Cost Benefit Analysis of EHR Software
All healthcare institutions have been mandated to have Electronic Health Records going back to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act signed by President Obama in 2014. As Americans, it’s often our first thought that added regulation on business means a drop in overall cost-effectiveness. But was this actually the case in this instance? Well, it’s funny you ask that…
This move to digitalizing the back-end of your practice has been inevitable for a while with our society transitioning more and more to a digital age. Besides the obvious savings and reduced waste with physical charts and documents, there are countless other ways EHR can save your practice money – both in the short and long-term.
Short-term cost-benefits:
- Less time wasted on filing, collecting and organizing physical patient charts and additional documents.
- Less storage space needed, which frees up more physical space.
- Saves time with regards to the information exchange between medical providers and insurance companies.
Long-term cost benefits:
- Vastly reduces the risk of any sort of data breach and certain HIPAA violations.
- Transferring large amounts of data is simpler and faster.
- Less of a need for paper products (printers, copiers, office supplies, etc.). Also the equipment that these pieces use (paper, ink, etc.).
- Easier to adjust to future regulations when you obtain a digital system.
Now that you have seen the cost benefits, both short and long-term, let’s talk about some of what you can expect when switching to EHR. The first step you need to take is figuring out the appropriate software system for the needs of your practice. There are several things you must consider when making these decisions:
- Ability to scale to your practice’s potential growth.
- Number of users.
- Features relating to security.
- Overall user interface and ease of use for your employees.
- Presence of training programs and assistance/customer support.
- Ease of data migration (incredibly important).
Switching to an EHR system limits your risk of losing any physical files that can contain confidential patient information. On top of that, stealing information from a computer device that utilizes a sophisticated software system is much more difficult than simply stealing a collection of paper. Therefore, data breach is far less likely.
Contact American Medical Software to see how we can help your practice increase revenue and patient satisfaction. Get your free 5-minute demo today!
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