Adopting an electronic health record (EHR) system in your practice can be daunting. But with strategic staff training, you can avoid the pitfalls many medical practices encounter. Software Advice provides five training tips to get your practice up to speed on a new EHR effectively.

Here is a sneak peek into our whitepaper, "Six Must Have Features for Behavioral Health EHR. Inside you'll find information on what features you should be looking for in EHR Software and more importantly, why you need them. Download the Free whitepaper today and learn what EHR features your Behavioral Health practice needs!

A recent study of 39 health insurers published in Information Week provides another reason that your practice needs EHR. Third party payers of all types plan to switch transition from a fee for service model to a value-based reimbursement system. This means provider payments will be based upon that quality, efficiency, and outcome of patient treatment as opposed to the services that health care professional provide.

While many of the larger urban area behavioral health centers have adopted electronic health records (EHR), smaller clinics and solo providers have lagged in their rate of adoption of behavioral health EHR. Now that the October 2014 deadline is getting closer for Medicare and Medicaid providers to start using EHR or face a 15 percent reduction in reimbursements, professionals have started taking a second look at behavioral health EHR. Additionally, with security improvements in cloud-based EHR, the cost of entry and ownership of EHR software has decreased significantly.

While podiatrists can certainly benefit from the streamlined administrative functions offered by electronic health records (EHR), the use of this form of health information technology provides a means of capturing and transmitting various clinical quality measures. In addition to being one of the requirements to meet Stage II meaningful use requirements to be eligible for incentive payments from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the American Board of Podiatric Surgery (ABPS) now requires podiatrists to report variety of clinical quality measures as part of their Maintenance of Certification program.

It's clear that electronic health records (EHR) help enhance patient care. However, they do so much more! Our informative whitepaper, "Increasing Revenue and Efficiency" highlights the many benefits that EHR provide medical staff and practices.

Most behavioral health providers have some degree of familiarity with capturing and reporting clinical quality measures as CARF, COA, and the Joint Commission have required this data as part of the accreditation process. Clinical quality measures are the metrics used to measure the efficacy, efficiency, and safety of the services that patients receive from providers. As part of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), behavioral providers are required to report a certain number of clinical quality measures in order to qualify for incentive payments. While providers can reports these metrics by using the attestation process through 2013, in 2014 healthcare professional will need to provide their clinical quality measures electronic through the use of electronic health records (EHR).

One of the specialty areas that have been slow to adopt electronic health records (EHR) is the addictions field. Part of the reason is that some addictions professionals, such as Licensed Clinical Social Workers and psychologists, are not eligible for incentive payments from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The good news is that there is some movement in correcting this oversight. Additionally, addiction centers that employ physicians and licensed nurse practitioners can receive the CMS incentive payments as long as their caseloads include at least 30 percent Medicaid patients. By participating in the CMS EHR incentive payment programs, a substantial part of the cost of entry of the EHR software can be offset.

According to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2011, obstetrics and gynecology practices are one of the ten medical specialties at risk for malpractice suits. The primary way that these practices can defend themselves in these suits is having detailed and well-organized documentation of all the services provided to their patients. Given the complexity of ob/gyn services, documentation in paper charts is likely to be lost or misfiled, which can be problematic in the event of a malpractice suit. With electronic medical records (EHR), all critical patient information is entered into a patient’s chart electronically, which minimalizes the risk of missing patient data in the event of a legal chart review.

While the rate of adoption of electronic medical records (EHR) among healthcare providers is on the rise due to the EHR incentive payments offered by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), general practitioners and family practice offices lead in the adoption of health information technology. Based upon the results of a recent survey, experts expect that 80 percent of general and family practices in the United States will have implemented EHR, which is a much higher rate of adoption than that of specialty practices. The primary reason that these general practice are ahead of other areas of medical practice is that until a few years ago, EHR software was not specialized, so it tended to be onerous for specialty practices to customize EHR software.