It’s Time for a New Kind of Electronic Health Record
How Next-gen Electronic Health Record Can Make Your Life Simpler
Change is constant. This applies to the field of patient data whether it is handled by individual doctors or by large hospitals and healthcare services providers across the country. From storing patient records in Excel sheets to database systems the world of patient data records has progressed to electronic health records. Even within this we have different types of electronic health record systemssuch as one hosted by individual physicians known as electronic medical records, remotely hosted electronic health record softwareand remote systems accessible to a large number of users.
However, what distinguishes these existing electronic health record systems is that they are passive or historical, simply maintaining a record of the patient’s illnesses, diagnostics and treatments at one or more facilities. This is good but proves to be a stumbling block when there are major issues like a pandemic where other parameters come into play such as preventive and proactive measures to identify vulnerable populations, keep track of infected individuals, their recovery rate, their specific conditions and reactions to treatment and data to take steps to prevent spread. There are blocks such as high cost, excessive documentation and lack of user friendliness in currently existing EHR systems. Most of these focused more on the administrative and financial side with the medical side added on as an afterthought. These systems also imposed additional work burden on personnel. The Covid pandemic worldwide brought out these deficiencies and paved the way to introduce changes to electronic health record systems for the future.
It is time for a change to the electronic health record systems and the way they are implemented and used.
In fact, according to EHR Intelligence, the use of EHR in July, 2020 increased by 2.06% compared to the pre-pandemic times.
Future developments in electronic health record softwarecould and should include various advancements as detailed below.
Structural technical underpinnings
Future EHR software applications should have solid technical underpinnings to incorporate latest advances in IT technologies such as:
Algorithms need to be incorporated into medical EHR softwareto combine various case conditions, interconnected health issues, treatments based on patients’ individual situations, flexibility for healthcare workers to step in as may be needed according to the situation but do it automatically and speedily with minimal human intervention.
Such futuristic electronic health record ehrsolutions would also have advanced decision support and workflow logic to remind team members through a variety of channels about patients, available plans and facilities for fast action.
The futuremedical ehr softwarewill be able to fluidly deliver analytics for individuals and for populations within specific geographic regions and to have predictive capabilities as regards spread of a disease.
Intelligence at the core
As they stand current EHR software applicationsare focused on maintaining past data about patients, their activities and particularly the revenues side. Incorporation of intelligence into such EHR systemsdoes not pose a big challenge given the voluminous amounts of data sets that can be used for machine learning to facilitate predictive capabilities. It could, for example, analyze variables such as whether a patient is following a treatment routine, their deviations and possible outcomes and suggest possible steps to remedy this kind of situation. Importantly, futuristic electronic health record systems should be able to analyze and deliver suggestions to busy doctors so that they can put such suggestions into practice instead of wasting time in thinking about individual problems. Indirectly, analyzing patients in bulk who are infected with a specific disease could show up peculiar conditions that would be missed by most doctors treating individual patients. Real time big data analytics needs to become part of the overall electronic health record system to be used worldwide or countrywide, similar to the airlines reservation system in which all stake holders can get information in real time. This also has implications in disease detection, spread and preventative measures.
The question of access
Though electronic health records are available for sharing by healthcare service providers, access still remains limited. The issue of accessibility needs to be addressed considering that 66% of users search for information on the internet and 88% of appointments is booked via phone or other digital means. Electronic health record systems can take a leaf out of how businesses manage their communications and manage customers by providing remote multi-channel access across various devices with fluid crossover from desktops to mobiles as and when needed, both for patients and doctors.
Technologies to incorporate are natural language processing, voice recognition and IoT to further broaden the scope of accessibility.
The question of accessibility also leads to standardization and uniformity of electronic health record systems as well as data protocols for glitch-free use and operation.
Accessibility also raises issues of security that can be addressed using blockchain technology for validation, data security, claims, authentication and prevention of insurance frauds.
Multiplicity of plans
Health care services would vastly improve and patients would benefit if future electronic health record software were to incorporate the facility to enable providers to prepare plans for various contingencies.
