An Electronic Medical Records software system will save you time and money, help qualify you for incentive payments and decrease your exposure to malpractice.

Save Time:
How much time does your office spend pulling charts? Verifying eligibility? Searching for codes? What if all these tasks were near instantaneous?

The chart may be at one of your other offices, on the physicians' desk, mis-filed or even filed correctly. Pulling the chart still takes time. With an EMR, the chart is neatly displayed quickly right there on your computer screen. The pages are not dog-eared, coffee-stained, unreadable or misplaced. The patient's chart resides at a single source that can be retrieved and notated by practitioners in multiple locations.

Instantly share a portion of the chart electronically with couple clicks of the mouse rather than hunting it down, unbinding, copying and mailing.
  • Charting is uniform; easily track research programs, PQRI or other data.
  • Decrease the amount of time documenting your efforts; improve E&M coding and have the documentation to prove your efforts.
  • Code databases integrated - ICD-9, CPT, HCPCS, NDC, Drug Interaction, NPI and many others should be integrated into your EMR.
  • Immediate access to your patients' medications, allergies, lab results, diagnoses, procedures, past visit notes.
Instantly see who has arrived, where in your office they are located and who has seen them.
  • Suzy arrived at 10:00 am and is in the waiting room filling out a new patient questionnaire.
  • Charlie is in exam room "A", has was seen by your nurse at 10:12 am and is ready for you
  • You finished with Tom at 10:07 am and he is at the checkout counter receiving patient care literature, arranging for his next appointment and his prescription is being ordered.
Add a couple hours to your day by eliminating all these mundane tasks.What will you and your staff do with your extra hours?

Save Money:
  • Increase the efficiency of your workflow, greatly reducing the need for paper, storage, wasted time and postage.
  • Eliminate transcription costs; a good EMR creates reports for you, both by capturing your efforts as stored data and by allowing dictation into the computer via microphone headset and voice recognition software.
  • Eliminate space required to store charts, both in your office and at a records storage facility.
  • Reduce the number of employees needed and/or free them up to do other tasks.
  • Decrease your exposure to malpractice -- everything is documented and coding is automatically calculated to match the level of service and amount of time you've spent with a patient. A good EMR also allows you to override its findings so that you may change the coding if you deem it necessary.
Streamline Your Practice:

Reduce Errors:
  • Charges are captured as you go, at the point of care.
  • A good EMR assigns ICD-9 diagnoses and CPT/HCPCS services as you indicate the reasoning for your efforts and what services you have performed.
Automate Your Orders:
  • Write out a script, verify compatibility with existing medications and instantly trasmit electronically to your patient's preferred pharmacy.
  • No need for you to fax or phone in precsriptions or translate scribble.
  • Transmit orders to a lab or radiology unit; your patient shows up and the techs already know what you want done. If the facility also utilizes an EMR, results and images are transmitted electronically back to you and neatly tucked into the patient's chart.
Decision Support:
  • Alerts, prompts, reminders to improve compliance with recalls, appointments, drug interactions, many more.
  • An electronic paper trail which justifies the level of service performed.
Integrated Connectivity:
  • Instant, secure communication between you, your patient, pharmacies, hospitals and other caregivers.
Patient Tools:
  • o Your patient can log in and see his/her progress, ask questions, access literature and patient education -- all noted in the system so that you can prove every step of your patient care processes.
Government Incentives
An EMR will get your foot in the door for the government incentives being offered. Payments ranging from $40,000 to $65,000 over the lifetime of the incentive program (depending on which incentive program you are pursuing) IF your EMR system is fully implemented in 2011 and you're able to take advantage of the maximum incentives from 2011 to the end of 2014 and you can provide the required meaningful use data. Don't mistake "getting on an EMR" for qualifying for payment!