EMR System

A new era of medical documentation is upon us an the government is requiring the use of an EMR system in physician and nurse practitioner offices.  If you don’t comply with governmental regulation and take medicare or medicaid type insurance then you can expect to be penalized significantly.  Many physicians around the country are switching today and there are a myriad of emr systems to choose from.  Here we want to make it a little easier to navigate the tortuous road because a wrong decision can be devastating to a practice.  There are many emr companies out there and if you don’t chose the right one who is going to support you and be around to upgrade and update their emr software then trouble could be lurking sometime in the future.

In general there are two types of emr systems to choose from.  In general you can either deploy a web based emr or a server based emr.  The question is which one emr solution should you choose?  The answer to this boils down to practice size and location.  If you are a large organization then a server based emr implementation may be the best way to go an it allows you to control every aspect of the emr from downtime to third party vendor solutions which can integrate into some of the more popular emr systems.  On the other hand if you are a solo practitioner, in a small group or practice on the road perhaps performing home visits a web based emr could be a more ideal solution.  With a web based emr you don’t have to worry about software upgrades, server downtime and general maintenance headaches.  However, you better have a reliable internet connection because if that falters then you can forget about seeing patients that day.  Another detriment to using a web based emr is the general lack of portability.  If you are unhappy with your emr medical records software then it will be difficult to get all the data into a format that will be easy to import into a new emr system.

So, with all the potential headaches why even bother?  An emr system is expensive and why should you chose to upgrade?  Can the penalties really be so large to negate the outlay for an emr system?  What will happen to the efficiency in my office setting?  Will I still be able to see 25 to 30 patients a day?  These are all questions many physicians and nurse practitioners ask and for good reason.  In reality one can’t afford not to be on an electronic medical record starting in 2012.  That’s right, in 2012 the penalties start from medicare and continue to increase until 2020.  If meaningful use via an emr system is not implemented by June of 2012 penalties start and while they are small at first of about 1.5% then increase to about 10% by the end of the decade.  Can you afford a 10% decrease in reimbursement?  With overhead running about 50% or more in some medical practices that would translate into a decline of almost 20% in your gross pay.

Here we will take a look at various emr vendors with ingenious solutions.  Each emr rating will be honest an straightforward with real life examples.  Some of the more popular emr system vendors include nextgen emr, centricity emr, allscripts emr, cerner emr and epic emr.  Take a look and see which emr system is right for your practice today!