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The EMR Billing Specialists

Focus on Patients to Run a more Profitable Practice

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Are your Patients Happy?

What do CQMs, recent Medicare updates and the health center down the road have in common ? An increased focus on the quality of patient care and better patient communication ! There’s been a lot of dust raised in recent times about physicians who rush through appointments.

             Being Sidelined and Neglected…

Patients repeatedly complained in local tabloids and social networking sites about long waits and unfriendly staff. Physicians groaned about the constant need to stay on top of evolving guidelines and frequent updates. It is never easy for anyone during a period of transition.

Towards a Patient Centered Practice…

A Medicare program announced recently is going to push physicians to make that follow-up call ! Doctors will be paid for following up on their services after a patient discharges. Phone calls and other forms of communication and management activities will be reimbursed by Medicare.

A Carrot and Stick Approach…

A value based payment modifier is also in the offing. It could either penalize or reward healthcare professionals based on the quality of their patient care. These updates and changes again emphasize on practices becoming more patient centered. The pressure on physicians to report more meaningful and patient centric services is escalating.

Attainable of Course !

Is it possible for medical providers to reach the benchmarks set for them ?

The upside is that ehr and emr are set to pave the way for better clinical documentation. There are more softwares and tools to track down and store information.

But the flipside is that practices need to hire additional workforce to handle data management tasks to help physicians concentrate on patient care. Working with a third party biller or data management firm can help practices contain costs. And give physicians the time and space they need to focus on what matters, patient care.

Do EMR’s Lead to Higher Quality of Care ?

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Do EMR’s help in Better Medical Care ?

You are happy with your emr. It is easy to locate notes, enter and edit patient information and not wait for the trolley to come trundling along. But has it made your patients lives better ?

No matter how you slice it, you cannot get one single, convincing answer. As an increasing number of practices are joining the emr fray, this question and the answer to it, is more important than ever.

Comprehensive Progress notes, An Ancient Relic ?

Yes, documenting patient records has never been so easy. Or, so impersonal either. Straight out of a can templates have taken the place of long and informative patient progress notes. A physician going through the progress note in his emr is more likely to encounter highly edited and simplified information, which may not give him a clear picture of his patient’s progress.

Sigh, The Doctor is too busy…

A common complaint heard in the waiting room of doc’s offices is that patients are slowly becoming the least powerful factor in the equation. With cuts in reimbursement and constant changes in the healthcare landscape, it is a tough world to live in for physicians. And learning the ropes of a new system isn’t a walk in the park either. And in this entire din it is the voice of the patient that sadly goes unheard.

EMR’s do lead to Higher Quality of Care.

A recent study published in the The Journal of General Internal Medicine states that ehr use had led to significantly higher quality of care. It is one of the first extensive researches conducted on the usefulness of an emr in a clinical setting. And going by its results, despite its flaws electronic medical records billing services are here to stay. Physicians, who learn the ropes quickly enough and can work around the limitations of the system, can realize the endless possibilities it offers. Better patient care and easy access to records at all times, are just a few of them.

Is Adopting an EMR a Big Hurdle for Small Practices?

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Big changes in the healthcare landscape are affecting the way small medical practices function. By now all that dust about whether an emr can contribute directly towards more profits and better patient care has died down. Discussion forums are abuzz with practice managers seeking out everybody’s two cents on the best emrs around before taking the plunge.

The Biggest Check a Small Practice Owner is ever going to Sign !

Most small single physician practices make do with basic technological infrastructure to get by. Investing in a system that is pretty expensive and not being sure about the ROI is the biggest nightmare for physicians. And signing the check for the emr is the first of many expenses.

Training and Recruiting Staff…

Medical practices will have to implement a training program for staff to understand and work with electronic medical records. Most small facilities are understaffed and a new emr calls for recruiting more people to handle and manage the system. Needless to say, this means big bucks. But the question is, are costs the only factor that is making small practices, stand at the end of the queue?

My Eight Hours are Packed !

Small practices unlike their bigger counterparts do not have separate teams to handle different departments. Physicians juggle a lot many tasks and researching on a new emr means serious cutbacks on time. It could mean seeing fewer patients a day, which would adversely affect collections.  With hardly any time to breathe or fix up that faulty heater, it is going to be tough for physicians, to go shopping for an emr and come back with the best deal.

Can Having an Automated Appointment Scheduler help ?

Depends on how many patients you meet per day. If your receptionist can juggle your appointments with a smile, let her. There are a lot of physicians who realize that the features they were so excited about during the implementation stage are features they’re never going to use. It is lack of emr knowledge, expertise and the fear of making the wrong choice that is holding most doctors back.

Is, Trusting a Consultant a huge Leap of Faith ?

In a world where two out of three people you meet claims to be an expert consultant; it is certainly a risky proposition. And it could be expensive as well. Opt for certified consultants. Spend a whole day on the net reading up about emrs to show them they’re dealing with a tough customer. And finally request your physician billing EMR services company to help you analyze current operational expenses and profitability benchmarks, and how implementing an emr can help drive up profits.

In the long run it is the time and energy we invest before taking a decision that ultimately pays off !