What is a Practice Management System?
In hospitals and other healthcare environments, after a physician has hired the best staff, the next concern is to ensure that adequate care is provided. Practice management helps with this process. A practice management system is a type of healthcare software that enables effective management of daily operations like appointment scheduling, billing, and other administrative work. Common features of practice management consist of provider scheduling, medical billing, online patient portal, e-prescribing, billing, patient check-in, financial reporting, and benchmarking. Healthcare providers benefit the most if they integrate electronic health record (EHR) systems with practice management. A practice management system is a critical component for supporting a successful medical practice and achieving its goals of lowering costs and enhancing quality. A combination of integrated EHR and practice management software can improve your productivity and streamline your billing workflow and patient management. The design incorporating integrated EHR with practice management software would help healthcare providers to function efficiently. Medical practices with small and medium-sized capacities use practice management systems to manage operations such as financial and administrative tasks, whereas some offices utilize this system for EHR integration. Integrated EHR and practice management systems can help you quickly deal with various daily functions, including entering and tracking patients, recording patient demographics, medical records management solutions, submitting insurance claims, billing procedures, and so on. Implementation of practice management and EHR systems require only a good internet connection and a simple computer network. Integrated practice, along with healthcare analytics, can bring much-needed efficiency in care delivery and patient engagement. Apart from the electronic interchange of data containing patient records, practice management software will help you manage large EHR datasets like lists of medical codes, procedures, insurance companies, medical facilities, physicians, and other healthcare providers.
Practice Management Software versus EHR
Practice management software is a tool designed to streamline administrative and office tasks for healthcare providers, allowing them to focus on day-to-day tasks such as scheduling and medical billing solutions. While it handles some patient information, most features are focused on managing the business as a whole. Some software even features patient portals, which can improve patient engagement and office productivity. The main goal of practice management EHR implementation is to streamline administrative tasks, allowing healthcare providers more time to take on additional patients and improve their bottom line. However, it doesn’t record and share each patient’s medical history, which is better left to other tools like electronic health records (EHR).
Electronic health records (EHR) or electronic medical records (EMR systems) are digital documents that store patient medical information, making it easier for health professionals to access and manage. They are used in various medical facilities such as labs, pharmacies, medical imaging facilities, urgent care, emergency rooms, specialists, and nurses. The ability of the entire medical team to access a patient’s medical history can significantly impact health outcomes. EHRs typically contain information about each patient, which can help reduce redundant medical tests and increase the speed and accuracy of diagnoses and treatment plans. Some EHR systems also offer additional features like automated billing and patient care instructions.
Integrated Healthcare
Integrated healthcare, also known as interprofessional health care, involves collaboration and communication among healthcare professionals. Integrated EHR refers to the integration and joint coordination of health and social care activities that determine patients’ needs. A patient may often require additional support and care that cannot be provided by a single hospital intervention or service. For example, in surgeries, activities will need to be planned before and after the procedure to ensure optimal success. The unique feature of integrated EHR is the sharing of health informatics related to patient care among team members. A comprehensive treatment plan is then designed to address the various needs of the patient. An integrated EHR team consists of a diverse group of healthcare providers, depending on the patient’s needs. EHR Integration helps deliver coordinated care services to patients, which reduces depression symptoms, improves access to different healthcare services, increases the quality of care, and reduces healthcare costs. Integrated EHR may improve the primary care provided by electronic data exchange and gather opinions from different healthcare professionals. Sectors that may be associated with providing healthcare integration include healthcare, social care, and education. Integrated EHR with smart EHR integration API recognizes that patient needs can extend beyond healthcare, and multiple healthcare professionals may be required to be involved in providing optimal treatment and designing an appropriate integrated care plan. It assists in population health management and care management, thus addressing the various needs of the patients.
Common EHR Integration Challenges
1. Compliance with the Current System
Since most healthcare practices use multiple systems for different functionalities, integrating an EHR system that works smoothly with all of them is a challenging task. Collaborative efforts between the EHR implementation team and healthcare providers can help navigate complexities.
2. Employee Reluctance to Adopt
The diverse levels of familiarity and interest among staff members in technology can pose challenges when introducing new software systems. Learning about a new EHR system can be complex and difficult to navigate, which can sometimes lead to frustration and reduced efficiency among clinicians and staff members.
