Modifications in the Stark law have allowed hospitals to offer EHR-implementation subsidies to physicians. Although this incentive may seem appealing, many questions have been raised—all of them boiling down to the same basic concern: Will this system truly meet practice needs?
The following are some questions you and your physicians should discuss before deciding if a hospital-subsidized EHR is the best choice for your practice:
- Does the hospital EHR have a proven track record in your specialty?
- Will the hospital EHR workflow be compatible with your practice specialty?
- Will your physicians be required to exchange data with the sponsoring hospital?
- Is the system interoperable with other, neighboring hospital systems?
- Will learning, training, and use of the hospital system interfere with your practice’s productivity?
- How will support be handled after initial implementation, and who pays for it?
- Will the hospital’s EHR vendor assist you and your physicians with creating customizable templates?
- Will the system aid—or obstruct—your ability to qualify for government incentives?
- If there are problems, will the hospital’s EHR vendor ensure that the system is compatible with pursuing meaningful use?
- Who will own your data?
Think carefully when considering a hospital-subsidized EHR and make sure the EHR you choose supports your unique and specific needs.
In March, we reviewed how to turn bad online reviews into good ones. This month, we are covering the top 5 sections to include on your website and why each is valuable. Each section serves a distinct function and helps boost your medical practice’s accessibility for patients, as well as its visibility for potential patients.
Here are the top 5 navigational sections to include on your medical practice’s website:
- Locations
Always include contact information for your medical practice. This includes the address, telephone number, fax number, e-mail address, and business hours. For practices with a single site location, you can get away with combining your contact information with your “Contact Us” page, but for larger practices with multiple locations, having a “Locations” page and including contact information for each satellite location is important. This will make it easier for patients to reach you and find out where your offices are. Extra tip: In addition, always include your phone number and address in the footer or header of every page on your website. - Physicians
Include a section on your website that is dedicated to your physicians. Focus a page on each individual physician, and include details like a photo, where the physician went to school, how long he/she has been practicing, any particular specialties or procedures, any accolades, and any community activities. If you are a solo practitioner, you can combine your physician biography with your “About Us” page. Remember: Patients like to research doctors before selecting one, especially to see whether the physician is Board-certified and to develop a sense of comfort. It’s estimated that 47% of adults use the Internet to find information about physicians and health professionals. - About Us
This page reinforces the trust factor. It should provide information about your practice—what services you provide and what makes your practice special. This can include the type of patients your practice serves, specific areas of expertise, how long the practice has been operational, any awards received, and its long-term goals and missions. Be sure to include a link to your contact information (either your “Locations” or “Contact Us” page). The “About Us” page should reflect the practice—take the opportunity to engage readers with the story of how the practice started and the people behind it. When patients can relate to you and your practice and feel like they know you, they are more likely to trust you and use your services. - Contact Us
Include a “Contact Us” page so patients can easily reach your practice by Web, e-mail, or phone. Include an easy-to-complete Web form for patients to submit questions—include fields like name, telephone number, e-mail address, and an area for comments/inquiries. Also include your practice’s contact information or a link to your “Locations” page in case they do not want to submit a Web inquiry. Providing easy access to contact the practice is key to attaining a larger patient base. - Make an Appointment
For practices with a patient portal, this link should redirect patients there. For practices that currently do not have a patient portal, make it easy to schedule appointments. Having a “Make an Appointment” section provides a strong visual call to action to visitors. In addition, it adds to the ease of use—not only will visitors find this helpful, but they will gain the impression that your practice is state-of-the-art.
Each of the 5 sections above adds credible information to your practice’s website and helps market your practice to a wider patient base.
Sometimes, your relationship with your EHR vendor ends up not being what you hoped it would be. It may be time to switch up and move on. Reasons could be a lack of product flexibility and functionality, problems with customer support, and/or failure to implement.
We’ve discussed how to break up with your EHR vendor before. So what now? Although changing out a failed EHR is never easy, with the right planning, the transition can be made easier.
