By For many healthcare practices, practice management software is the hidden weapon that can help them improve patient care, revenue, and collections, streamline regulatory compliance and reduce operating costs. The right practice management software can automate tasks and provide you with powerful analytics to help improve your business performance.
Improving patient care
At the end of the day, medical practice management software is just a tool. It’s not going to revolutionize your practice and your patient’s lives if you don’t use it correctly. But if you’re considering making a change or starting fresh, some things can help you get started on the right foot or at least move forward in a positive direction.
A good practice management system helps healthcare providers improve patient care by fostering better communication with patients and providing more information for decision-making. It also helps them improve patient satisfaction by keeping track of appointments, giving reminders about upcoming appointments and treatments, and collecting insurance information from patients so they can be billed directly for services rendered rather than having those charges absorbed into monthly premiums like many health plans already do today.
An even bigger benefit comes when everyone involved – doctors included – have access to all relevant information at once without having to wait until someone else generates it manually before sharing it across departments within their organization.
Improving revenue and collections
Improving revenue and collections is a top priority for healthcare practices, and practice management software can be your secret weapon. Here are some of the ways that you can use it to improve these two essential areas:
- Improve cash flow by giving patients the option to make payments online, so they don’t have to wait until the next day at their appointments.
- Improve patient satisfaction by providing them with access to their medical records on demand, which will help them feel more in control of their healthcare experience.
- Improve patient experience by collecting feedback from patients via surveys or emails after each appointment—you’ll know exactly what’s working well, what needs improvement, and how you can further meet their needs if this information is collected regularly and easily accessible.
- Increase staff productivity by allowing them access from anywhere at any time; this means less time sitting around waiting for things like lab results before they’re able to move forward with treatment plans or other tasks related directly to providing quality care.
Streamlining regulatory compliance
Practice management software can help you streamline regulatory compliance. You want to comply with HIPAA, Meaningful Use, state laws, and EMR regulations. But what if it were possible to make all of these follow-throughs simple? What if you didn’t have to worry about keeping track of your documentation or tracking down the information you need for each step along the way? It’s possible with practice management software providers — one that can help your practice comply with all of these standards.
Reducing operating costs
The benefits of choosing practice management software are many, but reducing operating costs is one of the most important. One way to do this is by reducing administrative costs. Administrative expenses can be a major portion of your overall budget and can include:
- Employee salaries
- Office supplies
- Marketing materials (posters, mailers, etc)
- Taxes (such as payroll taxes)
Improving staff productivity
The first step to improving staff productivity is identifying how it’s currently being measured. This can be a challenge, as it’s important to recognize that the way you measure productivity will ultimately influence your strategy for improvement. If your practice has not yet developed a formal way of measuring employee output, ask yourself these questions:
- Are you tracking the number of patients seen per hour or day?
- Do you pay your employees based on their production or profit?
- Do you have goals for her/his performance or overall growth within the company?
If you’re not sure what methods are being used in your practice, consider meeting with each member of your team individually (or in groups) and asking them to identify their short-term goal for this week and whether they think they’ll achieve it. Then, compare these goals with how much time was spent on tasks related to each goal throughout the week so that there’s consistency between what people say they want and what gets done.
Conclusion
With practice management software, healthcare practices are no longer limited by their technology. They can use their time more effectively and improve patient care, revenue and collections, streamline regulatory compliance, and reduce operating costs by using an easier-to-use system that helps them work smarter, not harder.
