How EHRs Can Help You Run Your Practice Affordably
There are numerous ways in which EHRs can help you run your practice affordably. EHRs help to streamline the entire health care provider operation, resulting in increased productivity and lower overheads.
Administrative tasks take up a large portion of the work day for doctors, nurses and therapists. While they are engaged in those tasks, they are not using the skills they have spent many years acquiring. Instead of helping patients get better, they are effectively performing secretarial tasks—most of which the practice will reap no financial rewards from.
Keeping accurate and complete records is an essential function in any health care provider’s operation that cannot be eliminated entirely. However, using an EHR system speeds up the entire process, freeing highly qualified staff to do the work for which they are trained.
How EHRs Can Help You Run Your Practice Affordably
EHRs can help you run your practice affordably by increasing the amount of revenue the practice can generate. Doctors, nurses and therapists can treat more patients when they can spend less time on unproductive administrative tasks. The ability to access and share comprehensive information on patients often leads to a quicker diagnosis, with a resultant decrease in the amount of time spent with patients.
Research has shown that when an EHR is combined with a patient portal, even more time savings can accrue. Patients who submit queries electronically have been found to be more concise than when they phone a practice.1 Patients can access lab results directly remotely request prescription renewals, and arrange appointments.
Many health care providers need to employ additional staff to deal with filing and retrieving records. When you utilize electronic systems, EHRs can help you run your practice affordably by reducing the number of people needed for administrative duties.
Additionally, EHRs helps with cash flow by streamlining the billing process. Fewer mistakes occur, reducing the incidence of contested bills or denied claims and speeding up the time lapse between billing and receiving funds.
EHR Cost Savings
Apart from freeing up qualified staff to do the work they are trained for, using electronic health records delivers other cost savings. Storing manual records requires valuable real estate and has additional security costs. Many practices are forced to rent extra space to use for archiving records.
Using EHRs does away with the need to find physical space for storing patient records. Data can be stored locally on computers, or practices can opt to have their records stored remotely using cloud computing. The latter option also delivers cost savings by doing away with the requirement to have secure on-site storage and expert IT knowledge.
Other Benefits
EHRs lead to a better patient experience. Having records stored electronically means they can be accessed from anywhere, and clinical staff do not need to have patients filling out paperwork repetitively. A good patient experience boosts a practice’s revenue. Research published in 2009 revealed that the most financially successful providers were those with the highest patient satisfaction levels.2
If you would like to learn more about how EHRs can be used to help you run your practice affordably, contact one of Integrity Support’s experts today.