Population health management
Instead of considering a single patient, the future electronic health record systems can help providers to set up plans for populations based on a set of parameters relating to disease, age, gender and economic drivers. Data can be gathered through various devices like smart watches and IoT devices and providers can take inputs to devise flexible plans.
Health information exchange
Interoperability is a part of EHR but needs to be improved to give immediate access to any health care services provider, especially in cases of emergency.
Training
The more sophisticated a medical health record solution becomes in the future the more complex it is likely to be and it will likely involve a learning curve. Service providers in the healthcare segment would work alongside solution providers to give training to bring users up to speed on 5G technologies, AI’s benefits, IoT and wearables and how to use the system to derive the maximum benefit. After all, sophisticated electronic health record software is like a sophisticated car or aircraft—one must know how to use it or it will be practically of little use. It pays to join hands with the right vendor who considers all these aspects when you decide to go for medical ehr software.
Enhance patient engagement, improve accessibility, and leverage standardized processes. Get medical EHR software now!
What Is Revenue Cycle Management, and How Does It Benefit Health Organizations?
Health organizations may seem to generate positive revenues based on paper records but how much of it is actually realized and the speed of cash inflow tells the story of its financial health. Revenue collection can be negatively impacted by poor coding, errors in billing and delays or denials by insurance companies. Most of these and other deficiencies can be overcome and addressed by the use of revenue cycle management solution.
What is revenue cycle management?
Revenue cycle management (RCM) is a process, usually a part of EMR or EHR systems used by healthcare services. It is comprehensive in nature, ranging from scheduling appointments to registrations to giving a cost estimate to tracking a patient’s treatment to billing, recovery and follow up.
With covid-19 pandemic hitting the healthcare systems on a global level, about 75% of healthcare facilities implemented RCM to continue serving the patients despite quarantine and social distancing measures.
RCM software delivers proven benefits not only to patients but to the healthcare service providers as enumerated in the following paragraphs.
The revenue pitfalls in healthcare services
Healthcare organizations need a steady and healthy cash flow in order to meet expenses as also for future expansions. However recovery of dues is not 100% guaranteed due to various factors:
Not collection complete information from the patient as regards health condition and insurance coverage,
Disputes arising due to misunderstanding about patient’s expectations of cost of treatment and actual treatment,
Delays and denials by insurance companies in settlement of claims, and
Changing laws and regulations.
The RCM System addresses these and other issues and when incorporated as part of medical appointment software or plugged into EMR/EHR, can considerably reduce outstanding and improve transparency, reputation of the healthcare provider and also give satisfaction to patients.
RCM enables streamlined collection of data
Healthcare service providers may choose to outsource this work to a revenue cycle management company but it makes good sense to have this process in-house. With revenue cycle management integrated into existing software solutions such service providers can streamline processes such as:
Schedule an appoint
Register a patient
Collect patient data such as health and medical records and vital insurance papers and check about claims admissibility
It is vital for healthcare providers to collect patient’s medical records in order to know the line of treatment to be initiated and costs involved and to also know just how much of these costs can be covered by insurance and how much the patients will have to bear. It is wise to give patients a clear indication of their part of financial burden rather than spring surprises later on after the treatment is over.
Revenue cycle management can use this data and the RCM software to:
Record treatments and associated costs
Raise bills and submit claims to the insurance provider using the right codes to record them so as to avoid denials
Follow up for recovery of dues, send reminders and collect payment from patients and also from insurance and to refile claims in case of denials. If insurance is denied outright then amounts may be recovered from patients through the automated software. Insurance can be a very sticky point and errors here can lead to misunderstanding with patients and also loss of revenue by way of denied claims. Automation, fine tuning and reminders in the RCM greatly improve the insurance part of the process.
Considering that not all healthcare providers are the same in the method of operation or size, they may need custom RCM systems in the selection of which suitable revenue cycle management consultants can be of great help. They can assist in selection of the RCM software and also to set up best practices for revenue cycle management.
