When you think of ways that doctors save lives, many might imagine an emergency room doctor or nurse running around treating patients who might be having a heart attack, or a surgeon who is performing a life-saving surgery for someone who was in a deadly accident. Even though these are the images that typically come […]

Each year, the health IT industry looks to KLAS, a leading health IT research firm, to recognize the EHR systems that are performing best in serving the needs of their customers.  The Best in KLAS awards recognize “the software and service organizations that excelled in helping providers deliver better patient care.” In 2017, Elation’s Clinical […]

Since the HITECH Act was passed in 2009, nearly 90% of physicians have reported using an EHR for their practice. Though most physicians report using an EHR, there is still plenty of work to do in terms of leveraging this technology to improve patient care. For starters, most physicians find EHRs difficult to use, leading […]

How can technology help independent physicians develop empathy? Why is empathy important in the provider setting? Empathy enables the provider to understand the patient’s feelings, beyond the physical symptoms that patient might be experiencing. A provider’s empathy helps give the patient a greater comfort level and helps the provider convey information regarding diagnosis and treatment […]

As independent practices around the country continue to spend valuable time caring for their patients, we spend our time publishing timely, relevant information for everything from health policy to tips for running a successful practice so that you can spend less time trying to keep up with the headlines and more time providing care. If […]

Last year, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced the Comprehensive Primary Care Plus (CPC+) program as an advanced primary care medical home model that offers incentives to physicians for delivering comprehensive primary care – care that is more accessible, coordinated, and patient-centered. In January, the program launched for the nearly 3,000 participating practices […]

Outside Dr. Fong’s front office, a vibrant pink sign reads, “We Keep Our Patients Healthier! Our Patients go into Hospital 25% Less Than the Average in This Area.” In a time where providers are under increasing scrutiny to reduce their average cost-per-patient, independent practices are more mindful than ever about the burden of delivering quality […]

The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) is a medical organization focused on health information technology solutions that will help independent family care physicians as they work to provide better quality healthcare to their patients. This organization recently announced its first Primary Care Innovation Fellowship with a goal of improving the usability and interoperability of health […]

At Elation Health, we’re committed to strengthening the physician-patient relationship and providing intuitive tools for clinical first care.  Part of this commitment includes keeping physicians and staff informed about the latest healthcare news, technology trends, and policy updates that impact their practices and patients. We’re maintaining a set of healthcare-focused blogs where you can subscribe […]

Primary Care: Our De-facto Mental Health System Primary care physicians have known this for decades; our siloed behavioral health system is not up to the task.  By 2020, we’ll spend close to a quarter trillion dollars(!) on behavioral health; yet enormous gaps in care remain. Sixty percent of people with a diagnosable behavioral health condition […]

Dr. Bliss, a Direct Primary Care physician, started using ElationEMR a year ago and hasn’t looked back since. When asked about the success of this newfound relationship, he explains that it can all be attributed to “one key factor — ease of use”.

Increasingly, many doctors feel that their relationship with patients has been compromised because of excessive documentation and data entry. Demanding policy requirements and the paradigm shift to value-based care conspire to add to physician’s workloads outside of the patient visit, limiting their ability to focus on delivering care.

As the comment period for the proposed Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) came to a close earlier this week, the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) and the American Medical Association (AMA) submitted feedback to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and acting administrator Andy Slavitt outlining changes that could influence […]

A recent post by the mysterious Dr. Jayne on HISTalk bemoans the final MACRA rule proposed by CMS, claiming that there is a “tremendous amount of chatter about this being the last straw for small or independent practices.” She continues by saying that “the requirements are daunting, especially for practices who haven’t been at the […]

In 1996 I became a dinosaur.        The HMO’s were dominating medicine. Instead of taking care of my patients I was taking care of their insurance companies. My staff spent half their time on the phone getting authorizations for routine tests. Thank goodness prior authorization for prescriptions weren’t common yet. More time with […]

This week, we’re excited to announce two improvements inspired by suggestions from the Elation community: 1. Searching for patients by date of birth is much easier. In any patient search bar, type a date of birth in most any format to find matching patients:  

Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a long-awaited proposal to revamp how Medicare pays physicians and other clinicians for quality. This Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is the first step in implementing the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA).

2,540 days after the ACA was signed into law, Republican legislators unveiled the Affordable Care Act (ACA) repeal bill, named ‘The America Health Care Act,’ yesterday. As a reconciliation bill (part of the budget process), the bill only needs 51 votes to pass the Senate (including Vice President Mike Pence if a tie breaker is […]

It’s official! As of today, you can send automated appointment reminders to your patients through Elation. We built this optional feature to simplify and improve your practice operations. Automatic notifications will be sent to your patients 2 calendar days ahead of their scheduled visits. This enhancement to your current experience will:

With the advent of electronic medical records, the world was introduced to a new way of practicing medicine. A clinician no longer has to awkwardly shuffle through countless pages in a paper chart, searching for the most recent dosage change or a history of chickenpox. EMRs are a boon to practitioners and patient on many […]

Dear Elation Community, We are excited to announce two new scheduling features to the Elation experience on Friday, 3/25. These designs were developed around your suggestions on how we could improve visibility and provide insights.

Dr. David Blumenthal, previously the National Coordinator for Health IT in the Obama Administration, recently gave some great insight into the future of digital healthcare and electronic medical records in Harvard Business Review. As physicians from small independents to large hospital systems transition from paper records to electronic health records, issues of interoperability, changes in […]

Electronic medical records have quickly become the norm in practices around the United States, with more and more offices switching to this modern system each year. But even as the use of EMRs grow, one of its most important features, the patient portal, remains an underappreciated element.

