The Importance of Medical Software in Today's Healthcare Practices

We live in an era of accelerated change with constant innovation in technology, including medical equipment, computers, and software that never stay the same for very long. While your primary focus is on providing outstanding healthcare service, you have to devote some time and attention to staying up-to-date with all your technology too, since we rely so much on devices and applications to provide medical services.

It’s hard to believe that there are medical practices still attempting to get through the day by using a paper-based system, especially when computers, data storage, and networking is so affordable these days. A practice that eschews computerization runs the risk of alienating patients as well as seeing fewer applicants seeking a job with them.

You have noted that your office does need medical software, but perhaps you have only just scratched the surface in seeing just how important it can be in today’s healthcare practices.

You can turn your practice around, bringing better efficiencies that may enable you to hold off on hiring more administrative staff. This is thanks to advanced medical software that is regularly updated to account for industry best practices, governmental regulations, and a general commitment on the vendor’s behalf of always striving to improve the product.

Read on for more information about the importance of medical software in today’s healthcare practice.

Better Patient Experience

It should be all about the patient. To that end, installing; medical software will make for a much better experience for the patients lining up in reception. For example, your medical software will let patients type in their own information prior to their first appointment, using a patient portal with a kiosk in the waiting room or from a computer in the privacy of their home before they show up.

A patient portal lets you send reminders to patients via text message, email, or even a voicemail message recorded by a member of your team, whose voice the patients may very well recognize. Patients use the portal to order prescription refills, check on the latest lab test results, and even get reminders about upcoming appointments or procedures they need to schedule.

Dedicated medical software makes for faster patient check-in and less paperwork (in fact, if the patients fill out information electronically, your staff saves time because they won’t have to type it in a patient’s filled-out paper forms).

Billing via medical software presents less of a hassle to patients, since you can send them an email automatically with an option to click to pay their bill.

Scheduling

Without a strong scheduling system, your practice stands to lose money and even patients, if employees struggle to set appointments at the most convenient date and time. From initially setting up appointments to needing to quickly reschedule appointments, the medical software that you install provides your staff the flexibility to perform such tasks on the fly. As soon as you free up a slot in the schedule when a patient cancels, it will be available to another patient, such as one who has just called, hoping to get squeezed in soon.

What’s more, an advanced scheduling system helps with staff level issues, including overbooking doctors. The best way to avoid physician burnout is by carefully managing how many patients they have to see on any given day, and the scheduling system you deploy will greatly help with that.

EHR

Electronic health record or EHR software makes it easier for physicians and nurses to finish writing updates and to answer patient questions at the click of a button. Staff no longer has to fumble through a bunch of paper charts to find information in a hurry.

An EHR is more safe and secure than an antiquated, paper-based system. For example, you can set up rules about which employees can access which types of patient data, and even control who can write updates instead of just reading files. While you still have to perform periodic audits of your system to see if there are any unauthorized attempts to look at patient records, with an EHR, you can lock out unauthorized viewers, which is not easy to do when the records consist of paper secured in a (possibly unlocked) file cabinet.

With an EHR, you can communicate more effectively with other doctors’ offices, such as if you need to send patient data over to a doctor when you make a referral.

Billing

Trying to do basic billing tasks is much harder when you use a paper-based system or some kind of generic billing application designed for any office (and not for physicians).

In contrast, a medical billing system helps providers manage collections, generate customized financial reports, and produce detailed patient statements. The reports you need to produce for the Friday morning meeting will go faster with the template you set up, for example. Furthermore, the application will help your team automate the procedures involved in coding claims, submitting them for payment and then tracking each claim through the revenue cycle.

If you have been running into too many patients who are late on paying their bills, the new medical software system you install should give you tools to offer them easy-to-understand statements and reminders.

Applications for medical practices are becoming increasingly important for helping organizations save time and money and cut down on user errors. The challenge is not only to keep track of innovations in medical technology, but also in the applications that run our equipment.

Key Takeaway:

• Your medical practice risks falling behind the competition if you don’t pay attention to innovations in medical software as well as technological developments.
• A chief benefit of harnessing the latest in software is that you will be able to create a much better experience for your patients.
• Improving how patients check in, fill out forms, and pay their bills will encourage them to remain loyal to your practice.
• Using dedicated medical software for scheduling will speed up your staff, and the reduced waiting time will delight your busy patients.
• Install Electronic Health Record or EHR software in your practice to give your doctors and nurses the efficiency of digital charts.
• A medical billing system will cut down on rejected claims, helping you quickly spot and fix errors, which speeds up the flow of revenue in your organization.

Have you been trying to stay up-to-date on the role of medical software in today’s healthcare practices, but don’t have much time to do research yourself? That’s a common situation for today’s healthcare professionals. Give yourself a break and keep current on everything having to do with healthcare and healthcare software by clicking here to subscribe to this blog.