Practice Management System (PMS) – What to Look For?

A practice management system is a hi-tech new age IT tool for today’s doctors and physicians. The system has its own advantages in the overall process of practice management. It helps in speeding up the process of practice management, minimization of errors, improvement in the quality of service and overall office profits. The success of implementation by and large depends on features offered by the practice management system itself.

Before actually purchasing and implementing the system – it would be really wise enough to list out the requirements of your practice and then to tally it with the different practice management systems before finalizing on a particular software. There are certain essential features that a good & efficient system would always be equipped with.

Let us look at the various important functionalities that a good practice management system must be equipped with:

Appointment Scheduling:

A good practice management system must provide with the feature of appointment scheduling. It should provide for the option for checking the availability of time slot, online appointment scheduling, editing and other options for maintaining the patient appointment record.

Billing & Collections:

A busy practice has to deal with the tedious task of issuing bills to the patient, record keeping and collections. It involves a number of entries in the books to keep the records up-to-date. A good practice management system must provide with easy to use fully functional patient billing and collections module.

Electronic Medical Records:

Maintaining patient history, clinical records, treatment records & other patient information is a time consuming process. A good practice management system usually provides with the functionality to maintain patient records.

Insurance Claims Management:

Medical claims management is a tedious process involving a number of steps including claim generation, claim submission, verification, error handling, follow up and so on. It is considered to be the most time consuming activity that a physician’s office has to deal with. A good practice management system helps to ease out the situation by providing a number of claims management capabilities.

Patient Records Maintenance:

Maintaining patient records is not an easy task. Recording, filing, storing, retrieval and updating are the usual activities as regards patient records maintenance. A good practice management system would essentially provide with the capabilities of managing patient records.

Reporting:

Report generation is a periodic and very important task. Many decisions are based on good reporting systems. A good practice management system provides with the capabilities of generating different reports on the basis of the information stored and thus facilitating the process of decision making.

Tags: Healthcare Management | EMR | Practice Management

What is Medical Practice Management System?

Practice Management System (PMS) is a new age IT tool for practicing doctor’s and physicians. The healthcare professionals has to deal with a no. of tasks such as patient appointment scheduling, recording patient history, maintaining treatment records, claims submission and reimbursement issues. Advanced information technology has made it possible to introduce IT tools like PMS for the healthcare industry. The new age IT tool “Practice Management System (PMS)” makes the job of managing the practice easy.

The practice management system (PMS) is an integrated software tool. The software is designed in such a way that it can easily interact with other healthcare information tools so as to bring about meaningful patient information. The information is stored in central database and thus provides with the capability of sharing the data with other software tools. System integration is a very important functionality as it helps to cut down the redundancy in data storage.

An advanced practice management system (PMS) usually includes the following features to make it a fully functional system for doctors and physicians: Patient Registration, Eligibility Verification, Authentication Check, Claim Generation, Claim Submission, Medical Coding, Charge Entry and cash posting, A/R Denial Management, A/R Collections and follow-up, Medical Billing, Charge Capture & coding, Patient Follow-up and Third Party payment compliance.

The importance of practice management system (PMS) in the doctor’s or physician’s office can not be denied. It makes the job easy – availability of the time slot and registration can be accomplished with just a mouse click. Eligibility verification can be done before providing for the service codes. Claims submission, claims generation and tasks can be completed with a single click. The end result of implementing a PMS is saving of time and man hours, reduction in errors, better quality of service and over all patient satisfaction.

Tags:  Healthcare Management | EMR | Practice Management

EMR System – A Case Study

The main objective of any EMR System is to bring about the overall computerization of the patient medical records. Switching-off from the manual record maintenance to electronic record maintenance ensures a no. of advantages to the providers. Here is a case study that demonstrates the successful implementation of the system and its outcome.

Brief Description of Practice:

Established in the year 1989, Fort Wayne Neurological Center (FWNC) is the region's premiere center for neurological medicine. The Center is equipped with ten specialized patient-focused institutes of care. The Center has 20 physicians who are supported by a staff of nurses, medical assistants and medical secretaries in addition to teams of clinical professionals in the areas of Diagnostic Testing, Nuclear Imaging, Ambulatory Surgery, Sleep Medicine and Research.

FWNC has two main offices in Fort Wayne, Indiana and routinely treats patients in a 90 mile radius of Fort Wayne including northeast Indiana, northwest Ohio and south-central Michigan. The Center also maintains regional clinics in Indiana and Ohio, as well as at all area medical and specialty hospitals.