Direct care, the patient-centered model of care that forgoes insurance in favor of a retainer fee and closer patient relationships, is one of the fastest growing movements among independent physicians. As the direct care community grows, new physicians looking to start their practices and existing direct care practices need resources and tools to scale up […]

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently released a comprehensive study of the use of electronic medical records in the United States for 2013 and 2014. The results are an increase in use and functionality of EMRs across the board. This is due to many different reasons but the data shows the shift […]

The Senate Healthcare Committee passed the Improving Health Information Technology Act (S. 2511) with a unanimous vote last week. The bill, a companion to the 21st Century Cures Act passed last year by the House of Representatives, was introduced by Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn). It focuses on improving healthcare information technology by updating the use, […]

The American Medical Association (AMA) recently hosted a town hall forum in Seattle to discuss how local physicians felt about their EMR and where they thought improvements could be made.

The 501(c)3 Sequoia Project has taken on the task of bridging the gap between Electronic Medical Record systems, launching the Carequality Interoperability Framework. Their vendor-neutral, technology-neutral system has been quickly gaining traction; enrolling five major EMR players, including the previously restrictive Epic.

A recent study published in the Annals of Family Medicine noted that among 11 high-income countries, the United States had the highest rate of primary care coordination gaps. The results of this study also showed that patients under 65 years and patients with chronic conditions were the most likely to experience poor primary care coordination. […]

In April of last year, Congress made major changes to the reimbursement system for Medicare and Medicaid patients. What does this mean for primary care physicians and their practices? Yesterday, the American Academy of Family Physicians made a great post detailing how doctors can expect to be affected by the changes.

Over the past few weeks, major changes to health policy have been in progress under President Donald Trump and members of the 115th Congress. Independent physicians and primary care practices are like to be affected, and Elation has been keeping tabs on this new policy landscape. We’ll examine the major health policy issues of the […]

Ever wondered what it’s like for your patients to log into Patient Passport? Once you send an invitation, a patient receives a welcome email that looks like this:

Medical billing can be one of the most challenging and time-consuming aspects of running an independent practice — but it is also critical to the viability of your business. In an effort to simplify this process and make your practice operations more efficient, we’ve partnered with many leading practice management vendors to make medical billing […]

We transitioned everyone to the new chart look last week, and hope that the changes have been benefiting you to faster and easier workflow. Specifically, we reformatted the Actions button on chart items for easier scanning and usability: Large menus on Visit Notes, Reports, and Medications are split into 2 columns to help you scan […]

We at Elation Health believe that independent physicians should have the freedom to focus on their patients. That’s why we recently developed a series of new resources that can help you stay up-to-date with the latest policy requirements and healthcare trends and support the way your independent practice cares for its patients. Elation’s Resource Center: […]

Dear Elation Community, We released the New Chart Look and Feel a few months ago, for you to get a head start on the new and improved look of Elation. These changes are all about making it easier for you to scan and process the information on the page, as well as take faster action […]

Today, we solidified our commitment to working with on-site, near-site clinics to improve care by announcing our partnership with Wellness for Life, one of the leading and fastest-growing health and benefits services organizations spearheading the development of the direct primary care model and membership-based clinics. Through our partnership with Wellness for Life, we hope to […]

Today we get to meet an Elation Implementation Manager: Kimmy Hu. As soon as a practice signs with Elation, a dedicated Implementation Manager joins them for their first three months to get the providers and staff up and running using ElationEMR in their office. The Implementation Manager will focus on what makes each practice and […]

Next week, we’re excited to be attending the 16th Annual Congress on On-Site Employee Health Clinics in Scottsdale, Arizona as an exhibitor and technology solution for on-site clinics. Elation’s extensive experience with Direct Primary Care (DPC) practices has led to engagement the growing number of companies who operate on-site or near-site health clinics for employees. […]

Have you used your Patient List report? Elation has a variety of reports, one of them is designed to help you understand your patient population.

Now that MACRA is underway for most physicians, it’s important to start thinking about strategies for succeeding in value-based arrangements. Independent physicians have always been at the forefront of changes in healthcare and we expect MACRA to be no different. Understandably, many physicians have anxiety about implementing changes and making strategic investments for this new […]

At Elation, we’re committed to your successful attestation for MU Stage 1 and Stage 2. Our Help Center contains all the information you need to know on each objective and how to meet each measure in ElationEMR.

Elation is delighted to be attending The Independent Physician Association of America (TIPAAA) National Meeting in San Antonio, Texas today and hosting an event in Southlake, Texas on March 28 to connect the independent physician community in Texas. TIPAAA is is the leading trade association serving Independent and Integrated Physician Associations (IPAs). At TIPAAA’s 22nd […]

The shift from fee-for-service to value-based reimbursement encourages physicians to adopt electronic health records and better track and assess the quality of patient care. “But are small and rural physician practices prepared for such as transition?” asks the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), which was tasked by Congress to report on how different groups can […]

Elation has helpful features available everywhere – one that you may not be aware of is how to open multiple charts at once. You and your staff can open multiple patients’ charts within the same browser window by just clicking on “Launch first X Patients” in the practice homepage!

