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The EMR Billing Specialists

How to increase the productivity of your practice by hiring an EHR expert!

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An EHR expert can maximize the ROI of your EHR!

Hire an EHR expert to manage workflow complexities!

For most physicians EHRs are the monster under the bed they were scared of as children. The amount of data fodder an EHR needs to function has reduced physicians into an army of data entry professionals. Every day at work, becomes one long process of, learning, unlearning, relearning and feeding data into a system that is becoming more difficult to handle by the day…

Dangerous learning curves ahead!

One reason, why physicians hate their EHR, with a vengeance is that, learning the ropes of an electronic medical record is tiresome and frustrating. There are tripwires and smoky mirrors everywhere. The worst part of working with an EHR is that it eats up large chunks of time that could have been spent on interacting with patients.

According to a survey by the MPI group as many as 67% of physicians were planning to switch to another system. About 63% of doctors wouldn’t choose the same system again if given a chance! What could be the reason for such high levels of physician dissatisfaction? Is it because EHRs are not designed to be handled by physicians? Or are doctors unable to work efficiently with their EHRs?

Designed for whom?

Can a bunch of template designers truly understand what a physician truly wants? There is a huge dissonance between the everyday workflow of medical practices and the template structure of EHRs. They are rigid, demand huge amounts of unwanted or repetitive data and make pulling out pertinent information a herculean task.

It has become a tug of war between physicians and EHR vendors as worried policy makers watch over the chaos that a well-meant change can bring.

Physicians are not ready as yet…

Any change can bring about widespread distrust and confusion. Throw in a completely new model of working; you have a disaster waiting to happen. Unwilling or reluctant physicians are partly to blame for the entire digitizing effort becoming a fiasco.

A lasting solution!

Move over phoney experts! There are several EHR experts who can help physicians resolve technical issues, come up with customization plans and help physicians understand complicated EHR architectures. Despite the bickering and disagreements a huge number of medical practices are dependent on EHRs to store, access and transmit vital medical information.

To be able to work more effectively with their EHRs, physicians will have to hire an EMR expert to handle hardware and software snags. There are several remote EHR tech support consultants who can finally bridge the divide between physicians and their EHRs…

Five Common Gaffes of Healthcare Providers in an EHR selection

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EHR Support

Hunting for a right EHR?

Partnering a vendor for your electronic medical/ health record (EMR/ EHR) journey is no easy task for your medical practice. Based on the views of industry experts, I have something to advice you about the common flaws that you might make while selecting an EHR.

 The deciding factors:

Various factors including practice size, type of medical specialty, adeptness in adopting advanced technologies, budget, etc. determine the choice of a perfect EMR/ EHR for your clinic or hospital. Keep these criteria in your mind along with awareness on the common mistakes in selecting an EMR/ EHR for your care center.

 Errors and Points to consider:

#1: Selection of an EHR vendor with restricted support:

Most of the EMR/ EHR vendors get you tethered through their software selling, but they may direct you to procure the compatible hardware or support from a third party. Don’t get entrapped! Once you encounter a problem one vendor points out the other one, finally putting you in dilemma.

Always prefer a vendor who can provide you the full-scale solutions for your Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) process along with the EMR/ EHR support.

#2: Selection of interfaced systems:

Industry experts state that it is best to go with the fully integrated system with EMR or EHR, practice management and interoperability modules rather than interfaced systems. Handling dual systems for sharing common data like ICD-9/ ICD-10, CPT and HCPCS codes, record templates, etc. mayn’t practically feasible as the vendors state. Inbuilt ticklers and essential clinical alerts in one system can fail to be produced in the other system.

#3: Ignorance on hidden costs:

When choosing an EMR/ EHR, it is crucial to estimate the cost involved in the EHR/ EMR including software purchase, monthly subscription, annual maintenance, software upgrades, hardware costs, installation, implementation, training and any pertinent third-party charges.

So, don’t choose an EMR/ EHR just looking at the initial price label.

#4: Overlooking the worth of specialty templates:

Though self-designed clinical documentation templates fit best for your medical practice, it has several disadvantages:

A.  It is an arduous and time-consuming task.

B.  All other providers perceive your templates as strange designs.

C.  Incorporating the in-house template ideas into software (designed by an external vendor) can be difficult.

Thus, the wiser option is to purchase the customized systems with inbuilt template libraries that best suit your specialty practice needs.

#5: Missing point-of-care modules:

Most EHR/ EMR systems are not focused on point-of-care documentation. The patient data can get duplicated at the pharmacy, frond-end or laboratory – leading to medical errors and even medico-legal complications. This may pose risk to your ROI of EHR/ EMR and intention to adopt the technological advancements like using a tablet or smart phone.

Purchase the exact EMR/EHR and ramp-up the productivity and profitability of your medical practice.

Is you EHR customized to your needs?

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Tips to maintain medical documentation

EHR templates and why it makes little sense to work with them!

EHR templates are getting a lot of bad press. They are being blamed for poor documentation and reduced patient engagement.

Template generated notes are reducing patient data into a series of boxes to be ticked and blanks to be filled out.

At the end of the day, relying on templates is not just lazy documentation, but can also have a negative impact in the medical decision making process.

Missing the forest for the trees…

Point and click templates consume a lot of time thanks to the extensive output they generate. Information that has no clinical relevance, unnecessary, redundant data leads to note bloat. And a frustrated physician who cannot find what was documented during the patients’ previous visit. Cloned notes and upcoding add another layer of complexity to an already complex tale.

Templates that are not well designed can be hazardous to patient health & if overused can cost lives. The death of a patient in Manhattan, due to a template that limited information and narrowed down diagnostic choices, is an example of how hazardous templates can be. Instead of being comprehensive and informational, most EHR templates are complicated and of little use.

Which box do I tick?

There is another more dangerous charge thrown at EHRs. It is that they limit the physician’s ability to think and interfere with open diagnostic thought.

Improper diagnosis poses several medical-legal problems for medical practices.

Structured and inflexible data inputting options can put medical practices at risk.

Less rigid data platforms that give physicians enough space to explore varied diagnostic and treatment, plans and options are the need of the hour.

Limiting and cumbersome!

In a better world EHR templates will give physicians easy access to healthcare information, reduce data entry tasks and increase patient engagement. But going by the number of people complaining and riling against EHRs, most EMR systems leave a lot to be desired.

Going back to paper?

Several medical practices use paper records to document regularly performed procedures, patient history and progress notes.

It is impossible for EHR vendors to create a unique template for every single disease or medical condition.

And that is why it is essential that physicians do not depend blindly on their templates’ parameters and work within its framework.

Customizing EHRs according to the patient population, treatment options and the most commonly performed procedures, of a medical practice. Can trim the fat, save up on time and lead to better medical decisions.