Benefits of Revenue Cycle Management Solutions to Healthcare Providers
Engage revenue cycle management consultants to choose the right revenue cycle management solution and have them set up the RCM system to suit your particular method of operations. You may need to have the RCM software integrated into the medical appointment software, which the software provider can carry out. The first step is creating awareness about the importance of fast cash flow and encouraging use of the software by personnel who must be given training in the use of RCM solutions.
This leads to systematic benefits as given below.
Streamlining
RCM streamlines the connection between health records, treatments and accounting system through integration. You have single point view of the financial health, billing, bad debts, receivables and claims (in process, disputed, and denied).
Better, faster and higher recovery
Recovery from insurance is a sore point and by reducing errors of coding and filing claims under the right head, the software improves recovery rate and reduces percentage of denied claims while also issuing alerts about refiling within the stipulated time, thanks to efficient revenue cycle management systems.
Simplify tasks, automate them and reduce workload
The RCM solution simplifies tasks, reduces work loads, reduces margins of errors and provides a single window access to all records and facility for follow up for recovery. The RCM software reduces burden, time and efforts.
Single point access to all patient records
You have all patient records and related financial records in one place giving all vital information at a glance.
Fingertip analysis and generation of reports
Streamlined and integrated data can be analyzed quickly to derive insights about revenue flows and state of financial health of service providers, thereby enabling timely action. Knowing your financial condition can help you to take corrective action to reduce debt and speed up cash flow.
Create a better impression, improve relationships and generate more business through referrals
By being open, transparent, honest and upfront about treatments costs the healthcare provider creates a better impression in the minds of the patients, leading to more referrals and recommendations.
Healthcare is infinitely more convoluted and complex than cash and carry businesses. Healthcare is a business in a manner of speaking, relying on healthy revenues for sustenance and growth. The right revenue cycle management solution makes a world of difference to financial health of providers as well as patient relationships. It is advisable for healthcare providers to choose RCM software with care and also have it implemented by RCM consultants/solution providers in order to make the best use of it.
Let the RCM software improve healthcare services through real-time data management, accurate records, and reduced fallacies. Opt for RCM software now!
How do you choose the best medical billing company?
The medical IT industry has revolutionized in the last few years, especially since 2019. IN 2020, when the pandemic affected the world, this has bridged the gap between technology, administration, and resources. There had been a significant breakthrough, shifting from manual administration techniques to electronic health records. This would include everything from communication protocols to lab reports and from efficient medical billing systems to managing the healthcare system. In particular, this has changed the tasks of medical billing specialists considerably with the help of technology.
The billing in healthcare is very enduring for both payers and their payees. However, with the help of the best medical billing software on the market, you can use appropriate and updated medical billing strategies. While choosing the best medical billing and coding software will help the providers and practitioners simplify the billing process, resulting in increased revenue and efficiency.
Additionally, a switch to efficient medical billing software would reduce the costs of human efforts and aid in embracing electronic technologies in this sector. Instead, the providers and practitioners can generate invoices from one single interface while reducing the amount of paperwork simultaneously.
So, if you choose the best medical billing company for your practice and providers, let us assist you with the __-step guide to choosing the best medical billing company for your practice.
Determine Your Needs
When searching for your healthcare billing software, the first and foremost thing is understanding your needs. Different sizes have different requirements, and additional requirements mean additional services. Some might specialize in handling large practices, while others may have lower budgets and few physicians to operate.
While determining your size, the parameters to keep in mind are: practice budget, provider size, and accepted insurance partnerships. These parameters will decide the type of healthcare billing software that is required.
Small-scale billing services
For smaller practices, the small-scale medical billing services are perfect! They have a smaller budget and data volume, along with fewer physicians. This will provide more personalized, highly reliable, one-on-one service. This is also cost-effective and will allow your practice to save good for billing.
Physician practice Management Company
The majority of the practices require this type of size. These are the ones who will provide services to around 200 or more staff members. They are well-equipped with their expertise in the medical and coding field and handle high data volumes. They can also manage the administrative and back-office tasks.
This might get pricey sometimes, as they can charge some extra pennies for the billing and coding services. Inquire about their charge and different services, which will let everyone stay on the same page.