In response to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) final piece of guidance for the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA), we’ve submitted our take on how CMS should implement the concept of virtual groups “to clinically benefit patients and to encourage collaboration.” (In case you missed it, here is […]

This past September, our very own Director of Business Ops, Susan Hwang, represented Elation as a speaker at Dreamforce ‘15, the Software as a Service-based convention put on by Salesforce.com. Elation was selected from all Desk.com customers due to how we use the Salesforce product to help deliver our valued 24-hour customer support and 30-minute […]

The bipartisan 21st Century Cures Act was passed in the Senate earlier this week after the House of Representatives voted in favor of the bill last week. The Cures Act will now land on President Obama’s desk, where it is expected to be signed into law. As the largest healthcare-focused bill since Obamacare, what’s at […]

We’ve made our onboarding experience even better. In order to help you save time, we’ve created an updated training series for Providers and Staff. Watch when you have the time in your busy schedule. Each video contains the critical information you need in order to learn how to use Elation – and each is under […]

Yesterday, Senate Republicans released a newly revised draft of the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA) in hopes of passing the bill through a divided Congress. Though the bill does not change any of the fundamental aspects of its original version, lawmakers made several significant changes in an effort to sway specific Republican lawmakers on the […]

Join us on Mondays for our MACRA Monday series to hear how we break down the four performance categories that independent practices will be required to report on when MACRA and MIPS goes into effect on January 1. The fourth and final performance category for MACRA is the “Resource Use” or “Cost” performance category which […]

Dear Elation Community, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid recently released a final rule on Meaningful Use, which changed the measures providers need to meet for MU. You can read more about the final rule here.

As president-elect Donald Trump continues to announce the cabinet appointments for his new administration, two of Trump’s new picks are especially important for independent physicians to consider — the head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the head of the Centers for Medicare Medicaid Services (CMS). Republican Rep. Tom Price, […]

Did you know you can update your Elation account to the new look and feel of our Chronological Record? The improved graphics make it easier to find and process information in your patient’s chart.

Patient health records within most health systems are dangerously fragmented — forcing providers to make diagnoses and recommendations with limited patient information at the point of care. At the most recent approximation, only 10 percent of ambulatory practices and 30 percent of hospitals were significantly participating in operational health information exchange efforts. In an effort […]

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released on 10/7/15 the final rule for important changes applicable to 2015 Meaningful Use reporting period.

Earlier today, Republican legislators abruptly decided to withdraw a bill that would have repealed and replaced the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Obamacare. The decision comes after Republican leaders were unable to garner enough support to move forward. Now that the legislation has been scrapped, the ACA remains in place and the potential consequences of […]

Earlier this month, we hosted our first ever Physician Summit for our Hawaii community of users. This event was our biggest event to date — with almost 200 attendees in attendance at the Halekulani Hotel. During the event, we were excited to hear from Senator Josh Green, MD an ER Physician at Kohala Hospital, 2009 […]

Dear Elation Community, Our team made a few small updates and fixes to Elation affecting the Complete H&P 1-column note, scheduler, patient letters, and bulk refills.

As Donald Trump begins to transition into his presidency, the healthcare community has begun to make predictions about the impact of Trump’s policies on independent physicians. But what can direct primary care (DPC) providers expect to see the next four years? Though a health care agenda has yet to be clearly outlined by Trump’s transition […]

You can customize what information you want to share with your patients via Patient Passport! If you are a provider on Elation, you can set the default preference in your Settings page under Patient Sharing Defaults section.

Every Monday this month, we’ll be breaking down the four performance categories that independent practices will be required to report on when the Merit-based Incentive Payment System or MIPS track of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) law goes into effect on January 1, and providing you with tips and strategies […]

If you see patient names that are bolded with a leading asterisk, this patient needs his or her problems crosswalked to ICD-10!

We recently read an article where Christine Sinsky, MD stated that it took her 32 clicks with her current EHR system to document giving a patient a flu shot. We don’t even want to know how many clicks she does each day during flu season. Dr. Sinsky’s EHR is failing her. EHR systems should enable […]

Dear Elation Community, Now that we’re into October, we want to make sure that the change to ICD-10 goes as smoothly as possible. Our advice to minimize disruption during visit note documentation is to fully crosswalk your patients’ Problem Lists ahead of time. Crosswalking will allow you to continue to export problems and their associated […]

After Donald Trump’s victory over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday night, many independent physicians may be wondering — what comes next? As the world prepares for Donald Trump to be inaugurated as our 45th President, we begin to consider some of the ways in which Trump’s policies could have an impact on […]

To help your practice troubleshoot the most frequently reported issues for Patient Passport, we have aggregated a FAQ help article here.

While quality programs like the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) may not directly apply to DPC and concierge practices, there are still implications for these doctors. In fact, MACRA’s new model of reimbursement and reporting requirements may drive more and more physicians away from insurance-based models in favor of more autonomous […]

Dear Elation Community, Today we are announcing the launch of Phase 2 of our support for ICD-10 in Elation: you can now add ICD-10 codes to your order forms and bills. We have prepared you for the shift to using ICD-10 on your orders and claims after 10/1, but retain the flexibility for you to […]

Every Monday for the next four weeks, we’ll be breaking down the four performance categories that independent practices will be required to report on when the Merit-based Incentive Payment System or MIPS track of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) law goes into effect on January 1, and providing you with […]

If you have a new provider or staff joining your Elation practice, any Admin user in your practice can add these new providers or staff in the Settings page. Go to your Settings page in Elation, then go to “Manage Accounts” section.

The promise of providing high-quality, patient-focused, and coordinated care is at the heart of an independent practice. With the average physician sharing patients with 229 other physicians working in 117 different practices, it’s no wonder care coordination is of particular importance for small and solo practitioners. That’s why nearly three years ago, we introduced the […]

If you cannot find a pharmacy in our pharmacy search, then this pharmacy is not certified to receive ePrescriptions via Surescripts, Elation’s ePrescribing service. For this pharmacy to move forward in getting certified with SureScripts, they should consult this page.

A Clinical EHR puts physicians first; it embodies a technology platform that adds value to the interactions between physicians and their patients. It’s a platform that allows for trust, a more productive and effective environment, and improves the quality of care that patients are receiving. Elation’s founders, Conan and Kyna Fong, understand the importance of […]

ElationEMR launched the first phase of ICD-10 functionality and it has been a hit!