3. Cost of Implementation and Usage
The cost of implementation and additional expenditures such as hardware upgrades, training expenses, maintenance fees, and subscription fees can take a toll on healthcare organizations. The cost of implementing EHR can range from tens of thousands to millions of dollars, which usually depends on the size and complexity of the organization.
4. Training and support
Adequate training and support are imperative for successful EHR adoption, but they can also be time-consuming and become an obstacle in daily operations. This can take several hours or even days of rigorous training and needs to be adopted by all the staff members. Temporary disruptions are common during the initial days of training.
5. Data privacy and security
EHR implementation raises concerns about data privacy due to sensitive patient information. Healthcare organizations must implement robust cybersecurity measures like firewalls, encryption, access controls, and data loss prevention tools to protect patient data, and staff should be educated on data privacy practices and HIPAA compliance.
Importance of EHR Integration in Practice Management
EHR practice management system gives healthcare providers easy and quick access to all the important medical records, leading to more efficient diagnosis and treatment plans. It also allows patients to enter their information electronically, making the onboarding process even smoother. Practitioners can also perform tasks not supported by the traditional EHR system. Patient details, including demographics, medical history, allergies, and lab results, are transferred using an EHR integration system. EHR integration streamlines the storage, management, and transfer of practice EHRs between medical professionals, enhancing operational efficiency within the healthcare organization. It provides real-time access to validated patient data, simplifies scheduling, and allows for paperless data collection through digital forms like intake, feedback, and surveys. This integration also simplifies the processes in medical scheduling software and patient scheduling software.
EHR Integration Best practices
Successful integrated EHR can be challenging because it raises concerns such as high costs, adverse outcomes, and reduced efficacy. However, specific steps or practices can aid in achieving success in integrated EHR. To learn EHR and practice management integration, we need to learn about EHR best practices. Let’s have a look at EHR integration best practices.
1. Decrease your Data Silos
HIPAA Compliance advises to keep data from research, medical billing, and electronic health record separate. However, there may be drawbacks to this approach. Storing electronic interchange of data in silos can make integrated EHR systems challenging to deal with. Reduce the data collection in healthcare as siloed data for increasing data security. You can also opt for cloud computing in healthcare, a process that allows more agile, nimble products and services along with the proliferation of healthcare data.
2. Standardize the format for data
Multiple data formats for data collection in healthcare and storing information can create EHR integration complications such as EHR interoperability. EHR systems tend to support a restricted number of data formats, and if you gather data from, say two different systems, you will spend more time and resources on extract-transform-load (ETL) tools. Different EHR systems utilize different integrated EHR systems and data migration. This issue can be tackled by asking your healthcare IT vendors to agree on a standard data set and EHR interoperability system.
3. Improve data quality
You should apply agile algorithms that would help you detect bad values, missing data, and value formats that are not standardized. These algorithms are such that they must perform a complete audit of the imported data for verifying the absence of broken transformations. Incorporating agile algorithms will serve as data integration tools to assist you with the implementation of the data management plan.
4. Cleaning your data
You must ensure that your EHR dataset identifies duplicate records, incomplete entries, improperly formatted files, or old data. Data cleaning will enable you to achieve successfully integrated EHR systems. You can utilize suitable data for cleaning and maintaining your data.
5. Data acquisition and conversion
Different electronic health records may have different schemas and documentation practices, varying from one vendor to another. This means that any data integration tools added to your EHR system may be interpreted in many ways. To avoid this problem, discuss and agree on a single data acquisition pattern. Use integrated data lakes that explore the databases, flat files (CCDA, CCLF, XML, CSV), HL7 interfaces, and other web services and extract the data from the integrated EHR system.
Benefits of EHR integrated practice management
Effectively planned practice systems integration will improve the functioning of your healthcare organization. Integrated practice solutions will create a unified solution that would streamline your billing and appointment scheduling and enhance your communication with the patients. Integrated EHR with practice management will also provide you with medical records management solutions. There are five key benefits of incorporating an electronic practice management system –
1. Streamlined workflow across an entire organization
One of the topmost benefits of a quality EHR integrated practice management software is improved efficiency, especially in workflow and processes. Fast-paced healthcare environments greatly benefit from streamlined workflow because your team can achieve more in a day without any additional stress. Medical practice management solutions provide a standard system that increases performance efficiency, reduces chances of errors, and lowers patient waiting times.
