5 Tips for Using an EHR to Increase Profitability

There tends to be a stereotype associated with doctors and money. Most people you ask will tell you, assume, really, that doctors are well off by default, or that all physicians are, well, rich. However, like any profession, this isn’t always the case.

Therefore, since the electronic health records market continues to boom, and it’s never a bad thing to seek out additional ways to put money in your pocket, we thought it’d be helpful to dig into ways that physician practices can use an EHR to boost their profitability. Here are five tips to help you understand how an EHR can contribute to bottom line growth.

Going Paperless Saves Staff Time
One of the key benefits of an EHR is that it allows your practice to go paperless–which helps cut down on the amount of time your staff has to spend sifting through paper patient records and other documentation. Transitioning to a paperless practice can save thousands of dollars per year in office supply expenses, eliminate all transcription costs, and cut down on physical file storage requirements.

In order to get to a paperless practice, however, you’ve got to build in processes that will gradually wean your office off paper records. For instance, instead of scanning every new patient’s insurance card, simply enter that information directly into your EMR. This cuts down on having to print out the insurance card and then enter data into your EHR at a later date.

Get More Out of Your Claims
When working with government insurance providers like Medicare, claim reimbursement requires extensive documentation. Because this is a time-consuming process, many doctors will only bill for items that they have written evidence. Unfortunately, this leaves up to 15 percent of legitimate reimbursements on the table every year. 

Beyond that, doctors often have their claims “downcoded” to less expensive procedures because the insurer deems the claim unnecessary or unsupported. This usually happens because there is a lack of supporting documentation. Using an EHR gives doctors an opportunity to document every aspect of a patient visit, and therefore increases the amount of claim revenue they’re eligible for.

EHRs Improve Efficiency
EHRs can also boost profitability simply by saving physicians time at each patient visit, allowing them to see more patients each day. A couple of features that improve the efficiency of practices include:

  • Pre-filled templates let you document common patient complaints more quickly than writing everything from scratch.
  • Prescriptions go straight to the pharmacy before you’ve even left the patient.

Although the time savings on a per visit basis may be relatively small, these time savings can add up quickly. For example, if the time spent with each patient drops from 20 minutes to 18, you can most likely see two more patients each day. Even if this only brings in an extra $100 per patient, revenue per year would increase by $50,000. At the same time, reducing the workload of your staff can dramatically cut down on salary expenses and allow you to focus on revenue-generating activities.

Government Incentives Help You Afford Your EHR
The government incentive program for transitioning to an EHR is still alive and well. If you opt into the Medicare EHR Incentive Program, you can be reimbursed as much as $44,000 over five years. On the other hand, if you opt into the equivalent Medicaid program, you may be entitled to up to $64,000 over six years.

Although the benefits of these programs will begin to drop at the end of 2012, you can still manage to get a significant portion of your EHR purchase paid for by this program.

EHRs Can Reduce Your Liability Premiums
recent study by the Harvard Medical School found that malpractice claims are about one-sixth of their previous rate after adopting an EHR. The study points out that, out of 51 malpractice claims filed during the observation period, two occurred after the adoption of an EHR. The relationship between EHR adoption and malpractice claims is leading malpractice insurers like Texas Medical Liability Trust and MMIC to offer discounts for physicians that adopt EHRs.

Beyond the liability, the issue is the fact that many believe “failure to adopt and use electronic technology may itself constitute a deviation from the standard of care” in the future. Once this is the case, the laggards will be branded as dinosaurs; they’ll be more open to scrutiny and will lose patients and reimbursements, all for failure to adopt what everyone else, by then, will consider to be an essential business tool.

These five tips help make the purchase of an EHR more compelling by making it more affordable, and the long-term return on investment more tangible. What ways are you using your EHR to improve the profitability of your practice? Share your tips in the comments section below.

Research for this article was conducted by David Fried, a contributor at Software Advice. Prior to joining the team, David spent three years as a research specialist for a medical technology consulting company, so much of his work with Software Advice focus on the medical field.

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