Elation CEO Kyna Fong was recently featured in two articles highlighting what’s to come for the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015, or MACRA. This comprehensive reform to Medicare is expected to shift medical reimbursement from fee-for-service to value-based, and goes into effect January 1, 2017. In the first article, published in Becker’s […]

You can restore accidentally deleted items immediately on your own – any reports (lab reports, imaging, consults) and visit notes. In order to do so, click on the “I need help!” button, and select the option that says “I accidentally deleted a note or report” on the patient chart where you are looking to restore […]

Every Monday for the next four weeks, we’ll be breaking down the four performance categories that independent practices will be required to report on when MACRA and MIPS goes into effect on January 1. An estimated 90% of eligible providers participating in the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) will be subject […]

Elation Community, We’re excited to announce that Phase 1 of our rollout to support ICD-10 – Problem List and Crosswalk Support – is now live in Elation!

Sign up for our Understanding MACRA/MIPS Webinar to ask questions about these policy changes! After months of waiting, CMS released the final piece of guidance for the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA), also known as the Quality Payment Program. With this final rule, Centers for Medicare Medicaid Services (CMS) took the […]

Harness the power of patient lists for your practice! Search and sort by specific criteria to get ahead on Meaningful Use requirements, report on Value-Based standards, or just keep a pulse on your patient population.

Last month, Elation was invited to share the benefits of using a clinical first EHR at the “Re-Imagining the EMR Experience Panel” during the annual Health 2.0 Conference. Our CEO and co-founder, Kyna Fong, participated in the panel by sharing Elation’s philosophy on revolutionizing EHR platforms: creating a user experience that deeply respects the heart […]

You’ve been with your EMR forever, but you’ve decided you’ve had enough: you need to explore better options. Congratulations! Now you need to transfer your patient charts to your new EMR so you don’t skip a beat providing care. *Gulp* What to do now!?

Last month, CMS announced several options for providers to comply with the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA). Many of the changes in today’s final ruling significantly reduces the burden on small and independent practices. CMS received a great deal of feedback from this group in response to the initial draft of MACRA, and […]

Dear Elation Community, In two weeks, we’ll be updating the look and feel of the Chronological Record in Elation, but you don’t have to wait, you can preview them now! The changes are all about making it easier for you to scan and process the information on the page, as well as take action on […]

Interoperability, or the ability to exchange information with other providers is routinely discussed as one of the biggest challenges facing our increasingly digitized and fragmented healthcare system. So what’s being done to increase collaboration between practices? Ideally, providers would have tools to collaborate dynamically on a single networked patient record. We’ve written about Elation’s Patient […]

To help you chart faster for patients you see often, we provide you the option to select “Last Documented PE” or “Last Documented ROS” in the PE and ROS sections of your notes. This will pre-populate the PE and ROS sections with info you documented in the patient’s last visit note.

Since the beginning of modern medicine, physicians have been paid mostly for the volume of services they provide. In less than 3 months, volume will make way for value — value-based care will overtake our existing fee-for-service approach to reimbursing Medicare providers. The Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) or the “Quality Payment Program,” […]

If you’re interested to learn more about ICD-10 in Elation and get a sneak peek at what’s in store, please join us for a webinar on Wednesday, August 19 from 8:30-9:15am Pacific Time.

Last week, Elation had the opportunity to meet and spend time with the rapidly growing group of private physicians, including concierge medicine and direct primary care providers. This event, which lasted two days, was an exciting chance for Elation to reiterate its support for the private physician community and spend one-on-one time with some of […]

Holding true to our focus on “Clinical First,” here at Elation we’ve been hard at work crafting an experience to accommodate coding in ICD-10 with minimal impact to our providers and staff. Your time and attention should always be on your patients, and not on the tedium of coding.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) recently released two new resources for National Health IT Week that help providers manage their EHRs and other Health IT infrastructure. One of these guides focuses on untangling the EHR selection process by breaking down important concepts […]

Elation now allows you to refill a patient’s medications in bulk! See how you can take advantage of this feature here.

With the launch of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reimbursement Act of 2015 (MACRA) earlier this year and the reporting aspect in full effect, CMS plans to tell doctors by the end of May if they must participate in MACRA’s Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS). MIPS is a central component of the Quality Payment Program […]

We’re delighted to be hosting an event in the Denver area, tomorrow with local physicians Drs. Davidson and Keller, in an effort to bring the Denver community of providers together. During this event, we hope to discuss the challenges independent practices face, share insights on how practices can improve patient care, and celebrate the impact […]

Dear Elation Community, Imagine refilling 10 medications for your complex patient, in as few as 3 clicks total.

On the heels of the news about MACRA’s new options, there has been some renewed interest in transforming healthcare from a federal level. This week, the nation’s first chief technology officer, Aneesh Chopra shared an optimistic view about electronic health records and interoperability. Chopra believes “healthcare’s data revolution has arrived” according to his interview with […]

Elation recently attended the 2015 Direct Primary Care (DPC) Summit, held July 10 – 12 in Kansas City, MO. We made the trip to meet with some current Elation users and speak with other DPC physicians about how EMRs are supporting their practice’s uncommon needs.

The CMS recently announced that it plans to give providers the opportunity to pick one of four different options for how they comply with the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) or the “Quality Payment Program”, which is set to begin on January 1. This announcement comes after intense pressure from policymakers and physicians […]

Did you know that if you schedule in all patient appointments at least a day prior to the appointment date, Elation will automaticaltly retrieve med fills for these patients? Learn more about how to take better advantage of our med fills feature here.

