPI?
We use your NPI to verify that you are a clinician licensed in the United States, making you eligible to search for patients via our connection to the Carequality® network of Health Information Exchanges.
Why do I need to enter my mobile number?
Your mobile number allows us to text you a link to capture and upload a selfie.
Clinicians are often signing up for our app via a work computer. We found that there are often security protocols that prevent end-users from taking a selfie on those machines so we devised this workaround.
Do I need to be a clinician to use the product?
You do NOT need to be a clinician to use our application for PDF upload and summarization tooling, but you MUST be a US-based clinician with an NPI to access our Patient Search feature and take advantage of the record retrieval tooling.
Does the product work outside the US?
Yes, the PDF upload and AI summarization functionality will work for users outside the US, but you will not have access to patient data via our connection to the Carequality network.
If there are comprehensive exchanges in your national market that support modern standards for health data exchange, then we are certainly open to exploring commercial opportunities for integration outside the US.
Which address should I enter for my practice?
We recommend inputting one of the main offices where you see patients.
When you run a patient search, our automation will prioritize the retrieval of records from medical facilities near known addresses of the patient, and secondarily, the address on file for the clinician’s practice. Because the geocentric logic is fairly broad and regional in scope, any office address should suffice so long as your office locations are within the same state or neighboring ones.
Why does it matter if I already have a record retrieval software in use?
If you already have record retrieval software running on your behalf, then we’ll need to work with you to communicate to Carequality® which service you’re electing to represent you for backend data requests and responses through Carequality®.
To clarify further, Carequality® wants to avoid duplicate activities occurring in the exchange on behalf of a provider via two different implementers because that degrades data integrity and wastes compute resources across the system.
Product
Record Retrieval via Carequality®
Why do record retrieval and summarization not occur instantaneously?
Via Carequality® it takes at least 90 seconds to run a patient search, ping 50k+ medical facilities across the country for patient matches, and then pull in any relevant records. Once record retrieval is finished, then our AI summarization goes to work, in some cases parsing hundreds of thousands of words per patient chart.
The end-to-end process typically takes 3-7 minutes. Naturally, patients with more detailed medical history may take longer to complete. You can now control the speed/robustness of your search in the "Customize Search" setting.
Are there any ways to speed this up?
Workflow Optimization: you or an assistant can run multiple patient searches in parallel with our batch upload feature! Simply select "Load Patients" and upload a patient schedule from your EHR and extract up to 30 patients automatically and trigger their searches. Your schedule needs to have at least names, birthdates, and sexes for each of your patients. These searches can be initiated the day before or morning of your clinic so you’re not waiting on this process.
EHR Integration: we can trigger patient searches to occur based on a check-in trigger event so that the AI summaries and related records are ready and waiting for you by the time you’re seeing the patient. Admittedly, this type of integration will not occur overnight, but we are experts at EHR interoperability and likely already have the baseline SMART on FHIR API connection to your EHR.
We are deeply focused on reducing this processing time and have engineering solutions near deployment to make a patient search more efficient.
Why are some records not appearing from outside medical groups as expected?
There are a handful of factors that can contribute to this issue. In some cases, patients may have declined consent to share their records. While this is not the norm, this does occur from time to time.
Another possibility is that our patient matching algorithm has not matched your patient to your expected facility. In this case, if you can include up to 3 preferred healthcare practices that we can ensure you we will search every time.
It’s also possible that differences in data standards or formatting between systems are causing the match to fail. Our algorithm relies on several data points to query medical facilities across the country, and even small variations can sometimes prevent a successful connection. We monitor success rates in this regard in hopes of proactively identifying gaps and working behind the scenes to optimize our coverage. We encourage you to reach out as well if you’re seeing disappointing results because we may be able to resolve issues with outreach to specific responders.
Can I search again if no results are found?
Yes - you can resubmit the search but we recommend adding more information such as phone number and address. You can also update the search robustness with the AI Retrieval Mode to Nova to cast a wider net.
Can I choose which organizations to search?
By default, Abstractive identifies the organizations most likely to have your patient’s records. You can also customize your searches by selecting up to three preferred healthcare practices - ideally ones you frequently refer to or major facilities near your practice.
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