Professional Billing company
A large medical company will contribute extra and valuable additions to your practice. This will allow you to focus on your core tasks, i.e., patient care. These organizations will cost you more and be a little pricey for your medical billing and coding needs. However, ensure about the available plans, included features, and the additional costs.
Search for Experience
Certain medical billing companies have specific focus areas but are experts in those areas. While others might have specialty areas, they can work with various practices. The first thing to ensure while hiring the best medical billing company is EXPERIENCE. This is important because the primary cause of claim denials and revenue loss is incorrect billing and coding. This is why the practices prefer to collaborate with the top experts in the field with undivided attention and error reduction. So decide on your priorities and act accordingly.
Inquire for the cost breakup
While outsourcing essential billing services, you must not forget the cash factor! It would help if you diligently calculated the cost for each service being availed and provided. There are various ways to charge as per a medical billing company. Some might charge a percentage of the net generated revenue, others charge a flat fee irrespective of the generated income, and others go for both.
So decide how to be billed for the services and then narrow down the companies. Read line-by-line while comparing the quotations from various suppliers. Also, remember! Cost is never proportionate with quality. Have a thought!
Compliant
Healthcare practices always need to abide by compliance rules and regulations strictly. It is imperative and crucial for the companies to follow these compliances. So before selecting the hospital billing software for your practice, ensure that they follow these rules and protocols perfectly.
Company Reviews Matter
A good company will have a good reputation as well. So when you sit down to negotiate, ensure that you have complete background knowledge of the same in the market. After all, Word of Mouth is the best publicity. You can also refer to the online reviews and responses that will allow you to review appropriately.
Ask them a few questions so that they can be appropriately relied upon for your medical billing requirements.
Did your last three clients provide positive responses?
How to handle the revenue loss and claim denials due to erroneous data and details?
Ask for the testimonials, references, reviews, and responses that the client has from past clients. Remember! It is crucial to be the best medical software for revenue generation and claim success.
Check Browser and Software Compatibility
Using the internal software for patient accounts and other financial tasks can hamper the usability and effectiveness of the billing software. This is why you need to search for the software and provider which will be compatible with the internal software’s key features. This would require new software to incur additional expenses. Additionally, knowing about the software will let your staff align with the user interface and workflows.
While the decision of choosing the best medical billing company is enduring and challenging at the same, stay well-informed of the company’s history in this sector. If the company has a history of claim denials and rejections, this is a clear signal of not being a good billing software. Try everyone before making the final decision.
Still, in case you feel more discussions to be done, ping us, and we are readily available for your assistance.
Future of Electronic Medical Records: Experts Predict EMR Trends in 2022
With the advent of 2020, the world has seen some surprises. The COVID-19 arrival has shown how vital and valuable digital solutions are in solving the healthcare IT challenges. EHR and Electronic Medical Records Software have revolutionized the healthcare IT system with their process and techniques. But after 2020, automation has changed the picture.
The Electronic Medical Record (EMR) software is the tool for a completely paperless process concerning the patients, which is stored in an electronic form. The EMR are more efficient than hard-copy patient charts as they eliminate human efforts with automated data capture techniques for improved workflow. The EMR market can stimulate growth to be worth $60.70 billion by the year 2026, indicating the growing requirement for improved patient care and technological advancements.
Before delving into the upcoming trends to paint the future of EHR Software, have a glance at the interesting facts:
66% of software users search for medical concern information on the web.
88% of physician appointments are scheduled via phone calls.
With pandemic hitting now and then worldwide, the gradual switch to virtual health has become a boon. This has enabled the Electronic Health Record and Electronic Medical Records software to advance in leaps and bounds. Soon the EMR Companies will focus on creating software that is a value-based model along with a volume-based model as well. Let us look at the EMR Software trends to keep an eye out for in the future.
Accessibility
There would be a continued trend towards accessibility in EMR, both accessible for mobile and software. The main thing that holds back EMR is accessibility. The EMRs are very expensive, almost six or even seven figures for the total software price. This price can be cut down in the case of large hospitals and multi-facility networking hospitals with the help of government incentives, but that is not the case with the smaller practices.