Every decision we make involves an element of risk and uncertainty. Whether choosing where to have dinner on a Saturday night or what to pack for a weekend hike, the choices we make can oftentimes lead to unexpected outcomes. The ramifications of such a decision become far more serious when made in the context of […]

If you are not getting notifications for all patient-initiated messages in your Practice Home queue, make sure to double check your Patient Passport Message settings. Admin users can go into this Patient Passport Message settings to ensure the right members on your team get notified for specific message categories. Click here for more details on […]

This Wednesday, we’re excited to be hosting an event exclusively focused on the impact Elation is having on the Santa Barbara community. Joined by three well-known local physicians, Dr. Bordofsky, Dr. Baker, and Dr. Golgert, attendees will have the opportunity to receive personal insights on the clinical benefits of care collaboration between practices on the […]

Can’t find the Provider or Contact you are looking for in Elation’s provider directory? Type in their name in a Letter or Referral and click “Add Details” to save their info for future recall. Click here to get clear step-by-step instructions on how to do so.

Earlier this year, the Centers for Medicare Medicaid Services (“CMS”) introduced CPC+, their plan to transform primary care by supporting primary care practices that commit to providing comprehensive, coordinated and continuous care for their patients during this 5-year program. CMS selected the 14 regions that can take part in the program’s inaugural cohort by looking […]

Why is a message ’stuck’ in my queue on the Practice Home? Once a physician signs off on a message thread, everyone on that thread needs to ‘Acknowledge’ that message for it to clear from your queue.

The big news in healthcare this week came from data releasedby CMS.More specifically, Medicare’s accountable care organizations generated nearly $500 million in savings in 2015. But there’s a downside too – nearly half of participants didn’t achieve any savings. What does this mean for the efficacy of ACOs? More on that below. Here’s what we’re […]

Drag and drop ICD-9 codes or CPT codes to re-arrange them within your billing information section. This will help you quickly clean up your billing throughout the day, so that you don’t have to take out extra time in your day to delete and add billing in the right order.

At Elation Health, we’re committed to strengthening the physician-patient relationship and providing intuitive tools for clinical first care.  Part of this commitment includes keeping physicians and staff informed about the latest healthcare news, technology trends, and policy updates that impact their practices and patients. We’re maintaining a set of healthcare-focused blogs where you can subscribe […]

As direct primary care practices continue to grow and thrive, DPC practitioners and those interested in the model must keep up with constantly evolving rules and regulations. Federal and state legislation, IRS Policy, and Medicare policy are all relevant topics for the direct primary care community to consider. Federal Legislation One notable piece of policy […]

Trying to add or remove a staff member or provider? Admin users can go to Settings > Manage Accounts and make these changes easily. Click here to find out more about how you can manage your accounts in Elation here!

This week, e-prescription vendor and Elation partner Surescripts released new data that 77 percent of prescriptions were electronically delivered last year, a jump from 67 percent in 2014 and 58 percent in 2013. With e-prescriptions growing in popularity, how can e-prescribing contribute to curbing the prescription drug epidemic that’s already cost thousands of lives? Here’s […]

Dear Elation Community, Tag your documents to save time and run complex reports Watch this 1-minute video to learn how our new Document Tags can help your practice

This week new health spending statistics were released, as it was widely reported that health spending grew more than twice as fast as GDP. Despite the fact that health spending growth has slowed down since the bump associated with Affordable Care Act’s expanded coverage, experts believe healthcare is steadily consuming more and more of the […]

Get a head start on PQRS for this year so that there is no last-minute scrambling! Click here to get an overview of PQRS now. If you have been on Elation since 1/1/15, you can choose to report using the EHR reporting method via Elation!

Direct Primary Care is gaining tremendous traction as an innovative alternative payment model for delivering outstanding care in the United States. Patients and physicians alike are seeing tangible benefits from a style of practice that champions the doctor-patient relationship. Dr. Ken Rictor, a provider from Scotland, PA has been practicing medicine for 28 years — […]

Comparing EMRs is always a tricky process when you only rely on what you’ve heard about the system. To truly understand an EMR, or any type of software for that matter, you are going to need to see a product demonstration.

It’s the first week of August and CMS finally identified the 14 payer regions that are eligible to participate in an innovative new primary care model called CPC+. The initiative is being dubbed the “largest-ever” move to change US primary care delivery and payment. So what do practices need to know before they decide to […]

Are your patients having trouble logging into their Passport account or want to update their log-in information? Take a look at our troubleshooting tips here to help patients out directly while you’re on the phone or seeing them.

Today, we shared some exciting news about something that has been in the works at Elation for quite some time: ElationEMR is now Elation Health. We’ve updated our name, branding, and website to reflect the impact we’re making on our physicians’ practices. Our focus remains on helping independent physicians provide high quality care to their […]

In building Elation, we spoke with many clinicians about what they would look for in their ideal EMR. What we quickly found is it wasn’t just the number of clicks or extra noting time each day that was causing frustration, it was the lack of customer support from the EMR company once initial training was […]

On Monday, the CMS announced the 14 regions that are eligible to participate in their five-year primary-care quality improvement initiative which allows practices to test out the new nationwide primary care model, Comprehensive Primary Care Plus (CPC+), which was announced in April. Those regions: Arkansas: Statewide Colorado: Statewide Hawaii: Statewide Kansas and Missouri: Greater Kansas […]

Instead of our usual one minute tip, we ask you today to explore multiple tips about Elation on your own. From your Practice Home page and any patient chart, click the “I need help!” button and select “Show me a map of this page”.

This week marked the end of convention season for our two mainstream parties. These conventions prompted discussions on health policy to the national stage. Democrats, who held their convention earlier this week, released a comprehensive plan for what they hope to enact during the next four years. This got us thinking — what will healthcare […]

Dear Elation Community, We’re excited to announce another upgrade to the Patient List tool: we added more information to the patient list results spreadsheet that you can download, making it possible to run a full demographic export of your patient panel on your own at any time. So, if you need a list of all […]

Elation had the opportunity to join hundreds of DPC practitioners at the annual Direct Primary Care Summit in Kansas City earlier this month. After three years under our belts as attendees, exhibitors and DPC enthusiasts, we were excited to have the opportunity to open the summit this year by sharing how Elation’s platform has supported […]

MU calculations should only count in visit notes that use E&M codes. If you document inpatient hospital notes for example, you can create a new visit note type called “Hospital” that will not count for MU. Click here to find out how you can set which visit note type to count in for MU calculations.

