ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORDS SOFTWARE
According to the National Alliance for Health Information Technology, the definition of an Electronic Medical Record Software is, "an electronic record of health-related information on an individual that can be created, gathered, managed, and consulted by allowed clinicians and staff within one healthcare organization."
It is important to note that while an EMR software keeps all patient PHI in one place, there are penalties to sharing these records with unauthorized organizations.
Within an Electronic Medical Record Software, practices can:
With a more advanced EMR software, practices can:
Spending time and energy in Practice Management solutions could save practices in the United States close to $125 billion annually because of poor medical billing operations. Practice Management Software is often integrated into EMR solutions since it manages functions including appointment scheduling, billing, claims processing, and administrative tasks for healthcare practices.
Practice Management challenges expand beyond revenue cycle management, but careful attention to Practice Management solutions can help overcome challenges.
While EMR solutions allow for patient information to be shared within one healthcare organization, Electronic Health Record Software differs in that it allows for health-related records to be shared across multiple organizations. EHR software also allows for patients to both access and edit information to their personal medical records.
To fully grasp how EHRs became popular, it is important to understand the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, otherwise known as HITECH, passed by Congress in 2009.
According to an article by Howard Burde:
A unified EHR is a cloud-based system that puts a complete patient history at your fingertips. Available anytime, anywhere, and on any device. eClinicalWorks has you covered, from scheduling and intake, through clinical documentation by speech, touch or templates, to billing and follow-up. A unified EHR offers:
In today's day, it is unacceptable to have poor communication between EHR vendors and platforms and users. Sadly, nonunified EHR systems will provide just that. When you are dealing with multiple vendors, there is going to be poor communication, easily avoidable problems, and wasted time, guaranteed.
Yoo Jung Kim has an article that goes into great detail describing how frustrating it is when there is a lack of communication. Kim notes, "without an efficient transfer of data, physicians have to re-gather patient history, reorder lab tests, and make medical decisions based on incomplete information leading to unnecessary delays, wasted healthcare dollars, and suboptimal patient care."
Kim stresses the importance of interoperability and a fully unified EHR system. Making sure of these two things will improve communication between healthcare providers and vendors, better help protect patient information, and increase overall efficiency and effectiveness.
Choosing the right electronic health records software for your practice is crucially important, since the "perfect fit" EHR will help to increase patient outcomes and practice efficiencies. Some ways the right EHR can help your practice is by trimming down time on documentation, saving your hard-earned dollars, and staying up-to-date on the most current and efficient industry trends and processes.
Choosing the wrong EHR may have detrimental effects on your practice, including difficulties relating to productivity, adoption, and claims management.
The first step to selecting the right EHR is to know your practice's specific demands. It is important to know what you need to shop for, since you don't want to decide solely on what looks the most impressive.
The top ten EHR features to look for include:
Since cost will play a huge role in selecting the right EHR for your practice, you need to identify the mandatory features you require and set a budget based on how simple or complex those features are. This will eliminate the way for you to exceed your budget after browsing what is available for purchase in the market.
Look for vendors that offer multiple pricing options. Vendors typically base pricing models on initial licensing or activation costs. Components including patient engagement and telemedicine are add-on costs.
An additional pricing option to be on the lookout for is a subscription-based EHR. This option typically requires a long-term contract but includes all set-up costs and EHR licensing fees. While subscription-based models are extremely popular, they tend to be more expensive in the long run depending on the number of providers.
Because initial demos typically run 60 minutes, it is not feasible to demo every EHR software. Instead, focus your research on finding EHR systems that offer your "must have" features and needs, and from there, schedule demonstrations for your top 5-6 EHR systems. More often than not, 1-2 of these system demonstrations stand out among the rest, pushing your EHR search forward.
Once you find the 5-6 EHR systems that seem most appropriate for your practice, requesting an EHR demonstration is one of the best ways to gain firsthand insight into how those EHR systems flow, and what features they offer. Practice management features, interface navigation, and documentation options are typically covered in a 60 minute presentation with a forum for questions afterwards.
Follow-up demonstrations are common, and almost always shorter than the initial demo. These 1-on-1 demos provide a more in-depth presentation to show how the software is customizable for your unique practice.
While it is important to meet with the vendors and their sales teams of the EHRs you are considering, it is almost as important to seek feedback from physicians currently using the said EHR.
You want to make sure that your physicians feel comfortable with the EHR you select from day one to reduce the chances of low adoption and satisfaction, and increased physician burnout.
Asking around, talking to colleagues, browsing LinkedIn or Facebook, or turning to professional groups will also give you insight into why practices selected a specific EHR. But checking out online press reviews and ratings can be more effective in receiving honest feedback, since you probably won't get any "bad" references from your peers.
The best online press reviews and ratings for EHR systems include:
Finally, you want to make sure they do not catch you off guard on the legal side of choosing an EHR. With any vendor, it is better to assume you must sign a contract. Understanding the length of the contract, having an action plan for when the contract expires, and reviewing the contract are all things you will need to prepare for ahead of signing time.
Before signing any contract, address:
eClinicalWorks is a Massachusetts-based company that sells EHR, practice management, and personal health record software and services to healthcare providers. With over 115,000 physicians spanning across 70,000 facilities in the United States, eClinicalWorks has proven to offer a trusted solution.
Providers can integrate eClinicalWorks modules to review patient health records, labs and diagnostic tests, and manage patient accounts. Patients can request prescription refills, send messages to physicians, and view lab results and appointment reminders. The EHR system is interoperable with any hospital system that uses the integrating healthcare enterprise standards.
