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When practices and providers buy in to a customizable EHR workflow, it can reduce physician burnout, increase patient satisfaction, and streamline healthcare billing to enable faster reimbursements. We look here at how a customizable EHR workflow can save your practice time.
Physicians across the country report that they are feeling the sting of burnout and the top-reported contributor of this sentiment is "too many bureaucratic tasks," like charting or paperwork. "Spending too many hours at work" is the next most frustrating factor. These two factors are clearly intertwined. The amount of time a physician spends documenting feeds directly into the amount of time spent at work.
The solution to each of these issues is straightforward: spend time learning and tailoring your EHR to your individual use. Even though the initial investment–time–is precisely the cause of the complaint, the investment can pay immediate dividends.
By investing provider time to learn and customize their EHR, it is possible to eliminate after-hours charting or documentation that is completed over the weekend.
How much time could be saved for you and your fellow providers if time spent charting was confined to time with patients or during normal office hours?
Patients increasingly feel that they are a lesser priority when their provider is charting with the patient in the room. Deservedly so, for up to 60% of the average visit, the physician is engaged with the EHR. Unfortunately, this physician/tech engagement contributes to lower patient satisfaction.
With a customizable EHR workflow that includes problem-specific default findings for review of systems and the physical exam, physicians are free to document by exception. The document by exception ethos ensures that pertinent positives and negatives are captured quickly and exceptions to the norm are the only necessary additional documentation.
Similar to documenting by exception, the automatic presentation and data capture of treatment plans that are typical for the problem for which the patient presents can reduce the amount of time spent documenting while with the patient.
To further speed provider documentation, a customizable EHR such as CGM APRIMA uses machine learning technology to learn providers' charting, treatment, and prescribing preferences on a problem-specific basis and automatically presents those options to the provider.
Ultimately, EHR customization enhances the patient experience and patient satisfaction by reducing the amount of time providers spend documenting with the patient present.
Building on the previous point of detailed, default documentation; current-generation EHR software should be able to include accurate diagnosis codes, CPT codes, modifiers, and more with your problem-specific documentation. These data points can be included either as a function of machine learning technology or EHR customization.
The inclusion of billing details in clinical notes that are created at the point of care allows practice back-offices to function significantly more efficiently than those that must wait for the provider to complete their documentation or wait for a sticky note to be passed to them with the details needed to submit claims.
Not only does EHR customization streamline the actual billing workflow it can legitimately shorten the time it takes to be paid. What’s not to like about that?
An ancient Chinese proverb says “the best time to plant a tree was 100 years ago. The next best time is right now.”
The same holds true for EHR customization. While it would have been great to realize the benefits of increased patient satisfaction, faster documentation, and shorter time to payment from the outset, the next best thing you can do is customize your EHR today.
Feel like your EHR doesn't have the functionality needed to make you effective? Contact us to get on the right track. Then, take a look at our best practices for switching EHRs to get ahead of the curve.