Unpacking Obama’s JAMA Article President Obama surprised the healthcare community when he unexpectedly published an article in JAMA — the first sitting President to accomplish such a feat (JAMA is notorious for its rigorous review standards, though the piece was not peer-reviewed). Six years in, the impact of Obama’s signature legislation can be felt in […]

Want to search patients by date-of-birth? Type in “DOB: MM/DD/YYYY” to the patient chart search tool and we will pull up the patients with that specific DOB! Click here for more details on how this looks like on Elation. Read more Tuesday tips by topic: add new provider and staff accounts yourself, sort your billing […]

Primary care was a hot topic in the news this week as the ongoing shortage of doctors, particularly in underserved areas, was addressed in part by the HHS Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). But will these programs help tackle the underlying forces driving the short-staffing of the primary care workforce? Here’s what we’re reading: […]

Dear Elation Community, Have you ever wanted to discover which of your patients never received an important vaccination? Or all of your patients who have diabetes, but are not prescribed the drug regimen approved for their age group? The upgrades to the Patient List tool, available today in Elation, will now enable you answer questions […]

The Medicare Access and CHIP Reimbursement Act of 2015 (MACRA), also known as the Quality Payment Program (QPP), was launched almost 4 months ago today. The act, which changed the way providers who see Medicare patients receive reimbursements to a value-based model, is one of the biggest policy changes impacting independent physicians. Even though MACRA […]

Direct primary care practices are growing in popularity. This model provides flexibility to providers to focus on their patients, allowing for individualized, convenient care while building a sustainable and scalable business. Building and growing a DPC practice can be both an exciting milestone and a daunting task. So what does it take to successfully grow […]

Who scheduled this patient’s appt? To view the entire audit trail of an appt, click the Actions menu that appears when you hover your mouse over each appointment and select View/Edit Details. Click here for more details on how this looks like on Elation and important notes on this functionality.

We’re more than halfway through the year and last week the headlines were dominated by an article published in JAMA by none other than President Obama — the first sitting President to publish an academic paper. The article discusses the successes and shortcomings of the ACA and proposes some next steps in improving our healthcare […]

Dear Elation Community, You’ve always had the ability to create lists of patients from your panel that meet specific criteria, like “all female patients over 60 diagnosed with Diabetes”. If you’re unfamiliar with this functionality in Elation, learn more about the Patient List tool and try it out for yourself! Today we’re announcing that for […]

Elation providers! You can set what format of visit note you want created for a specific appointment type by going to your Settings > Preferences > Default Visit Note Format by Encounter Type. Click here to learn how you can customize your scheduler even further.

We’re happy to announce a partnership with ScriptSave, a national prescription savings program where patients can save up to 75% on medications. There is no additional cost to Elation users to participate in this Program. There is no cost or enrollment required on the part of the patient.

Discussing healthcare technology and value-based care at the recent Value-Based Care Summit in Chicago, American Medical Association (AMA) Board of Trustees Secretary Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH, said, “Technology is a critically important driver of value-based care. If we don’t have functional systems in place — technology that is connected, easy to use, provides a […]

Merge reports that have already been filed into a patient’s chart, no need to send documents back into your Elation Fax Inbox: Go to the report you want to merge, click “More Actions” at the bottom and select “Merge into Another Report”. Click here for more details on how this looks like on Elation and […]

  Want to add an image to your visit note? Find an image on your computer you would like to attach, and drag and drop it directly into your open visit note. Click here for more details on how this looks like on Elation and important notes on this functionality.

Need to quickly search for all visit notes or a record of all vitals in a patient chart? Type in “notes” or “vitals” in your Search Chronological Record tool! Click here to find out what other items you can search in a patient chart.

Dear Elation Community, Today we’re excited to announce a few improvements that will help save time and reduce work for providers:

Author, doctor, teacher, thinker Dr. Abraham Verghese (Stanford University, CA) celebrates what is so beautiful about cardiology and being a doctor. Dr. Verghese spoke of two hearts; the one cardiologists heal and the organ that connects us as people. Read the entire article that stopped us in our tracks and had us standing to applaud […]

Waiting for legislation to be passed or for new regulations to be implemented can leave independent physicians struggling to determine how their practices should operate. The future of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is in doubt. Some Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) directives and demos have been delayed. Independent physicians have always been […]

Elation is a Software-as-a-Service company. That might not mean a lot to you. It’s not a phrase we use often. That’s because we believe that giving exceptional customer service is as important as building intuitive software.

Dear Elation Community, Today we’re excited to announce another way that you can customize Elation to better fit the needs of your practice – Flexible Report Types.

Last month Conan shared insight about our new-hire on-boarding process. Specifically, Elation’s requirement to shadow a provider and staff for an entire day. As I prepared for my day of shadowing, I read my colleagues’ post-shadow write-ups.

Perspective is a large part of our clinical first philosophy. We rely on perspective to guide our product development process. It helps us navigate critical decisions to ensure that we build clinical tools that support all of our users in their effort to deliver excellent care for their patients.

I’m still moved by what I learned the day I shadowed a private practice. For example, that day I got a glimpse of the extended care doctors give their patients who need their help.

Elation celebrates its providers and staff as heroes and heroines. I’m not a delicate flower. If there were a frequent flyer program for ambulatory care I’d have reached diamond status. My mother jokes that I single-handedly put our family doctor’s kids through college because I spent most of my childhood, half of adolescence, and freshman […]

I’m a User Success Specialist at Elation. And while my role at Elation maybe unfamiliar to you, the the providers and staff I support have a profound impact on me.

