There is a wide gap between the amount of data being collected by electronic health record (EHR) technology and the number of physicians who access and exploit the data. One problem may be that accessing unstructured data, for example, clinical notes or patient records, is not as easy as accessing structured data.

In the digitally connected, technology rich healthcare environment, physicians can connect with their practice and access valuable information from anywhere in the world, whether it is an obstetrician in route to deliver a preterm baby or oncologist on call for the local emergency room who gets a call on the 17th hole of his favorite course. There are many ways, like the ones below, to stay connected in our mobile society.

Vetting Revenue Cycle Management Companies is almost as complex as managing the revenue of your practice yourself. Naturally, you want to find a company that utilizes certified technology approved by CMS and compatible with MU guidelines.

Selecting the best-fit revenue cycle management (RCM) system for your healthcare organization is critical for success. Beginning before the first appointment scheduling inquiry and continuing through revenue capture and reinvestment, the process must be transparent. To align initiatives with practice objectives, healthcare providers depend on a blend of unique data, health intelligence, clinical data, and claims data.

Several years ago the key theme in conversations among medical organization executives was how much to invest in health information technology. Today, healthcare leaders are asking why the investment failed to transform their practice into a lean, efficient, patient-centric ecosystem. Aligning analytics strategy with healthcare organizations is instrumental to answering that question.

It's no secret that revenue cycle management (RCM) is becoming more complex every day. Based on recent studies, patients will assume greater financial responsibility for their healthcare in the next few years.

The information that your staff obtains, generates and stores about patients is of enormous importance on an individual basis, with medical professionals also taking into account the medical histories of family members when making their diagnosis. But the information you gather on every patient through your electronic health record software is also important in the aggregate. The more data in your system, the more valuable information you can mine from the database. And as you amass information on all of your patients, you are venturing into “Big Data” territory.

For more than two millennia, doctors have striven to uphold that physicians’ oath. While it is almost inconceivable that physicians practicing their art twenty-five hundred years ago could have foreseen the transformative effects that modern technology would have on healthcare delivery, this ancient document addressed the need to view treatment through a patient-centered lens. While the earliest writings have been modified and translated innumerable times, the excerpt below from a modern version demonstrates the original diktat to treat the patient and not the condition.

In a perfect world, your medical practice would routinely submit claims after seeing patients and then receive payment in a timely fashion, with nary a hiccup affecting your cash flow and bottom line. You would spend more time focusing on delivering high quality medical care and less time worrying about the financial aspects of the practice. Most managers of medical practices are aware of the need to automate processes as much as possible, and to that end, they will gladly implement electronic health record and practice management software for improved efficiency.

If your orthopedics practice has been getting by with generic software to manage operations or if you are still forcing the staff to contend with an old-fashioned, paper-based method to run the office, you should know that electronic health record software is now available to support your specialty.