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Efficiency of business model is necessary for any medical practice to succeed. With the increasing number and complication of government guidelines and rules, a unified networking platform proves to be the right answer to exhaustive needs of big practices.

Electronic Health Records (EHR) have eased operability and efficiency of practices a great deal with easy access to data, seamless sharability, real time information and inbuilt adherence to Medicare and Medicaid guidelines.

Practice management is a skill that physicians need to learn. But couple that with patient and clinical duties, and this becomes quite a difficult task for health care practitioners.

Management of files and patient records, treatment history, diagnosis, lab results and other pertinent details is a humungous task. Adopting latest and scientific enterprise management solutions is the best way to solve this problem.

Here are a few tips for you to maximize latest technology to meet practice goals.

1) Make the Best of EHR

EHR helps in aggregating all patient-related data in one place. Its more comprehensive and user-friendly than any other system that was ever used, and makes it easy to share information between physicians and with patients or their family.

Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services as well as the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information (ONC) mandates that meaningful use of EHR is a requirement in the latest healthcare reforms.

Effectively implemented EHR improves coordination of care, enables patient participation and reduces medical errors. It helps you save time with electronic prescriptions (e-prescriptions). EHR can be used to make physician hiring decisions and enables a better understanding of capabilities of professionals you are hiring.

Many practices are of the opinion that EHR has contributed to maintaining data confidentiality and improved communication between all stakeholders in the healthcare ecosystem.

2) Adopt a Great API

The effectiveness of your software API (application programming interface) will also affect how well EHR performs for you.

You will be able to make use of web, social and mobile apps to put more information in front of patients. You will also be to integrate useful and easy flow of information and work closely with partners including other practices and care providers, insurance companies, government agencies and lab centers.

Many big EHR companies have come together to offer API interfaces for patient data sets. Open API will enable creation of apps to cater to virtually any need in the marketplace, thus addressing unique needs and requirements.

A smart API will be able to support apps that can visualize clinical data and inputs, improve decision making capabilities of care providers as well as enhance integration of data with outside platforms like mobile health solutions and social health tools.

3) Train Your Staff

It is not enough if you just adopt and implement latest technology in your practice. Proper training of your entire team is essential to implement EHR effectively.

Nursing staff report high levels of dissatisfaction with EHR. The time-consuming nature of data entry hinders work flow and affects productivity resulting in job dissatisfaction. The linking of insurance reimbursements with meaningful use of EHR lead to hurried implementation without proper participation from direct care givers, which has in turn multiplied the problems the system sought to solve.

It is important that you assess the needs and readiness of your practice and choose a suitable EHR to upgrade to or adopt. Clinical goals and financial readiness and technical capabilities need to be factored in. Impart comprehensive training and ensure that your team will be able to hit the ground running when the new system is implemented.

If you are hiring new staff, then ensure that they are knowledgeable in EHR reporting standards. Reputed training courses including nursing and medical assistant training programs in CT impart basic knowledge and skills to students in EHR documentation.

4) Raise Bills Efficiently

Efficient billing can be the difference between a successful and an unprofitable practice.

Most EHR systems have inbuilt cloud-based billing applications that allow you to raise HIPAA-compliant bills in a timely manner.

These billing systems manage the entire cycle of revenue management including claims management, payment processing, remittance, statements and collections. Popular medical billing software also offer code and charge entry capabilities and information regarding patient payment history.

Billing and coding are critical functions because insurance providers reject claims at the slightest hint of discrepancy in them.

5) Employ SAP

SAP provides enterprise management solutions that can meet needs of all types of practices ranging from medium size to very large.

SAP solutions help in simplifying and improving a range of practice management functions like risk and compliance, information exchange, training and personalization of patient interactions.

One of the biggest headaches practices face is when they have legacy systems or a large number of aging reporting systems that cannot talk to one another and lack intelligence of their own.

SAP cloud-based platforms unify these disjointed systems and aggregate varied data so that they can be viewed across a single dashboard. Patient data can be viewed as a logical whole thereby helping better inform physicians and improve patient health outcomes.

Conclusion

Technology should be an aid to propel better business performance and improve quality of patient care. It should not prove to be a hindrance to productivity or work flow in practices, but must instead act as a facilitator. Carefully choosing a suitable platform keeping in mind the requirements and readiness of your practice is the way to go.

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