Almost all the blogs that I have written on Electronic Medical Records (EMR) and Practice Management relate to the concept of improved healthcare quality and better care provision. Although physicians and health IT consultants cannot disagree that the sole purpose of EMR technology is to improve the care quality and provide affordable care, they also consider EMR and Practice Management systems to be effective means of improving the profitability stream for physician practices. According to statistical reports, ever since these health IT applications have been in place, healthcare providers have experienced significant improvements in the influx of revenue.
There are various reasons why EMRs and practice management software have helped physicians increase the practice profitability. Where some physicians attribute the reduced amount of monetary costs associated with the traditional methods to be the major aid, others believe the incredulously more number of hours being saved, through the use of EMR and practice management, to be the paramount reason. Today, it is commonplace to hear physicians laud the technology for saving them enough time so that they could keep patients well engaged rather than being engulfed in documentation process.
“EMR and practice management not only you streamline both, your, clinical and business operations but also save your ample time that you could spend on seeing more patients. In fact, you could now schedule more appointments and see more patients – ultimately improving the revenue for your practice”, says a New York based physician.
We are all familiar with the basic principle that improvement in profitability could be experienced either through cost cutting mechanism or more revenue generation. While the former can be achieved through reduced quantity of paper use accompanied with reduced overheads associated with making superfluous telephone calls to patients and other participants in the care continuum, the later is the eventual result of scheduling more appointments and seeing more patients. This, of course, has been possible because EMR and practice management have helped physicians optimize their workflows – allowing them store, retrieve, and access all the relevant information instantaneously.
As of today, physicians have realized that alongside providing quality healthcare, generating more revenue for their practice can also be done by efficient management of workflows. Fortunately, EMR and practice management technology help them achieve both goals.