Selecting a practice management system for your independent practice

Selecting a practice management system for your independent practice August 17, 2017

When it comes to the administrative side of an independent practice, physicians and their staff need a reliable practice management system to ease the burdens of payments, billing, check-ins, patient appointment reminders, and other important tasks. Understanding what’s needed in such a system and then selecting the right system for the practice’s needs can be done by considering some important factors.

A recent Physicians Practice article outlines the essential considerations an independent physician must review when selecting a practice management system. Those features include:

• Integration: The practice management system should be fully integrated with the practice’s electronic health record (EHR) system to streamline the workflow. Elation offers a practice management system that enables the independent practice to easily manage appointments, check-ins, and copays right from the Clinical EHR. 
• Simplicity, flexibility, and adaptability: It is important for the system to be easy to learn and easy to use, for it to be useful for the practice.
• Electronic transactions: The independent physician practice must be able to depend on the practice management system for transactions such as billing, prior approval, and other tasks that could become much more time-consuming without the electronic transaction ability.
• Reporting and inventory management: Understanding the practice’s financial situation at any given time is crucial to the success of an independent physician’s practice. A system that enables the practice to view and track outstanding accounts and other expenses, as well as available resources within the practice, can help the independent physician succeed in this area.
• Other costs involved: Some practice management systems require training and ongoing support for effective use by the independent practice. Elation Health works with our clients to provide the training they need to ensure they are able to navigate the system efficiently and effectively.

With Elation’s practice management system, physicians and their clinical staff are able to automatically send electronic appointment reminders, print appointment reviews, simplify the practice’s to-do list, and improve their practice by understanding their data. Independent practices can begin tracking the practice’s performance, clinical quality measures, and meaningful use criteria measures.