Improving Efficiency In Medical Practices
Learning how to make your medical practice more efficient is more important than ever before. With the rising costs of just about everything, practices are looking for ways to save money. Many realize passing the rising costs on to the patient just isn’t a reality. We are already at a point in the world where the increasing cost of healthcare has made many people afraid to seek medical attention.
When medical practices can run in an efficient and cost-effective manner, they can often pass these savings on to their patients. Our experts look at some ways of improving productivity in medical practices.
Electronic Health Records
Let’s face it, computers are everywhere. As much as they may frustrate us at times, they save time and make our lives much easier. This is especially the case with electronic health records. These digital records not only help improve efficiency in the medical practice but also save time and money. Additionally, they make it easier for other medical professionals to quickly access a patient’s medical records. Without having to shuffle through piles of paperwork. The future of electronic health records is looking bright.
Electronic Billing Systems
Similar to EHRs, electronic billing is done with medical billing and coding software. All the medical professional has to do is punch in a code for the treatment the patient received and a bill in automatically generated. Gone are the days of typing up each individual patient’s bill and manually adding their totals.
Speech Recognition Software
Have you stopped and thought of how much time is wasted trying to type up a document or report? The use of speech recognition software, such as Dragon Medical, takes the aggravation out of trying to type up a report quickly and error-free. All you do is talk to right into a microphone. It can be a document or the patient’s notes. The software recognizes your voice and enters everything you’ve just dictated. It’s easy, fast and extremely productive and efficient.
Utilizing Email
Email is used in almost every business today. It’s even used in medical practices, although usually just among the staff. Many medical practices are using email to verify appointments as well as to provide the patient with a report of his or her latest visit. Which is usually a link to a secure portal, since protecting medical records is most important. It’s something that can be sent to the patient quickly thus saving time and allowing the doctor to see more patients in a day.
Positive Staff
Most employers will quickly agree that it adds efficiency when their employees are cross-trained. However, it’s not efficient when more than one employee is working on the same task. What often happens is that they’re getting in each other’s way and taking a lot longer than necessary to complete the task. Each employee should complete their own tasks and duties.
Answering Systems
Although we’ve all complained when we called a business and received automation rather than a live person, this is efficiency at it’s finest on the part of the business. A lot of hours are wasted each day answering phones and transferring calls manually. A medical practice is not a place where time should be wasted time that is needed for quality patient care.