Through the university's Business Fellows initiative, information systems professor Joel Whitesel and his students are researching better ways for Medical Consultants to  improve its processes for recording and entering provider charges for services by area physicians.

Medical Consultants is a medical multi-specialty group established in 1968 that provides treatment for cardiac, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, kidney, lung and digestive diseases.

"Medical Consultants is working in a complex world of reporting since physicians and other medical staff members work out of the office quite a lot today," Whitesel said. "The students are looking at ways to improve the system, eliminating waste and wasted time."

He said the company's current process is mostly manual and the problems associated with it include incorrect patient account information, incorrect insurance information and incorrect coding, which can lead to time-consuming delays in the payment of claims.

The goals of the project are to improve the quality of claims, improve the payment cycle for claims and reduce the processing cycle time.

"It has been a great opportunity for the students to work with professionals in the medical field," Whitesel said. "I think it has exposed them to new ways of thinking about their own technology-based majors and how they can work in a variety of fields following graduation."

About Business Fellows and Building Better Communities

Business Fellows, coordinated by Ball State's Career Center and funded by a $1.5 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc., gives Ball State students the opportunity to turn academic knowledge into business solutions through intense, semester-long applied work experiences that will benefit an Indiana business, industry or organization. The program works in concert with Ball State's Building Better Communities initiative.

Building Better Communities is a university-wide initiative designed to spur economic development and quality-of-life advancement in Indiana by extending Ball State's strengths in applied research and hands-on learning to community projects across the state. Building Better Communities works to match the university's expertise and resources to the varied needs of Indiana communities.

(Note to editors: For more information, contact Whitesel at jawhitesel@bsu.edu or (765) 285-5327.)