Web Chart Implementation:

The practice implemented WebChart in a phased approach, starting with document management as a way to store records and replace paper charts. At first, none of the doctors were using WebChart in a clinical setting. Initially, the medical records staff used the system, and the physicians could print the bar-coded documents they needed on demand. Following clinical encounters, completed forms were scanned and auto-indexed into WebChart. Over time, more functionality was added so that the physicians could use PCs to view patient information in WebChart, rather than on paper. Now, all of the prescriptions and orders go out electronically and physicians can view records and images on their home PCs.

Outcome:

The total cash savings or increased revenue from the EMR system amounted to $250,500 per year, broken down as follows:

•    Printed materials savings: $62,490
•    Storage for old medical charts: $16,000
•    Legal disability media record copying: $52,000
•    Lowered clinical staff cost: $120,000

Web Chart is one of the features of EMR System. A fully integrated EMR System provides with a number of important features for both physicians as well as patients. If the entire system is implemented successfully, it could result into huge savings, improved revenue, patient satisfaction and quality service.

Tags: Healthcare Management | EMR | Practice Management

Benefits of EMR System (Electronic Medical Record System)

A fully integrated EMR System helps in easy storage, retrieval and modification of patient medical records. IT (Information Technology) has taken the world by storm and health care industry is not an exception to the rule. Computerization of patient medical records whether an individual physician or a hospital has its own advantages:

Easy Storage – The EMR System provides for easy storage of patient medical information. The modules and templates are designed in a manner to make the data input task effortless.  The information is stored in a central database and thus facilitating the integration of the data.

Integration – The EMR System is designed in such a way that it facilitates the integration of data. The information that which is stored in the central database helps other systems like billing, patient portal and other health information systems to share the database and provide with the meaningful information.

Timely Access – Access to patient medical records is of utmost importance as it helps in the process of diagnosis and treatment. Under emergency situations there is very little or no time to have access to medical records. This creates great difficulty for the health care professionals in deciding on a number of issues. An efficient EMR System resolves this difficulty. The records can be accessed by health care professionals from any where with just a mouse click.

Improved Quality – The EMR System provides with the necessary medical history of the patient, thus facilitating decision making. The system also helps in saving of time and thus allowing the health care professionals to concentrate on their main service, which in turn results into improved health care quality.

Reduction in Costs – The EMR System helps in eliminating the need to maintain the records on paper. It also eliminates the need to maintain large number of files and thus minimizing the need for storage space. The system also helps in cutting down the redundancy. Owing to above factors the system helps in saving large no. of man hours and other resources that ultimately results in to reduction of costs. 

Tags: Healthcare Management | EMR | Practice Management  

Standard Features of EMR System

An electronic medical record system (EMR System) is integrated medical software developed with the purpose of computerizing the whole process of medical records maintenance. The system can be implemented by a hospital or doctor’s clinic. EMR system tends to be a part of a local stand-alone health information system that allows storage, retrieval and modification of records.

Let’s consider standard features of the best electronic medical record systems (EMR Systems) available on the market today:

Fully Integrated EMR System: A good EMR System always makes use of a central database and hence is in a position to integrate with other modules like billing, patient management and more.

EMR System & Online Prescription: Online Prescription or e-prescription is gaining momentum all across the world; more and more patients are resorting to online options for obtaining medical prescriptions. An effective EMR System always provides for the integration of the two modules to facilitate the overall process of prescription and storage of medical records.

EMR System & PQRI Automation: PQRI refers to Physician Quality Reporting Initiative.  PQRI is nothing but a set of quality-measures if met by physicians; they are entitled to a single consolidated incentive payment of 2.0% of the estimated total allowed charges for Medicare Part B covered services. A good EMR System is always equipped with PQRI automation features.

Integration of EMR System with Patient Portal: Advanced internet technology has changed the modus operandi of physician – patient interaction. Now-a-days, patients they prefer to schedule their appointments online, to access their medical records and to obtain online prescriptions. An advanced EMR System provides with the interoperability to function effectively with other information systems like patient portal.

EMR System with Customizable Templates: The information that needs to be entered may be classified into mandatory and optional. Hence, the template must be customizable in nature for the ease of entering the information. A good EMR System always provides with flexible templates that can be customized as per the requirement.

EMR System & Technical – Legal Requirements: There are numerous federal and state regulatory and compliance issues. Mandatory information needs to be filled up as per the stipulated guidelines. Having an EMR Solution that has guidelines programmed in (and is constantly updated by the vendor’s system) will keep you legally safe all year round. A good EMR System is usually developed taking into consideration the various technical & legal requirements. 

