Paper chase
...the burden of paperwork is about 30 minutes for each and every patient hour.
Price Waterhouse Cooper report of 2001
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The benefits of clinical decision support resulting in the reduction of the company's lab and radiology tests and the ability to offer alternative medications showed that a conservative estimate of $29,000 could be saved per year by year 2 of the EMR implementation.
American Journal of Medicine
Medical practices that still rely on impractical paper charts for their patients could be shortchanging their business!
The vast majority of healthcare transactions in the United States still take place on paper. Paper records are inefficient, bulky, and take up costly space. With Electronic Medical Records (EMR), any medical office can easily store information, maintain physicians' notes, prescription data, medical charts, and diagnosis. With all data in a central location, it facilitates searching for, finding, and sharing specific information. EMR records don't get lost or misplaced plus you can make updates to existing data when needed.
EMRs offer far more than a new way to record and maintain medical information. E&M coding advice, electronic prescribing and formulary, bi-directional laboratory integration, and pay-for-performance tracking are a few of the features found in an EMR. Consolidating and integrating your patient information is the key to quality patient care while containing costs, reducing the chance for errors, and better managing risk. Decrease or eliminate labor-intensive chart pulls and re-files. Mitigate disallowances/ fines and potential legal matters with higher quality documentation. Potentially reduce liability insurance premiums.
Additional savings are possible on expensive transcription costs when the EMR is combined with the Digital Pen which electronically captures and populates scalable, customer specific charts within the EMR. An add-on Personal Health Record (PHR) maintained by the patient creates the ultimate caregiver-patient relationship further enhancing the efficiency and quality of care and services.
EMR benefits include:
- Communicate patient information with more accuracy
- Reduce costs by shortening billing cycles
- Greatly reduce transcription costs
- Accelerate revenue stream with improved medical coding accuracy
- Minimize conflicting drug prescriptions
- Complies with HIPAA and other regulatory requirements
- Helps to avoid mistakes and reduces errors
- Provide rapid responses to chart/record requests and audits
- Improve and track billable and pay-for-performance services
- Faster payout from Federal/ State health plans
- Increase Return on Investment (ROI).