Guide to Medical Software Basics

Manage your health care office with medical software for maximum efficiency

By Elizabeth Gibson

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Evaluate medical software that can simplify managing your office or clinic

Medical software applications exist for managing your medical practice or clinic. This type of medical software combines several tasks into one integrated package. Find a medical software company that can provide medical practice software that helps you manage your medical office, from paying taxes to scheduling appointments.

I recommend: Advanced Data Systems Corporation offers MedicsElite, a full medical practice management software package. This software package features ledger, scheduling and reporting with several optional modules. Visionary Medical Systems, produces Visionary Office PM. You can customize this software for single or multiple practices/locations. Consider customizing this software for single or multiple practices, maintaining patient record information, procedure codes, fee schedules, referrals, payments and other aspects of medical office management.

Find medical case management software to keep track of your patient's medical history

Medical software can help you keep track of your patients' medical history in a thorough and efficient manner. Knowing how a patient has responded to medications, healed after surgeries and responded to therapy may make the difference in a critical diagnosis.

I recommend: Acrendo offers A.I. Med, medical software that provides electronic patient records, with patient billing and appointment scheduling. A.I. Med has different versions for specialized medical fields such as endocrinology, cardiology and geriatrics. eClinicalWorks makes an electronic medical record package that manages patient records, including patient history, visitors, medications, allergies, and results of lab tests.

Search for medical software for billing patients and insurance companies

To keep track of your accounts payable and accounts receivable, medical billing software becomes an important part of your medical office practice. Such software keeps track of fees assessed, insurance deductibles and payment history. Medical software programs help minimize errors in your bookkeeping and saves time filing paperwork.

I recommend: MedicalBillingSoftware.com makes Medisoft, a medical billing software package. This package insurance billing. ClaimTek Systems offers MedOffice, a medical billing application. This software features electronic insurance billing and tracks payments.

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Some medical software packages can apply to any type of medical practice. Other medical case management software companies customize a general software package specifically for a certain type of practice. Still others design medical software for a particular type of medical practice only.

Guide to Medical Software

Keep your medical office organized and efficient with medical practice software

By Judy Artunian, Freelance Writer

1. Look for health care software that includes electronic billing. It saves time and provides the documentation you need when dealing with insurance companies.
2. A physician software program that automatically backs up your data will give you much-needed peace of mind.
3. Before choosing a hosted health care software solution, make sure it allows you to access EHRs and other records even when you can’t access the Internet.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Simplify with hosted medical software

When you use hosted (also known as Web based) medical practice software, the health care software applications and your data reside on the software vendor's computer system. That means you can view and add data to your records via the Internet. Also, you don't have to worry about time-consuming responsibilities such as data backup, software maintenance and upgrades because those responsibilities are handled by the vendor. Another plus: Hosted medical software usually costs less than health care software that is installed on your own computer system.

I recommend: Multi-purpose, hosted physician software solutions such as those offered by Waiting Room Solutions and AdvancedMD, include online EHR charts that you can customize to suit your practice, as well as patient scheduling and registration, billing and revenue management capabilities. Need a second opinion on which hosted EHR system is best for you? EHR Consultant can help.

Desktop medical software options

If you prefer to keep your medical practice software applications and records in-house, look for health care software that you can install on our own computers.

I recommend: EMR4doctors is a physician software program that offers customizable charts, billing, scheduling and the ability to scan hard-copy documents into your system. An optional feature lets physicians hand-write scripts and their signature and fax them to a pharmacy from a PDA or Tablet PC. Purkinje provides health care software for a range of functions including practice management, EHR and electronic prescribing.

Do-it-yourself medical software for patients

Streamline appointment scheduling and patient-history with medical practice software that lets patients take the lead.

I recommend: With physician software, patients can schedule an appointment via your web site by clicking on a link to AppointmentQuest. That takes them directly to your own appointment page which resides on the AppointmentQuest web site. With more patients using computers on a regular basis, most are happy to enter their own medical history into a computer. Medical Net Systems  provides easy-to-understand questionnaires that cover patient history and the history of their current illness. You can later edit the information if you learn more during the exam. Instant Medical History Online from medical practice software provider Primetime Software,  includes an optional questionnaire in Spanish with the option of having the answers instantly translated to English.