Tags: Healthcare Management | EMR | Practice Management 

EMR System, Medical Record Systems

 

EMR system is a medical software designed to mange the medical history, patient record and prescription information digitally. The system aims at converting the manual process of medical records management into digital one. The process involves a number of steps and is time consuming when handled manually. With the advancement in information technology EMR systems providing multiple functions have been introduced by various global health IT companies.

An EMR system helps in streamlining the overall process of patient records management. The system provides for various features for the smooth handling of record management. A typical EMR system would include features such as coding assistance, work-flow management, electronic prescriptions, custom templates, and specialty specific HPI, complaints, ROS, billing, scheduling and much more.

An EMR system could be of great help and support for a medical professional. The system provides for entering in-depth patient information, quick processing and access to patient medical history (medical/clinical records) at any point of time during emergencies. The system is not only helpful to the medical professionals and facilities but patients are equally benefited as the system ensures proper recording, processing, information safety, quality service and minimization of errors.

The implementation of an EMR system whether by an individual healthcare professional or medical facility, ensures speeding up the overall process. It helps in achieving better concentration and dedication towards the core medical service rather than spending time on tedious record management process. The man hours saved results into better return on investment and increase in revenue.

Tags: Healthcare Management | EMR | Practice Management

Healthcare Management Systems in Modern Healthcare

Healthcare management systems play a vital role in modern healthcare management. Practically there is no field that which is not influenced by information technology including the healthcare industry. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that information technology has taken the world by storm. As we are aware that the advantages are huge – easy input, faster processing, better analytic data & minimization of errors.

Healthcare industry is a complex field it involves a number of stages in overall medical treatment management. The different stages such as appointment fixing, patient examination, patient history recording, clinical tests, treatment and reimbursement involve a complex process to be followed. Here, comes the role of healthcare management systems.

Healthcare management systems play a very important role in streamlining the overall process of healthcare management. The tasks can be accomplished with minimal efforts and with high accuracy. The input data can be processed at a blazing speed and a variation of reports can be generated which otherwise would take huge man hours. Practically speaking, there are certain reports that can not be manually generated due to requirement of huge man hours and complex process.

The impact of healthcare management systems can be noticed from the very fact that American Recovery & Reinvestment Act passed by the federal government in the year 2009 provided for $19.2 billion for modernizing the health care system. The total focus was on promoting and expanding the adoption of health information technology. The IT systems developed for the healthcare industry includes integrated systems, specialized systems like emr, claims management and so on. 

Tags: Healthcare Management | EMR | Practice Management

Importance of Health Insurance & IT in Maintaining Good Health

Having health insurance is of utmost importance in maintaining good health and life. How often we have heard the proverb – health is wealth? A number of times right from our childhood… we don’t even remember nor can we count the exact reference of this proverb. In fact, good health ensures good state of mind and good physical conditions which are required to carry out our day to day tasks smoothly. However, in absence of good health our personal as well as our professional life gets disturbed. We are not even able to perform our day to day general as well as professional tasks, which ultimately affects our performance and earnings. For this reason it is said that “health is wealth”. KU6R23E44HM4

Good health can not be maintained without healthy lifestyle. However, following a healthy lifestyle can minimize the risk of exposure to various ailments but it can not completely eliminate it from our life. What if we fall sick? Though a necessity, medical expenses are going up every year. Medical treatment is becoming a luxury for those who can not afford it. Under such circumstances health insurance can prove to be of great help. There are medical facilities where one can get medical treatment without paying on the basis of their insurance coverage. In case, when such a facility is not available one can divert funds or arrange for as they have coverage to get re-reimbursement.  

Many people argue that the process of getting cashless medical treatment or reimbursement of medical expenses is a very tedious process. It is true that the process is not so simple but at least one has some support in case of emergencies. Also, with proper information about the provisions of insurance policy, procedures and contact points, one can minimize the hurdles faced during the process of availing benefit from the insurance policy. If we go with certain studies, it is estimated that lack of coverage was associated with about 18,000 extra deaths per year among uninsured adults. Hence, importance of health insurance can not be denied.

The importance of IT (information technology) in healthcare issues can not be denied. Advanced IT systems play a crucial role in diagnosis, treatment, practice management, claims management and so on. IT has found its roots in each n every field and healthcare industry is no exception to the rule.

Tags: Health Insurance | Healthcare Management | EMR | Practice Management