Introduction
Understanding the complexities of podiatry practices, we recognize the transformative impact an effective EMR can have on the field. EMRs play a pivotal role in modern podiatric healthcare, offering a range of benefits that help podiatrists spend more time with their patients and improve practice management.
Imagine a system that saves time and increases revenue by improving billing accuracy and overall practice operations. That’s where the right EMR comes in.
In this article, we’ll take a closer look at the top 5 EMRs specifically designed for podiatry: Populate EMR, NextGen Healthcare, Practice Fusion, Modernizing Medicine (Mod Med), and Athenahealth. We’ll highlight their key features and benefits, helping you make an informed decision that can significantly impact your podiatry practice’s ability to provide quality care and improve financial outcomes.
1. Populate EMR
Populate is the first-ever AI-powered EMR designed specifically for podiatry, physiatry, and orthopedics. It aims to enable healthcare providers to spend less time on their EMR and more time with their patients. Its advanced AI features reduce providers’ time on their EMR by automating documentation and administrative tasks. This allows practitioners to see more patients, enhance practice revenue, and enjoy more personal time.
Key Features:
- Same As Last Time (SALT): Populate’s SALT (Same as Last Time) unique feature allows you to quickly access information from a patient’s previous visit, including Subjective, Objective, Assessment, and Plan details, as well as billing and service codes. This feature is particularly beneficial for podiatry practices, where most patients are follow-ups rather than new patients. By ensuring consistency and saving time, SALT streamlines patient care and enhances practice efficiency.
- AI Assistance: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing modern healthcare, and Populate leverages its power to streamline the documentation process. By integrating AI, the system can automatically fill in SOAP (Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan) forms using patient demographics and assessment codes. Additionally, billing (CPD) codes are auto-generated from assessment (ICT) codes based on the treatment plan. This reduces the administrative workload for healthcare providers while improving the accuracy and consistency of documentation.
- Creating Master and Section Templates: Master Templates save time by creating reusable templates for common diagnoses, allowing you to generate visit notes quickly. Section Templates allow you to customize templates for specific sections such as Subjective, Objective, and Plan, to streamline documentation and reduce errors.
- Pinning Assessment Codes: Pin frequently used assessment codes for quick access, maintaining accuracy, and reducing documentation time.
- Speech-to-Text Functionality: Utilize AI-driven speech-to-text features to accurately dictate visit notes, making the documentation process faster and more efficient.
- Intuitive Billing: Automatically populates claims with billing information to minimize errors. Users can easily track claim status, split claims within the same module, and send secondary claims. Effortlessly generate CMS-1500 forms when needed. View claim adjustment amounts and explanations to manage discrepancies effectively.
- 24/7 Customer Support: Highly responsive support team available around the clock to promptly address and resolve any issues.
2. NextGen Healthcare
NextGen Healthcare offers a comprehensive clinical and billing solution to enhance patient communication, facilitate data exchange, and streamline billing and reporting processes. This solution reduces the administrative workload on clinicians, allowing them to focus more on patient care.
Key Features:
- Appointment Scheduling: Efficient tools for managing patient appointments, reducing scheduling conflicts and missed appointments through easy scheduling, rescheduling, and management.
- Specialty-Specific Templates: Templates tailored to various medical specialties, providing healthcare providers with documentation formats specific to their field of practice.
- Advanced Reporting: Robust reporting capabilities that offer detailed insights into practice performance, including clinical outcomes and financial metrics.
- Revenue Cycle Management: Comprehensive features for managing the entire revenue cycle, from patient registration and insurance verification to billing and collections.
Insights:
- Customer Service: Users have reported poor customer service, noting that the team often takes a long time to respond.
- Community Connectivity: Facilitates connectivity with local health information exchanges, enabling easy sharing of patient data among different healthcare providers.
- Customization Challenges: While offering customization options, these can sometimes cause glitches and may only sometimes be user-friendly.