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Take advantage of health care software applications to get better patient health histories. When patients fill out their own health history questionnaires, they tend to provide more information than they would during an oral history.
• •  If you're new to physician software and EHR, expect a time-consuming transition from paper medical records.
• •  Web based medical software should be password protected and provide other safeguards to prevent unauthorized people from viewing your records.

Guide to Medical Software News and Trends

Look for the latest in medical software and medical software company news

By Elizabeth Gibson

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Seek medical software news and trends from online resources

Advances and upgrades enhance medical software capabilities and ease of use. Providers of medical software applications design new products for single applications, such as drug dispensing or for special types of medical practice, such as psychology. Stay on top of developments to ensure you use the best medical software for your needs.

I recommend: ECT News Network Inc. publishes TechNewsWorld online. This website provides the latest news on technological advances that affect medical software. Health Technology Reviews evaluates medical software solutions for medical, dental, pharmacy and laboratory applications. This website also provides comparisons of software used in the medical field.

Stay current on medical office software news

There's more medical office software and medical practice software available than ever, and more developing daily, so it's important to stay up to date with systems to keep the office running smoothly and in compliance with federal and state laws.

I recommend: Doctor’s office maintain an enormous amount of information about each patient, and have to share information with other doctors, researchers, labs and insurance companies. Even though the doctors protect their patients as much as possible, sensitive records are vulnerable. According to MIT News, Massachusetts Institute of Technology software developed software to censor and protect patient’s records and privacy. Capterra, a website that specializes in software availability for numerous industries, publishes news on medical practice software. Sign up for Mac Practice News and get RSS feeds automatically.

Research laws pertaining to use of information kept in medical software records

Due to technology advances in society in general, medical software has had to adapt. Federal privacy laws and identity theft, in particular, have created the need for protection of patient records. Other legal protections exist for the owners of the records kept in a doctor's office.

I recommend: The Health Insurance and Portability and Accountability Act deals with the trend of converting medical records from paper to electronic media. The Act discusses protecting the privacy rights of individuals and their medical history. Look for software that contains HIPAA certification to ensure compliance with the law. The Occupational Safety & Health Administration dictates under 29 CFR 1910 that employees must have access to their medical records. Understand this law as it applies to electronic records kept on your own employees as well as medical records for your patients.

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Protect the integrity of records generated using your medical software. Ensure the computers storing your records have protection to keep your data secure from hackers, corruption and from being copied. At minimum, your computers should have virus protection software and spyware and adware protection. You should also have a backup file server(s) to make a secondary copy of all records generated with your medical software.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Electronic medical records and electronic health records

These two terms get much use in the medical field, but for some, they are distinct and not interchangeable. EMR technically describes the holistic system of keeping medical records in a digital format, while EHR describes the process of having a specific set of patient records easily accessible in digital format.

I recommend: See more from this authoritative article on EMR and EHR from AMCP.

Web based

A web based system is one that is accessible over the web. Certain quarters of the health care industry are calling for web based medical records to help protect medical info from loss.

I recommend: Find out more about web based medical records from Medscape. You have to register on the site first.

Hosted

A hosted medical software program can be an advantage for buyers struggling with high 'box prices' for software and difficulty installing all of the programs on-site. A hosted medical software system is one that runs off a vendor's server directly, so that the seller bears the burden of functionality, maintenance and software registration.

I recommend: Find out more about hosted medical software and opportunities at this AllBusiness page.

Document imaging

Document imaging is the process of scanning paper documents into a digital system. Many medical software systems rely on document imaging to get initial reports, patient records, facility forms and more onto one central digital system for easy lookup.

I recommend: Find out more about document imaging at WiseGeek.

Case management software

Case management software is any software setup that allows for a focus on one patient record or 'case' to follow data through the case file process.

I recommend: Find more on case management software for medical offices at CaseManagement.com.

Remote access

Going a step beyond web access, remote access means another user can operate a computer from beyond a physical location. In medical software, remote access is most useful in a large medical network where there may be more experienced users (nurses as users of nursing software, or lab technicians as users of lab software) who can use remote access to guide others at a particular site.

I recommend: Get definition and a description of remote access from SearchMidMarketSecurity.com.