2. Improved patient care
Practice management and EHR organize the workflow, which reduces stress among the staff and healthcare professionals. As a result, healthcare providers have more time to focus on providing quality patient care. Practice management solution promotes healthcare automation that automatically manages appointment schedules, billing due dates, and reminds patients about their upcoming or due appointments.
3. Enhanced documentation and security
EHR integrated practice management solution offers you heightened security and productivity. Access to all medical records becomes easy and secure with practice management tools. Enhanced documentation due to EHR-integrated practice management software significantly reduces errors compared to manual paperwork. Documentation works can be conveniently conducted via mobile or tablet through an EHR practice management software at the patient’s bedside or at a point of intervention.
4. Improved patient engagement
Increasing patient interaction is one of the key ways of promoting your medical services and increasing your income. Enhanced patient engagement also enhances the overall patient’s health outcomes. If your patients feel involved in their daily integrated care routines, they will actively participate in the care plans, follow-up sessions, and prescriptions. EHR integrated practice management systems can increase patient engagement by simplifying appointment scheduling and providing reminders. Moreover, physicians and other healthcare professionals can instantly access patient records and form quick decisions. Integrated practice solutions also allow healthcare professionals to give more focus and time to patients.
5. Quick Claims Processing
An integrated system is crucial for claims processing, as it ensures accurate information is conveyed both ways. It allows billers to access the medical record side of a system when filing a claim and eliminates the need to contact doctors about claims and medical records. This reduces stress on both ends, allowing billers to access the records directly.
6. Enhanced Provider Transparency
An integrated solution enables doctors to review their practice’s financial aspects and not just medical records. Providers who use a third-party biller cannot access their claims or accounts receivable (AR), causing them to be oblivious to their finances. With an integrated EHR system, healthcare providers can check their claims/AR at any time, giving them peace of mind as their finances become more manageable.
7. Time-Efficient Data Submission
Claims submission can be time-consuming and tedious, especially for providers using superbills. Manual submission of information to a third-party biller wastes a lot of time. An integrated solution allows for the automatic entry of insurance, PHI, and CPT charge codes, reducing the need for manual submission. This solves the issue of the doctor’s handwriting being illegible, making the process more organized and efficient.
Complete Integrated electronic health records
Integrated EHR is an essential component of any HIPAA compliant practice management system. Integrated electronic health records will allow your team to communicate patient data quickly and easily. Electronic practice management systems with integrated EHR assist with insurance verification, checking their eligibility, and essential electronic interchange of data. Effectively integrating EHR/EMR software solutions with practice management solutions can allow practices to enhance any function for managing the practice, patients, and providers in a single system.
Conclusion
We recommend practice management for optimizing the workflow in your healthcare organization. With integrated practice solutions, you no longer need to enter patient data or client information manually. EHR integrated practice management software may pose challenges for you, but these can be overcome by implementing the best EHR practices. It is important to standardize the format of the data stored to avoid any complications or errors. Additional measures such as reducing data silos, improving data quality with agile algorithms, cleaning your data, and employing data acquisition and conversion would also help in successfully integrating EHR with practice management tools. Practice management will simplify the processes of recording, documenting, and keeping track of information. It will therefore provide you ample time to focus your attention on improving the quality of integrated care.
References:
https://www.gebauer.com/blog/medical-practice-management-system
https://www.apa.org/health/integrated-health-care
https://aboutdigitalhealth.com/2018/07/11/from-a-to-b-integrated-healthcare/
https://ihj.bmj.com/content/1/1/e000001
https://datica.com/blog/best-practices-for-successful-ehr-data-integration
https://www.mobifilia.com/best-practices-for-successful-ehr-data-integration/
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/implementation-best-practices-keys-launching-ehr
https://www.revenuexl.com/blog/benefits-of-practice-management-software
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Written by Riken Shah linkedin
Riken's work motto is to help healthcare providers use technological advancements to make healthcare easily accessible to all stakeholders, from providers to patients. Under his leadership and guidance, OSP Labs has successfully developed over 600 customized software solutions for 200+ healthcare clients across continents.
