Emergency Medicine EMR Software Buyers Guide
Last updated: December 06, 2023
Emergency Medicine EHR Software - A Guide to Help You Make the Right Decision
Urgent care clinics or emergency medical facilities often witness a fast-paced and high-volume workflow. For this reason, they need an electronic health record (EHR) or an electronic medical record (EMR) solution to effectively manage and control their tasks. For instance, it allows them to expedite patient check-in and wait times while formulating complaint charts quickly and effectively. Apart from this, it also offers the robustness that is needed in emergency medicine for solving more complex problems.
In addition to this, the majority of urgent care centers require specialized coding and billing to maximize profit margins and revenues. In this buyer’s guide, we are going to help you navigate through the complex EHR software market so you can make the right decision for your practice.
What is Emergency Medicine EHR software?
Emergency Medicine EMR software makes it easy for urgent care doctors and professionals to efficiently manage their overwhelming workflow. On the other hand, you also need EHR software that is streamlined to handle the unique workflow of an emergency care center. As compared to other specialty-specific EMR software, an Emergency Medicine EMR is optimized and customized (with appropriate templates) to provide higher value and lower their overall cost. In addition to this, high-quality EMR software will also provide significant templates such as work accident forms and workers’ compensation forms.
What Features to look for in an Emergency Medicine EHR Software?
Here are some features you must make sure are offered by the Emergency Medicine EMR solution you choose.
Electronic & Bubble Sheet Intake Forms: The majority of EMR solutions include forms for patient intake which are designed to reduce wait times and expedite the check-in process. In this way, electronic check-ins can link directly to the digital physician’s note and verify insurance. Furthermore, they can also track the amount of time that the patient spends in the waiting room for quality assurance.
Custom Urgent Care SOAP Note Templates: The majority of the patients that come to emergency care facilities have rather simple complaints. The primary purpose of emergency care is to make this process easier by charting these visits quickly. They also require a clinical database that is sufficiently comprehensive so it can handle complex cases. You need to make sure the template fits the workflow that is needed for your facility.
Medical Equipment Interface: Your EMR software should be able to connect to different types of diagnostic tools used in urgent care facilities, such as EKGs, X-rays, radiology, Holter monitors, and more.
Urgent Care e-prescriptions: E-prescriptions allow physicians to directly send prescriptions to the pharmacy on-site from the EMR software. In this way, emergency medicine EMR reduces administrative cost, paper usage, and risk of error.
Urgent care E&M Billing Assistance: In order to increase workflow and ensure efficient performance, emergency medicine EMR features specialized codes, such as after-hour services or specialized procedures like laceration repairs and fracture treatment. They will also help to make the billing process easier for different payers, including Medicare, self-pay, Medicaid, worker’s compensation claims, employers, group health insurance, etc.
Guide for Choosing an Emergency Medicine EMR Vendor:
Now that we’ve narrowed down which features you should look for, it’s also important to understand what type of Emergency Medicine EHR Software vendor you should go for.
Vendor and Practice Size: The first thing you should look at is the size of the companies a vendor typically aims for. In addition, the size of your practice also matters. You don’t want to select an EHR vendor that caters to only small practices, while your practice falls under the category of large. Usually, vendors that cater to large practices have a high-cost Emergency Medicine EMR software.
Vendor Certification: You don’t want to get involved with a non-certified vendor because that’ll bring only trouble to your practice. For Emergency Medicine, keep an eye for the ONC-Authorized testing and certification body (ONC-ATCB) and make sure your EMR software is ONC-ATCB Certified.
System Design: This refers to whether you would like to install the Emergency Medicine EMR Software on-site in your server, or use a cloud-based solution. Although cloud-based solutions are more advantageous, personal preference often comes into play here. In either case, you’ll need to find an EMR vendor that provides services according to your system design preference.
Even after finalizing your EMR vendor, you can use an Emergency Medicine EMR software demo to make sure if it’s according to your style. Emergency Medicine EMR software companies make tutorials to make it easier for you to get the hang of the software.
What’s the Final Step?
After you’ve understood all the features and decided on a few potential vendors, you can compare their Emergency Medicine EMR software pricing. When you reach a vendor that’s providing you with all the services, features, support and the Emergency Medicine EMR software’s cost is also to your liking, you can take the final step and move towards implementation.
