By Natalie Slodowy, IntelliSuite Technologies

Keeping up with today’s fast-growing healthcare technologies can be both time and cost-intensive but there are many smaller-scale services now available for a fraction of the cost of implementing, say, an entire practice management or EMR solution. If you have an internet connection, you can benefit from many of the healthcare technologies out there.

The truth is, with today’s complicated payer systems, technology-savvy patients, and even increasing governmental demands on healthcare technology, upgrading your practice with progressive systems becomes imperative.  Some facts:

• In a recent poll conducted by professional from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, 80% of  patients, given the option, would prefer to see a physician who has the capability to use ePrescribing and/or offers a patient-physician email portal.
• Of the doctors polled, 33% stated that email contact with their patients said it was “time saving,” while 28% stated that it “helps deliver better care.”
• Regarding online appointment scheduling capabilities provided to patients, a study done by Journal of the American Board of Family Practice showed that on average, family practitioners were able to see 15-18% more patients within six months of implementing online scheduling.
• President Bush has assigned nearly $120 million for use through September 2008 for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health-Care IT program; an initiative to use IT infrastructure to “improve the quality, safety and efficiency of health care and the ability of consumers to manage their health information and health care.”

So, what to do if your practice’s scale is such that an integrative EMR or Practice Management system is simply not financially viable, yet you want to improve your practice’s efficiency? The answer is that there are various “a la carte” solutions you can implement in your practice, with much lower up-front costs than all-inclusive solutions, and still see a significant increase in your productivity with a usual accompanying decrease in operating costs.

Online Appointment Scheduling.  Allows patients to self-schedule appointments with real-time updates to and from your office. Many of these programs will send automatic confirmations to patients, immediately notify you of cancellations or changes, and give you greater control of booking patterns as opposed to paper-booking.

Office Website. Can reduce valuable hours used by your staff for answering simple questions about office hours and policy, also freeing up phone lines due to reduced incoming calls. Of course, a properly designed website is also a wonderful advertising tool, reaching many patients in your area who may have been unaware of your practice’s presence, when all a patient has to do is a simple internet search.

Patient-Physician Email Portal. Some practitioners may shudder at the thought of allowing patients open communication straight to their inbox, but experience shows that allowing patients to address issues via email reduces incoming and outgoing phone call time, clarifies many pre-requisites for patient visits, and often addresses various patient issues without having to schedule time for the patient to come in. Settings can be customized to allow only the physician access, and/or to allow other designated staff in the office.

ePrescribing. Reduce errors and staff’s time of faxing and/or verifying orders, automatically check for possible interactions, and a plethora of other benefits can be gained by implementing an independent ePrescribing solution.
Remote EHR access With Interoffice Communication. For those who already have and HER implemented, setting up a remote access connection can allow physicians or other designated staff to access patient records from different office locations, at home, or even on the move.

Web-based Billing. It is estimated that up to 30% of delinquent accounts are due to patients being unaware of up-to-date charges, or are confused by various charges showing on their account and are reluctant to pay. Sending electronic reminders, statements, and providing an online payment center for patients to pay their bill right away without putting off mailing a check can all add huge value.

No-Tape Data Back-Up. Instead of worrying about changing and storing back-up tapes, hybrid remote solutions are available that give you the security of having your data on tape with the convenience of web-based access and restoring.

These are just a few of the many smaller-scale technology solutions available specifically for doctor practices. Most of them are much lower in cost than integrative EHR or Practice Management solutions but can still deliver a lot of the time-saving and workflow improvement. If you think your practice may need some “tech tune-up,” we at IntelliSuite specialize in healthcare IT advising and we can put you in touch with a number of tested vendors of these solutions, and we’ll be there all along the process of upgrading your practice!