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Last year proved to be a very active and devastating hurricane season. Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma affected both TRICARE beneficiaries and providers. For those beneficiaries and providers affected by Hurricane Katrina in particular, many were displaced by the disaster. Before health care providers think about restoring bricks and mortar, however, it is important for them to rebuild patients’ medical records as quickly as possible. For medical clinics and hospitals in the TRICARE family, help with this critical task may be available from the Humana Military Corporate Office in Louisville, Ky.
“We are a central repository for a narrow range of medical records, so we may have certain records from affected facilities scanned into our system,” explains Sandy McClish, R.N., manager of Review Services, Medical Affairs. “If a hospital in New Orleans, for instance, is trying to find specific data on a beneficiary from before the hurricane, we will check our archived data to see if we have what they need.”
McClish urges health care providers who have suffered hurricane damage to be proactive about contacting her group. “We don’t necessarily know which facilities were affected, so it is important for providers to contact us directly to inquire about any records we might be able to restore for them.”
Unfortunately, since the type of data the office is required to archive tends to be narrow, McClish’s team will only be able to restore records in a limited number of cases. Humana Military asks providers seeking pre-hurricane records to establish a new address, as well as designate a contact person to help maintain beneficiary privacy. Sandy McClish can be reached at 502-580-3973.
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