Benefits of Electronic Medical Records
What are some of the ways that an Electronic Medical Record can help my practice?
Increase Revenue
- Thorough documentation of patient visits allows for improved coding and reduces likelihood of claims being denied.
- Health Maintenance Reminders generated through EMR can ensure that patients return in a timely manner.
Reduce Overhead
- Paper charts (Folders, papers, paperclips, etc...) on average cost $3 a piece. An EMR eliminates the need for paper charts.
- Labor - Working with paper charts is labor intensive. Creating, copying, pulling charts, filing and faxing files not only requires labor, but increases the odds of charts being misplaced.
- Office Space - Most pracitces must maximize the little space they have. Eliminating records storage can save space at your practice at the expense of off-site storage.
- Reduced expense from transcritpion services.
Enhanced Communication
- Immediate access to patient charts allows for seamless communications with those people outside of your office. All to often requests for patient data from referring providers requires employees to take a message and call back when the patient chart has been found. With an EMR the chart can be accessed and data can be shared instantly.
Improved Patient Care
- Let's face it, doctors aren't known for having great handwriting! Having a legible patient chart, notes and prescriptions can greatly decrease the margin for simple errors.
- Management of medications can alert physicians to potentialially life threatening drug interactions.
- Patient care can be positively impacted by EMR alerting physicians to relevant protocals to pursue based on diagnosis based templates.