About the Author

Sheldon Needle is President of CTSGUIDES.COM, a free web site offering reviews, ratings, tools, and expert advice to help companies select software. Sheldon is a former CFO, consultant and software designer who has published more than 20 guides on software selection.

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By Sheldon Needle

Should you consider integrating your current Medical Practice Management System with a new EMR, or must you shift to an EMR that includes medical practice management functions?

Practices which are relatively new to software as a management tool sometimes do not realize the very different functions that a PMS (medical practice management system) and an EMR system offer:

A PMS is used for managing administrative, billing, scheduling, and budget related (financial) information, and an EMR is used for managing clinical, patient related information How feasible is it to integrate these two functions to produce reliable information for your practice, and to fulfill government reporting requirements.

Let us assume that you are a practice ahead of the wave, and you transitioned long ago to a medical billing software and medical scheduling system. You are very happy with it. It works for you and for your patients. Now the world, and the government, are at your door, and is pushing for a more total solution: an EMR / EHR.

Do you have to ditch the practice management system that you worked so hard to install and to customize to your needs and replace it with a total solution – an EMR that incorporates financial and billing capabilities? Or is there a way to keep you medical Practice Management System and integrate it safely with an EMR minus its billing and scheduling capabilities?

Here are some issues you must consider before you can answer this question:

1. Your Practice Management System is a business system, and your EMR will be essentially a clinical system (although a full EMR will include Practice Management functions). Unless you are looking for hardships, you need the 2 systems to talk to each other in a transparent manner, and you need the possible upgrades to work in tandem. One thing this might suggest: if you are interfacing a PMS with an EMR, you had best be dealing with well known systems that are very regularly upgraded, and whose interaction with other systems are constantly monitored.
2. A single database for financial and clinical patient data would, theoretically, provide the best and most reliable data-mining capabilities for your practice. But what if your Medical PMS is very effective? Perhaps you can live with the two databases, or you have a way to periodically reconcile the two databases. Or perhaps the functional users of your databases are so different that you can live with the minor incompatibilities? Evaluate these issues closely before making a decision. Don’t throw away the baby with the bathwater.

Read the complete article at CTSGuides.com.

By Sheldon Needle

EMR’s come loaded with options, medical practice modules, streamlining techniques. But, unless your employees – physicians included –learn to harness (if not master) most of the modules of the EMR and tailor them to the work-flow of your practice, you will lose the advantages the EMR can bring.

Thus, training in the use and management of the EMR is almost as crucial as your choice of EMR. In fact, when you compare EMR software be sure to investigate the training options the EMR manufacturer, and the consultants who install it offer to a practice like yours. The training and support offered by an EMR vendor is as important as the quality of your EMR software. If you can’t use it correctly, and it doesn’t save you time and effort, it will make your whole practice miserable.

Here are some critical tips to keep in mind regarding training:

1. Understand the workflow of your practice. Chart it out on paper, for starters: who does what? Who follows up on a task. Just charting the progress of a medical prescription from the doctor’s pen to the patient’ pharmacy is a multi-person task. See what tasks may be eliminated or cut short by the use of your prescription module, for instance.

2. Understand who needs to be trained in what: Unless you are a 1-physician doctor’s office, different people generally perform different functions within the practice. Everyone doesn’t do everything, and doesn’t have to be trained in the use of all modules.

If you are dealing with a reputable vendor, the people who are installing your EMR will talk to you first about your workflow and your needs, and tailor and help customize the EMR to meet those needs. They and you will recognize the need to train different people in the use of different modules.

For instance, the people who handle medical practice management and medical insurance claims processing do not need to be expert in the Prescription Drug Tracking Modules. They may need to know how to access the module for reporting purposes, but they do not need to know all of its ins and outs as the doctors and nurses do.

3. Don’t try to implement the whole EMR at once. Virtually all EMR’s are modular, and handle different functions discretely. Since functions are often pretty complex, allow your employees to master a number of critical modules before they move on to others.

Read the complete article at CTSGuides.com.