Integration and Interoperability
Another issue with the Medical EHR software and EMR Software is their lack of capability with system integration. During any patient visit, the hospital needs to fetch the records from the outpatient practices, and other hospitals also need to get the full health records. This is why EMR accessibility would remain the top priority for every EMR company. This would reduce the manual work for the physicians and hospital staff to enter patient data, upload reports and scans or figure out crucial patient data.
Ease of Use
It is not easy for an individual EMR to fetch the data from the other EMRs. This is why there is a gap between fetching the data and the non-capability to do so. This is why there is a need for more easiness while navigating the data from one system to another. Despite having so many technological advancements, the EMR vendors face a tough time fetching the data.
Need A System for Accurate Data Capture
Every EMR and EHR need the protocol to capture data accurately and precisely. This would not only help generate better results but also eliminate human errors that might happen otherwise. Since these EMRs cover the entire patient’s historical data, capturing and saving the relevant and recently updated information is vital in the minimum possible time. This has enhanced the healthcare service digitization and will improve data integration with various techniques from multiple sources. These sources might include the mentioned but are not limited to point-of-care devices, wearable devices, and the cloud.
An Increasing Demand for Robotic Process Automation
As the EMR market is experiencing a gradual switch to automation, the EMR Vendors need to gain momentum with the trend. And with Robotic Process Automation (RPA), this would be further developed while maintaining the required accuracy by reducing the manual needs.
Standardization
The best way to legitimize the use of the EMR software is standardization. In this case, the EMR companies must provide some extra features and functionalities while maintaining the standards and regulations. And this standardization is not only required for data and functionalities but also E/M Codes, charge captures and more. Standardization will require inclusivity of changing dynamics as well. This will undoubtedly influence the EHR Vendors to develop their products and maintain their accessibility and strength.
Patient-Centric Engagement
To grow your EHR and EMR products, patient engagement is an essential part of the process wherein patient outreach and content creation is the positive add-on. Patient data and engagement is critical in data storage and analysis. This data can be collected from wearable intelligent devices or mobile devices.
However, wearable intelligent gadgets have become the talk of the town as this would provide excellent insight into the patients’ health. Patient engagement enhancement can also be done by sending appointment alerts and subsequent appointment reminders, and updating patient data from varied sources will reduce time and human efforts while improving patient engagement.
AI & Voice Recognition
In the healthcare market, IoT has seen a massive surge in usage. Several practices are looking to integrate IoT with AI features, which will help the provider diagnose the issue accurately and identify the patient health trends. Many EHR vendors are looking to implement and execute this feature in their EHR software. Along with this, Natural Language Processing (NLP) integration will improve provider/physician efficiency. This will also remove the language barrier as the AI and IoT systems will use natural spoken language in their designs.
The IoT-enabled healthcare market is expected to surge from the 2020s $50 billion to nearly $135 billion by 2025.
Concluding the Article
In the coming years, the industry will spectate the EMR and EHR products and services change for good. This change must continue putting pressure on the industry while changing and adapting for its sound. In the coming half the decade, the healthcare IT industry will see unprecedented transformations along with the required digitization changes.
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Looking for an in-depth idea of the EMR Trends and their adaptation? Connect with the experts here!
Top 5 Reasons to Use Integrated EHR and Medical Billing Software
The process of medical billing and practice management has always been a time-consuming task in the field of clinical practice. Undoubtedly, the EHR systems have reduced and simplified healthcare providers’ human efforts while streamlining their working processes effectively. This is why the healthcare industry is changing, and so are the health providers’ services. They have now started to look for better systems to manage their practice. A recent report says that 89% of providers have agreed that the EHR forms the core of their practice and dominates their decision-making process for selecting a management system.
And this is not all! With simpler EHR, the search and need for intelligent medical billing solutions has also become challenging which has been made easier with its integration with EHR. This integration is a boon with numerous advantages.
Let us delve into the obvious but unsaid benefits of integrated EHR with medical billing software. But before starting, let us also understand what an integrated EHR and medical billing system are.