Last August we wrote about our NPS score and how our user community gave us praise that even Apple doesn’t get from its users. We were honored.

It’s no surprise that the US healthcare system “does not work as well as it could,” as researchers Martin Gaynor, PhD, Paul Ginsburg, PhD, and Farzad Mostashari, MD point out in a new report. Costs are high and inconsistent, care quality is similarly variable, and the market lacks “the innovation and dynamism” that enables other […]

Electronic medical records is an industry riddled with dissatisfaction. Physicians have aired their frustrations have aired their frustrations about usability and workflow, but the truth is they are unhappy with EMRs on all fronts. A study, conducted by Billian’s Healthdata, showed that 64% of physicians were “dissatisfied” with their EMR’s ease of use and a […]

A few weeks ago, Elation co-founder Kyna Fong and director Christian Piuma attended the 2014 Direct Primary Care Summit outside of DC. Direct Primary Care(DPC) is an innovative alternative payment model focused on providing affordable, comprehensive, and accessible primary care. We feel that both DPC and Elation were born out of a similar frustration with […]

Since Elation’s inception, we’ve been committed to building an EMR that’s clinical first, designed to meet physicians’ needs at the point of care. In keeping with this philosophy, two of our most important design objectives are intuitiveness and efficiency. Time is arguably the most valued resource for the healthcare provider, and each second saved by […]

We are pleased to announce that ElationEMR has been certified as a 2014 Meaningful Use Complete EHR. For providers who care for Medicare patients, don’t miss out on up to $12,000 in incentive dollars and avoid the 1% Medicare penalty by adopting Elation EMR by July 1, 2014.

Last weekend, Elation’s own Christian Piuma headed to the Maine Osteopathic Association’s 2014 convention in Rockport, Maine. We were invited to attend MOA 2014 by Elation user and MOA President, Jack Forbush, DO. After years of pain and failed expectations with numerous EMRs, Dr. Forbush fell in love with Elation. At MOA, he raved about […]

All-in-one EMR solutions may look sexy, but they can be your worst nightmare. That’s why we partner with other vendors to provide you with an integrated solution to meet your needs. Photo Credit: pennuja via Compfight cc “The whole point of electronic medical records is to allow the payers (insurance companies, not patients) to monitor, […]

Click the above image to view Conan Fong’s full presentation from his panel discussion at the annual meeting of the American Geriatrics Society. Earlier this month, Elation co-founder Conan Fong traveled to the annual meeting of the American Geriatrics Society and presented as part of a panel on using health IT to improve patient engagement. […]

  Our all-star user success team, led by Bob, Subu, and Karin, take care of you, so you can take care of your patients. I am awed by your customer service. You are responsive and thorough, knowledgeable and I am so lucky to have chosen your product. I am avoiding all the nightmare stories that […]

Doctors are in the business of making wishes. Not the ask-a-genie type, but rather the ask-a-patient type: “I wish for you to get this lab done.” “I wish for you to exercise more. Will you do it?” But how many patients voluntarily follow up with their doctors after an appointment to give an update on […]

Our team has spent years working tirelessly in service of a singular mission: building technology that puts the clinician first. This clinical first philosophy guides everything we do, and we’ve worked with our doctors to create products that work like they think, eliminating the pain they’ve experienced with other EMRs. Increasingly, we’re hearing from a […]

This week, we have a walkthrough of Elation’s CQM dashboard, medical billing and patient referral tips, a study on primary care appointment availability, and insights on employer health clinics. At Elation Health, we’re committed to strengthening the physician-patient relationship and providing intuitive tools for clinical first care.  Part of this commitment includes keeping physicians and […]

Patient portals are all the rage in health IT. But some physicians have been wary of them, concerned that offering patient portals will only add more uncompensated work to their already unmanageable workload. But patient portals, if done well, can save physicians time and increase patient satisfaction. Elation providers who offer Elation Patient Passport have […]

On Tuesday evening, we were proud to hold our first San Francisco community event at the breathtaking Pier 28 office of IDEO, one of our advisors. Users and guests participated in three breakout sessions to share insights, learn tips, and meet the Elation team. Meanwhile, as always, we learned a ton from our users. Here […]

When it comes to technology, physicians get a bad rap. They’re painted as Luddites, old-fashioned and resistant to change, where IT is concerned. Many people are shocked when they learn that physicians not only still use fax machines, but in fact, rely on them to send and receive patient information. How is it possible that […]

Elation Health co-founder Kyna Fong recently penned a guest post for EMR and HIPAA in which she explores whether today’s mainstream EHRs help physicians provide quality patient care. Kyna shares her interactions with physicians, who provide an in-the-trenches perspective on EHR usage, as a means of discussing what’s working and what’s not in the industry. […]

Last month we announced the release of Elation Provider Network (EPN), a completely new way for providers to connect and share patient information with one another. The service is ambitious, but its goal is simple: to power smart and effortless collaboration between providers and make it easier for them to care for patients. Why did […]

From Elation Health co-founder Kyna Fong: I was recently asked to write a blog post about Elation for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. I was an RWJF Scholar in Health Policy Research from 2008-2010 while on leave from my economics faculty position at Stanford.