Revele is a leading provider of eClinicalWorks revenue cycle management solutions and eClinicalWorks training, implementation, and consulting for physician practices, hospital-owned physician groups, health centers, and enterprise networks across the nation. Inc. 5000 has recognized the privately held company for three years and ranked "Best in Class" in the Medical Group Management Association's (MGMA) list of top medical business and service organizations.
Since 1999, Revele has led the industry in implementing technology to enhance the revenue cycle process for medical practices utilizing the eClinicalWorks EHR platform, offering a plethora of training and optimization services.
The eClinicalWorks Electronic Health Records system has a lot to offer. One reason it sticks out from the rest is because of how many features it offers.
The eClinicalWorks' blog How to Improve the Patient Experience through Establishing a Strong Online Presence explains how patient engagement can become stronger in the patient journey. Focusing on the "digital experience" has a direct effect on patient experience, since patients are looking for more online and do-it-yourself opportunities.
One of the best ways to maximize patient experience and patient satisfaction is through the patient portal. With so many features available right at the fingertips of patients, it is guaranteed that your practice will help create the best patient journey possible.
eClinicalWork's Messenger feature allows users to communicate with patients in a number of ways.
Having a Kiosk in place can remove the possibility of human error when collecting critical information from patients at check-in and streamline the entire process, creating a good patient experience.
Below are a few factors that play a role in the importance of having a Kiosk.
eClinicalWorks "reinforced its prominence in the ambulatory healthcare IT solutions marketing (in) developing the Care Coordination Medical Record (CCMR), a web-based, dynamic and highly cross-functional platform for population health management and coordinated care."
CCMR is a "one-of-a-kind population health management tool that offers intelligent closed-loop analytics for multi-dimensional insights into patient behavior and community health dynamics." CCMR is a remarkably flexibly system with the ability to be customized to clients' needs. Bhargav Rajan of Frost & Sullivan Research says that the most distinguishing features of the CCMR platform is "it is EHR system agnostic," meaning it is attractive in fragmented markets like the U.S. HIS market. Using the CCMR platform can help your practice minimize hospital visits, reduce patient and provider costs, and increase resource management output.
To describe the Care Coordination Medical Record platform:
Revele changes the way you outsource your revenue cycle management. Allow our skilled team to completely transform your billing. With Revele's personalized approach, every billing plan is specifically customized exactly to your unique needs.
One way to improve your billing is by improving your practice's front desk collections. Six easy tips to do this include:
This will both increase the efficiency of your practice operations and help to improve your billing.
eClinicalWorks offers many features specifically targeting patient engagement. Taking advantage of these features will help your patients take charge of their health with these modern day tools.
When you make the switch to eClinicalWorks, there are a few pricing plans available to choose from, and there is free data conversion from your existing EHR.
Each of the pricing packages includes scanning and faxing software, document management, unlimited free webinars and videos, E&M coder, current CPT & ICD codes, role-based securities, clinical decision support, clinical templates, and referral management.
Regarding implementation, the time it takes to train your practice on how to effectively use eClinicalWorks products depends on the number of locations, employees, and if patients will continue to visit your practice while our Implementation Specialists are onsite. For smaller practices, we recommend spending 5-8 days on onsite training and 2 days on online training.
While it takes intentional focus and effort to improve your post implementation success, there are five key points to spend your time on to help narrow your focus and increase your success.
EHR upgrades happen faster than most practices can keep up with. Spending time on administrative tasks, increasing patient wait times, and an all time physician burnout high, there is little time or energy left to spend on EHR upgrades. Here at Revele, we have created a results-oriented eClinicalWorks training and optimization solution to keep your practice up to speed and running as efficiently as possible.
Partnering with Revele's optimization and consulting team will increase productivity, improve adoption, and optimize your practice for the future. Our trainers can help with process automation, new feature implementation and optimization, workflow consulting, version upgrade assistance, and database reviews to help you identify new opportunities. And, you have the flexibility of receiving training onsite or online.
Reduce Physician Burnout: Our eCW EHR Optimization Specialists can help your practice reduce physician burnout by reducing administrative tasks and helping you spend less time in EHR and more time with your patients. We guarantee our Optimization Specialists will find easier and efficient ways to save time.
Optimize Patient Engagement: Our trainers will work with your practice to identify patient engagement needs and develop a custom patient engagement strategy. Helping your practice focus on patient outreach, care coordination, and follow-up will create an integrated patient engagement strategy that both enhances the front office check-in process and increases patient engagement.
Revele implements technology to enhance the revenue cycle management process to increase value for all the practices that partner with us. And we can help you gain back the hours your practice is spending trying to make sense of multiple reports. The process for you to request and receive a variety of custom eClinicalWorks reports starts at a low $225.
Every single practice is going to require a unique reporting process, and Revele's teams are prepared to customize a process specifically for you. If you have reporting needs in any of the following reports, partnering with Revele might be the right choice for you.
Revele's Guide to End-to-End Revenue Cycle Management provides an extremely detailed definition and overview of the revenue cycle management process and its purpose.
This guide provides information regarding:
All in all, whether you are working on perfecting an in-house revenue cycle management strategy or considering outsourcing, it is important to know that a successful revenue cycle strategy is one that is continuously evolving to meet the needs of a rapidly changing healthcare environment.
Policy reform, operational effectiveness, and value-based payments continue to be top challenges for healthcare executives. Through implementing a strategic denials management and revenue cycle management process, healthcare organizations can be better prepared for the future of the industry.
Get in touch with our sales team. Our teams here at Revele are ready and waiting to help your practice maximize your billing services.
