Scheduling, marketing, documentation and billing are the most important parts of the whole physical therapy business. Nitin Chhoda discusses the flow and importance of this 4-prong approach and how it plays a role in a successful practice.
A medical EMR opens doors for healthcare practice management that are non-existent before.
Many managers find that once they implement and adjust to practice management software, productivity improves, inefficiencies are identified, and the practice becomes more financially stable.
Making sure that the practice functions at it’s best will include integrating the four major systems within the practice: scheduling, documentation, billing, and marketing.
Scheduling and Marketing Integration
Why is it important for healthcare practice management to know how efficient the scheduling system is? When taking the big picture view, which is the responsibility of management, you have to know how things are going on inside the practice to know when to reach out.
Healthcare practice management and marketing is an ongoing job that involves many more subtle things than just advertising, but if you don’t know how well the schedule is being filled, you won’t know if your marketing strategy is doing any good or if it is overwhelming the practice.
The big advantage that an EMR gives to healthcare practice management is reporting capabilities. In terms of scheduling this means that with a few clicks you can find out just how often patients cancel or re-schedule appointments, how often appointments are left open when cancelled, and how many more patients your practice can handle.
Documentation, Scheduling, and Billing Integration
From the documentation standpoint, EMRs present a lot of advantages. No more time will be wasted pulling and re-filing medical records when the healthcare practice management has access from their office or on a tablet computer.
They also have access to their schedule, which means they know exactly what to expect without anyone briefing them on their day or week.
EMRs also leave clinicians to make their notes about each visit in a quick and efficient manner. The previous notes are also viewable in an intuitive format. And most importantly, once the appointment is complete, the billing staff can be alerted automatically to changes to the record and further billing requirements.
Scheduling can be handled in the same way, with the reception or healthcare practice management staff having access to the results of the visit immediately and being able to schedule the next appointment for each patient.
Integration and Reporting
For healthcare practice management, the benefit that has never existed before in a fully integrated EMR, will be reporting capabilities that can transform the practice.
Billing staff can run reports to find out just how often certain insurance companies reject claims.
Healthcare practice management can then determine which insurance companies are worth working with and which should be dropped. Scheduling issues can be identified and rectified, and a marketing plan can be developed for attracting new patients if necessary.
All documentation can be centralized and made conveniently available to the staff members who need the information.
Billers can find the information they need to get claims out the door faster, scheduling can be done to ensure that each patient is back in the healthcare practice management when they need to be, and clinicians can review and edit patient records quickly and simply using an intuitive system.