An Integrated EHR and Medical Billing System
The Electronic Health Records (EHR) integration is defined as the process of accessing medical records seamlessly across all the electronic software solutions. For medical billing systems, this process might look a little complex and requires the HL7 interfaces to exchange the parameters like demographics, patient chart details, charge codes, encounter sheets, patient notes, billing cycle, and more. This would ensure that no data is duplicated and is seamlessly merged with the existing EHR system.
Over the years, integrated EHR and medical billing system received immense popularity. In fact, according to a recent report produced by Fact.MR, the EHR market is expected to rise up to US $23.78 billion in 2022 and anticipate a positive CAGR of 4.5% and attain a value of US$41.8 billion by 2032
The US healthcare providers lose $262 billion annually due to claim denials. The primary reasons for such claim rejections and denials are claim form errors, code mismatch, and missed claim submission due dates but are limited to these. The claim form errors constitute around 40% and 80% of medical bill errors and are the most common reason for claim denials.
These issues have majorly surfaced due to manual data input, improper software settings, and untrained staff, which is common in otherwise healthcare billing software. With the help of electronic medical billing software with EHR, the providers can:
Maintain patient data at one location.
Set notifications for claim submission as per the deadlines.
Set the coding and clinical documentation in one place.
Integrating healthcare medical billing systems into your EHR system would avoid the bulk of manual work like entering the exact details into two different programs and task redundancies, further preventing manual errors, coding errors, and more.
With a comprehensive EHR solution combined with medical billing and coding software, it’s time to improve reimbursement rates.
Improved Interoperability
To avail of the federal incentive programs, the providers and hospitals must prove the meaningful use of certified EHR technology across the market. By integrating the EHR with practice management billing software, the providers are improving patient care and data security while maintaining data centralization.
The term interoperability is not only about seamless communication between external systems; it can also be used to maintain data in one centralized system and seamlessly enable the claim filing process. With the EHR billing integrations being highly interoperable, this allows data sharing with providers and practitioners with access rights. This enables the sensitive information to stay confidential while the data and its analysis allow the third parties for patient care and improvement purposes.
This interoperability reduces the data entry check-points and human errors at the most. A robust and flexible centralized system prevents security breaches while allowing providers to handle sensitive patient information without hiccups.
Reduced Billing Workloads
With an integrated EHR and medical billing software, the medical billing specialists would spend less time filing claims. With an integrated system, the coding and documentation are directly fetched from EHR, which saves the time of copying the data. The system will also prompt the physicians to complete these activities even during patient visits. This would reduce the after-visit work for the providers and billing staff.
There are many small-level hospitals and providers wherein the costs are only increasing due to these billing complications. This is why many medical billing software companies have switched to medical billing software for small businesses while easing the process of coding and documentation with claims submissions on a timely basis.
Reduce Coding Errors and Paperwork
With human comes human errors!
With the integrated EHR software with billing, the patient data will be transmitted to the billing system automatically, which will let the EMR Medical Specialists generate cleaner claims. This removes the human error chances while developing billing sheets and entering codes, enhancing the turnaround time.
The integrated EHR with billing software will also provide rest to the clinical and healthcare staff who are more or less dedicated to filling the forms and performing the claims process. This reduced workload will enable them to focus on providing better healthcare services which was otherwise not happening.
Patient Satisfaction
Patient satisfaction is one of the primary aims of any healthcare provider. Billing process automation and claim error elimination will improve the patient satisfaction rates for the existing patients. With the help of the insurance eligibility verification feature in billing software, the practitioner will have a clear idea of the covered services in the patients’ insurance plans at the scheduling stage.
This will be an essential step to avoid to and fros while the billing process starts. The EHR integrated billing system will help clinics inform the patients about the incurring expenses in insurance coverage which will further increase their satisfaction levels.
Parting Words
More time is spent on inefficient medical billing processes and systems; less time is left to devote themselves to patients. This is why an EHR integration becomes an essential component for deciding which practice management solution to choose. These solutions will allow the providers with unparalleled partner solutions, which will further modernize the existing practice and offer your patients world-class healthcare service with no hiccups in other benefits.
