- Are you still keeping tons of binders and browsing through thick calendar books to schedule your patients?
- Do patients spend minutes on the phone waiting for you to book them for their next appointment?
- Do you feel the need to hire another staff to keep up with the paper works?
In today’s fast-paced environment, more and more patients are using their mobile devices to do many things.
In 2018, 77% of Americans owned smartphones, a huge increase from 35% in 2011 according to a recent survey on mobile phone ownership over time. Some patients choose convenience when looking for healthcare providers.
Common Misconceptions – Security, Cost, and Infrastructure
We’ve discussed these three common misconceptions about cloud-based electronic health record (EMR) systems in our previous blog.
If you’ve read it, you know these misconceptions should not stop you from improving your systems and processes because we, at Medeffect Strategies, have the solutions.
Value of Switching to Cloud-Based EMR
Or perhaps you don’t know the value of switching to cloud-based EMR, which we’ve discussed previously, such as:
- Cost-effectivity
- Accessibility and Mobile-feature
- Scalability and Flexibility
- Secure Feature
- Automated Back-Up Feature
- “Meaningful Use”
Meaningful Use
That last one must have caught your eye. That’s right. In 2009, The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act provided incentives for doctors who adopt the “meaningful use” of a certified EHR system.
According to this act, qualified Medicare doctors can get up to $44,000 over five years and Medicaid doctors up to $63,000 over six years.
It was not a surprise in 2015, 86.9% of these 10,302 office-based physicians have converted to using an EHR system for their practice.
But not all used a certified system that met the ”meaningful use” criteria as defined by the Department of Health and Human Services according to this survey.
Benefits
In another survey, researchers found doctors with an EHR system that meet the “meaningful use” criteria tend to report it:
- Gave them time savings
- Increased confidentiality
- Was less disruption in their patient interaction
- Had clinical benefits for the patient
Specific Benefits
Specific benefits these doctors experienced included:
- Ease in sending prescriptions
- Speed in receiving lab results
- Ease of access to medical records at the point of care
- Better delivery of patient care
- Enhanced data confidentiality
- Cost savings from storing paper records
- More complete billing
Shared Records
In a previous report, about one-third of office-based doctors with a certified EHR system tend to share patient records with other doctors in the outpatient setting. For patients, this is an added value to the service they receive from their providers.
Let Us Help You
For some providers, they are aware of the value of shifting to a more efficient system, but they are confused where to start.
At MedEffects, we guide you all the way starting with a FREE practice analysis to see where you’re bleeding revenue, wasting time and precious resources, and where the most improvement can be planned and executed.
Let us automate things for you, so you spend less time doing, and more time being the best provider that you want to be.