Here are 5 best practices for changing out a failed EHR:
- Choose your new vendor carefully
Conduct thorough due diligence and select a new EHR vendor carefully and strategically. It’s important to choose not just a vendor who has a superior product and provides excellent customer service, but also one who understands your workflow, is honest about costs and deadlines, and respects your investments. Don’t make the same mistake twice! - Communicate with your staff
Get your entire team on board. Implementing a new EHR can be met with resistance, but promises of a better future will bring about the support you need. In order to aid the transition, communicate and update your staff on a regular basis. Enlist the support of everyone to make the process easier. - Plan your data transfer
Will all of your patient data be transferred from the old EHR system to the new one? How will it be transferred? Who is in charge? Make sure someone is responsible for this task and can be held accountable. - Secure staff training time
Training is one of the most important parts to a successful EHR implementation. Make sure you and your staff have a comprehensive training schedule planned. Mastering a complete understanding of the features and functionality of your new EHR is key to success. - Keep track of your progress
Now that you’re all set up, and the onsite support and training group has left your practice, pay attention to your progress. Organize a devoted team to monitor your workflow—has it improved, worsened, or remained the same? Create a checklist and speak to your new EHR vendor about any issues or troubles you identify. Have them suggest ideas to help improve your workflow to ensure practice-wide success with the new EHR.
You don’t have to be frustrated with your EHR—the grass really can be greener.
The promise of EHRs is enormous—greater efficiency and cost savings combined with improved patient care and quality of life for providers. The EHRs that deliver on that promise are at the top of their class, with the highest scores across the board from their customers.
Unfortunately, there are still too many delinquent EHRs out there, and too many stories of practices faced with unexpected expenses, decreased patient satisfaction, nerve-wracking workflow disruptions, and sharp drops in the quality of life. In many instances, the staff realized immediately after implementation that formerly straightforward tasks were now beyond their control, but it was too late to do anything about it.
For all their promise, not all EHRs function or deliver in the ways you expect them to.
Here are some of the complaints doctors express about their delinquent EHRs:
- “Why do I have to do it that way? Why can’t the system do it my way, but just help me be more efficient?”
Each doctor has his or her own personal style—one that matches that doctor’s unique pace and the practice’s workflow. However, many EHR systems force physicians and practices to change the way they operate. Although a new workflow may improve your practice, many changes are actually detrimental to your efficiency. An EHR should conform to your workflow and offer you the flexibility to change it based on your practice needs, maximizing productivity. - “I’d rather input data on my child’s laptop than this.”
Physicians expect their EHRs to be easy, intuitive, and user-friendly from the start, but that’s not always the case. Many doctors find their EHRs are just too slow, require too many clicks to document visits, and are just too complicated. - “I’m wasting my time looking at my computer monitor instead of seeing my patients.”
Not all EHRs have a user-friendly screen layout. Some have extensive lists, dropdowns, and mandatory fields that need to be completed in order to move on to the next screen. All this extra time spent filling out data fields could be better spent focusing on the patient. - “Even when I’m not working in the office, I have to work from home. When does it ever end?!”
A delinquent EHR monopolizes too much of doctors’ precious time. They find themselves entering patient data after hours. Sometimes, even when they leave the office on time, they end up doing more work from home.
Not all EHRs are created equal. When delinquent EHRs create havoc in your practice, you have to ask yourself if it’s time to break up with your EHR vendor.
There are hundreds of certified EHR systems available in the industry. Some target specific medical specialties and/or practice sizes, others are primary-care focused, and still others are better suited for hospitals. Regardless of their specialty, however, most systems boast of increasing revenue, lowering administrative costs, improving quality of care, and delivering meaningful use to your practice.
But do all government-certified EHRs deliver the promises stated above? Sadly, no. Not all certified EHRs are created equal.
So, what should a government-certified EHR offer?
- The right software, information, and tools to meet the meaningful use requirements and qualify for the government EHR incentives
- High-performance technology to digitally organize, sort, store, and analyze patient information
- Robust functionality to track patient demographics, medications, and histories; to manage tests, labs, and e-prescribing; and to deliver enhanced patient care
- Assurance for physicians and patients that the EHR system they use is secure, confidentially maintained, and interoperable across different platforms
- Deep understanding of practice workflow to increase practice productivity, efficiency, and growth
- Detailed data analysis and reporting functionality
- Enhancements for accountable health care delivery
In addition to these capabilities, the EHR vendor should have a successful implementation track record and a highly rated and expertly trained support staff.
EHR vendors should also consider future required data-exchange capabilities and build in data-sharing capabilities.
