Levels of Patient Engagement through EHR CureMD 12:40

Changes in the healthcare industry encourage patients to be proactive about their wellness and health regime, helping them to change the culture from treatment to prevention. Proper implementation and use of ElectronicHealth Records (EHRs) facilitates the proposed change by engaging patients in wellness programs through the Patient Portal. However, the level of patient engagement may differ, depending on the use of EHR systems.

The first level of patient engagement requires practitioners to implement an integrated EHR system at their practice – facilitating their patients to interact with physician and practice staff for medical advice, scheduling visits and bill payments.

An uninterrupted communication through Patient Portal will allow the patient to stay connected with the practice, so that they are informed of their test results, change in medical dosage, appointment schedule etc.

At this level, a contributing patient emerges. This patient, after connecting with the information exchange tool, contributes towards the health record sharing. Such patients would like to stay updated about their health condition by accessing the information available on their Patient Portal. Similarly, they contribute to the medical information by adding information relevant to changes to their health, such as medications, allergies, immunizations etc.

By this level, access to and sharing of health information gives rise to a more responsible patient, the conferring patient. Based on their medical history and health information, they actively seek out advice, ask questions and engage with their physicians for creating health plan that would help them to lead a healthy lifestyle.

At this point, providers should adopt different models of practice to provide health advice to proactive patients with convenience. Telehealth is a cost and time effective means of providing healthcare to patients, who seek preventive medical advice to increase quality of their health.

Meaningful Use of EHRs is not only beneficial for medical practices, but it also helps patients to stay informed and engage in medical decisions to prevent health hazards.

Practice Management: Physicians’ call for improved business CureMD 12:57

It has been getting difficult for small practices to keep their business up and running because of increase in costs and decline in collections that result in financial loss. According to a survey by QuantiaMD and CareCloud, physicians were asked to highlight reasons behind decrease in profitability at their practices. Of the 5,012 physicians, 65% reported decline in reimbursements, 57% cited rise in costs, 48% responded Affordable Care Act, and 44% said changes in method of billing and coding.

These challenges pose threats to a business of any size, but small practices can be the most affected. One way to combat these threats is to implement a practice management system at your practice to minimize the threats.

Improve rate of claim decline

A Practice Management system can help physicians to improve the claim rate of practice. This issue has become even more important with the 2% cuts made for Medicare payments. Although physicians cannot do anything about reduction in Medicare payments, but they can increase their reimbursement amount by submitting accurate and clean claims.

In this regard, practice management system comes in handy as they allow non-clinical and billing staff of the practice to verify insurance details of the patients to ascertain their eligibility and use accurate codes to create claims that have lower chances of being declined.

Minimize the costs

A reliable Practice Management system can help cut down costs of running a practice. The electronic system of billing and making claims would help physicians in reducing the money spent on resources, such as stationery, while also saving time on making claims. According to estimates by MGMA, submitting a paper-based claim to insurance companies can cost $6.63, while the same claim if submitted electronically will cost physicians $2.90 only.

A Practice Management system can also help in reducing the cost of human resources. By hiring and training the less number of staff in using the electronic system, practices can cut down on costs of extra staff as workload will be reduced.

Changes made in Coding

ICD-10 deadline may have been delayed for another year, but without any doubt the system is going to be implemented. Therefore, it is recommended to buy a Practice Management system that qualifies for ICD-10 coding. This will not only reduce cost of buying or upgrading the system once the new coding system is implemented, but also helps to train the staff in advance in the new coding system.  To minimize the error in coding, a Cloud-based Practice Management system is highly recommended, as it allows the system to upgrade automatically, thus saving the cost of buying a new one.

EHR system is usually talk of the town in minimizing cost and improving efficiency of the practice workflow. However, practice management is equally important for small practices to reduce the cost and improve their business.