3. Practice Fusion
Practice Fusion’s workflow is tailored to meet the needs of practitioners and staff in large group practices, enhancing efficiency. Its practice management and patient engagement tools are particularly beneficial for doctors in solo practices, helping to reduce administrative tasks and allowing more focus on patient care.
Key Features:
- Reporting Dashboard: Provides comprehensive insights into practice performance with easy-to-understand visual reports.
- Customizable Templates: Offers templates that can be adjusted to fit specific documentation needs, streamlining the documentation process.
- Electronic Prescription: Facilitates quick and accurate prescription management, reducing errors and improving patient safety.
- Easy Navigation: A User-friendly interface simplifies access to patient records and other essential functions.
- Speech to Text: Allows practitioners to dictate notes directly into the system, saving time and improving accuracy.
Insights:
- Poor Customer Success: According to user reviews, Practice Fusion lacks adequate customer support. Users often have to wait days for a response, and in some cases, they do not receive a response at all.
- Functionality: Although they have a lot of functionality the users expressed dissatisfaction towards the EMR the functionalities being very basic, as the platform does not support advanced customization options.
4. AthenaOne Healthcare
AthenaOne from Athenahealth is a comprehensive medical software suite with an electronic health record (EHR) system, medical practice management software, and medical billing tools. It also offers patient engagement and document management features, making it a robust solution for healthcare providers.
Key Features:
- Reporting: Provides detailed reports for medical practice owners and administrators, offering insights into various aspects of practice performance.
- Patient Portal: Athena includes a patient portal that enables appointment scheduling and HIPAA-compliant messaging, enhancing patient engagement and communication.
- Telehealth: Embedded telehealth capabilities allow patients to join appointments without needing new software or special devices, seamlessly integrating with the EHR.
- Interoperability: Facilitates seamless data exchange with other providers, ensuring comprehensive and coordinated patient care.
Insights:
- High Price Point for Small Practice: The pricing structure is tailored towards large Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) contracts, making it less economical for smaller practices or those preferring to handle billing in-house.
- Usability: The navigation can feel disjointed, as the system’s “patient-centric” model requires loading a patient’s file before accessing most tools. This often necessitates returning to the home screen to proceed with each task, making it less intuitive compared to other medical software.
5. Modernizing Medicine
Modernizing Medicine offers an intuitive, all-in-one, specialty-specific EHR. It enhances productivity by integrating practical administration, business services, patient engagement tools, and analytics. However, some users have noted that certain task processes can be complex and require multiple clicks to complete. Additionally, full licenses and ongoing support can be relatively expensive, but many users believe the robust functionality justifies the cost.
Key Features:
- Analytics: Provides a robust suite of analytics tools, enabling users to monitor practice health, response times, and more. The intelligence suite includes administrative, provider, and financial analytics, each with unique, function-specific features.
- ICD-10 Code Compliant: Automatically suggests relevant ICD-10 codes based on notations and charting data, populating these codes into the bill for clinical review.
Insights:
- Complex Workflows: The typical EMR workflow is heavily click-driven, and surveys indicate that most doctors find this frustrating. Nearly 75% of reviewers who mentioned inefficient workflows noted that some task processes are complex and require too many clicks to complete.
- Cost Considerations: While Modernizing Medicine is a comprehensive practice management EMR covering billing, charting, and reporting, its cost and support can be higher than other systems. Users generally feel the robust functionality is worth the price.
Facts to Consider:
- Efficiency: According to a study by the American Medical Association, an effective EMR system can save up to 3 hours a day per physician.
- Accuracy: EMRs can reduce medication errors by up to 55%, as reported by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.
- Patient Satisfaction: A survey by Health Affairs found that 84% of patients reported improved satisfaction when their providers used an EMR system.
Choosing the right EMR can transform your practice, improving both care quality and financial outcomes. Assess your practice’s specific needs and consider these top options to find the best fit.