Elation’s Risk Assessment feature, which allows users to track and manage their patients’ complexity using the Hierarchical Condition Category (HCC) system, is now available to all users using our Clinical First EHR. This feature enables real-time decision support and is embedded into Elation’s electronic health record.  A patient’s score provides a snapshot of a patient’s […]

Using an EHR efficiently and effectively can be a challenge, especially when you’re navigating between paper and digital systems. We’ve learned in partnership with our users how to solve common issues for any practice using either a Web-based or hosted EHR. Here are our top 9 tips:

From day one, we’ve been committed to achieving a higher standard of healthcare through delivering accurate, timely information to providers at the point of care. Today we’re excited to announce our newest service, The Elation Provider Network, designed to power smart and effortless collaboration between providers and make it easier for them to care for […]

In our last post, we examined the importance of empathy in understanding physicians’ needs and building a product they actually want to use. This week, Elation Health engineer Phill Tornroth (at right) gives us a first-person account of shadowing a physician—a core component of our hiring process—and how the experience influenced his approach to building […]

Elation Health is excited to announce the launch of our newly redesigned partners page. We’ve reimagined this page to make it easier than before to locate and find information about the dozens of partners that work with Elation’s Clinical First platform. At Elation, we know that an electronic health record (EHR) is a vital tool […]

Defining usability for an EHR is easy: The user interface must be easy to learn, efficient to operate and pleasant to use. Achieving usability is much more complex. It requires a core competency grown within all team members who have a hand in developing an EHR, and vendors must constantly invest in it. It’s important […]

It’s no secret. Just mentioning the subject of EHRs is enough to bring a blend of fury, resignation, and pain into the eyes of most doctors.

You’ve seen the headlines: “Physicians dissatisfied with EMR systems.” “Physicians air EMR frustrations.” Doctors are saying loud and clear that they’re tired of systems that don’t meet their needs. A recent survey found that nearly 1 in 4 physicians are so fed up with their existing systems that they are open to switching vendors. However, […]

The health care industry has focused on physician adoption numbers as a primary success metric. Most EHR vendors tout the number of physicians who have purchased or created a login for their EHR solution, or the number of patient charts created. At Elation, we’re taking a different approach. In this post, we’ll explain that approach, […]

At Elation, we are dedicated to defending the physician-patient relationship and helping physicians deliver phenomenal care.  Our team is focused on building clinical tools that make physicians’ lives easier, and we appreciate both the challenges and rewards that physicians face in each of their busy days. That’s why it means so much to us when […]

When people in the healthcare industry ask us, “What is Elation?”, they’re often expecting us to respond with an acronym. The healthcare industry relies on an alphabet soup of acronyms to define various product categories. Within the Health IT space alone, you have EMR, EHR, PHR, HIE, REC, and many more. Exploring where these acronyms […]

At Elation, we’re fiercely committed to supporting the front lines of patient care, and everything about us – from the way we design and build our products right down to the name we chose for our company – demonstrates this commitment. We often get asked why we’re named Elation. Perfectly understandable, given it isn’t an […]

As founders who talk to physicians about their patients and practices on a daily basis, we understand the power a single story has to breathe life into a complex issue. As we officially kick off the Elation blog with this post, we’d like to share a little about our own story: how we see the […]

Templates can be an essential, time-saving feature that enables independent physicians to provide more dedicated care to their patients. But poorly-designed templates can be just as time-consuming and frustrating as using no templates at all. Even worse, ill-conceived templating features can compromise patient safety. Elation’s visit note templates are different. Designed with the physician in […]

Yesterday, Senate Republicans announced that they lacked enough votes to move their legislation to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, forward. With this latest bill effectively dead, policy analysts believe an overhaul of Obamacare is less likely than before. What’s happened so far? In March 2017, the American Health […]

Republicans in the Senate recently revealed an updated draft of a plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA). This new bill, dubbed the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), is broadly similar to the bill introduced in the House earlier this year. But this 142-page piece of legislation – and a revision released […]

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released a proposed rule for 2018 that marks the first major changes to the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA). This proposed rule, which totals 1,058 pages, “would make changes in the second year of MACRA’s Quality Payment Program (QPP), with the aim […]

While you continue to provide your patients with the care that they need and deserve, we will keep providing you with timely, relevant information for everything from health policy, to tips for running a successful practice because we support independent physicians and their goals to  spend less time trying to keep up with the headlines […]

Comprehensive Primary Care Plus (CPC+) is a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) incentive program aimed at improving patient health and outcomes by augmenting the way Primary Care Physicians get paid. CPC+ adds monthly Care Management Fees, the standard Medicare Fee Schedule based payments, as well as incentive payments based on performance in the […]

What is the relationship between primary care and care coordination? Most patients, particularly those who are critically ill or elderly, see more than one medical care provider. They are referred to specialists or sent to outside medical facilities for tests or procedures. Primary care coordination is a critical piece of overall care management for these […]

Keeping up with healthcare and finding the right information can be challenging and time-consuming – especially for independent physicians that would rather direct any much-needed time toward their patients. In order to make it easier for physicians provide care, we recently launched seven new targeted blogs that cover some of the healthcare topics independent physicians […]

This week, we have an introduction to Elation’s new visit note templates, the PCPCC’s vision for primary care, ideas for making MACRA less demanding for physicians, definitions to important patient engagement terms and discussions on the Florida DPC bill. At Elation Health, we’re committed to strengthening the physician-patient relationship and providing intuitive tools for clinical […]

Today we made an announcement about our efforts to support the independent primary care physicians that are participating and interested in participating in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Comprehensive Primary Care Plus (CPC+) program. CPC+ is an incentive program launched in January 2017 that rewards primary care physicians for delivering high-quality care […]

While Congress continues to debate and rework the nation’s health care plan, many uncertainties linger. As of July 2017, the future of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, or any revision of the ACA remains unclear. Regardless of what happens with the ACA, however, there are a number of healthcare trends that […]

At the practice level, accurate data is imperative for appropriate patient treatment plans and for reimbursement purposes. When data is not accurate, mistakes can be made. Accurate data is also important at the administrative level, when efforts are made to track provider information to ensure records are current. The Council for Affordable Quality Healthcare (CAQH) […]