Ophthalmology EHR Software Buyers Guide
Last updated: September 27, 2023
Buying Ophthalmology EHR Software for your Medical Organization
As a respected specialist helping people look after one of their greatest assets—their eyes—you as an ophthalmologist face unique challenges and victories daily. When you're considering adding a new EHR software program to your practice, you want it to increase the winnings, not cause more challenges. To guarantee that, you need a quality, specialty oriented EHR.
Of course, any EHR product must be user friendly, ultra-secure against hacking and provide excellent customer service to ensure minimal downtime. And don't forget ICD-10 codes.
But are you aware of the unique features an EHR for ophthalmologists can have in our technologically advanced world? To help you with this, we have compiled the essential factors that you must add to your list of considerations as an ophthalmologist:
- What is an Ophthalmology EHR software?
- Standard Features of Ophthalmology Software
- Solutions for Ophthalmology
- Features to Look for in an EHR Software
- EMR Software by Practice Size
- Ophthalmology EHR Software Workflow
- Critical Considerations for Ophthalmology Software
- Personalize Your Ophthalmology Electronic Medical Records
- The Cost of an Ophthalmology EHR Software
- Which Ophthalmology EHR vendors should you consider?
- Market Trends to Understand
What is an Ophthalmology EHR software?
Ophthalmology is a medical specialty that deals with the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of eye disorders. An ophthalmologist works to improve vision in patients by diagnosing treating their eye problems. They face unique challenges and require an EMR system that helps them manage patient encounters efficiently – one that does not increase challenges for them. Ophthalmologic EMR systems help users provide comprehensive eye care. It offers templates focused on macular degeneration, glaucoma, cataract, and more. These systems are designed to provide users with efficient documentation, seamless communication, intuitive workflow, and staff productivity.
Standard Features of Ophthalmology EMR
Optometry or Ophthalmology templates
Specialty EMR systems offer SOAP notes templates that are designed to cater to a specific practice. An EMR designed for optometry will include templates for blurred or lost vision, eye examinations, entropion or ectropion, conjunctivitis, lens evaluation, ocular surgeries, corneal conditions, corrective laser procedures, and many more.
Catering to Ophthalmology Sub-specialties
A good ophthalmology EHR Software should cater to sub-specialty within the domain by providing tools and expertise that cater to specific diagnosis in patients and provider types. For example, in case of ophthalmology Modernizing medicine provides EMRs that cater to:
- Oculoplastics
- Retina Specialists
- Glaucoma patients
- Cataract specialists and refractive surgeons
- Pediatric ophthalmology
Vision testing device integration
A specialty EMR will allow ophthalmologists to integrate their practice's keratometer, autorefractor, and other devices, supporting diagnosis and populating the workflow template quickly.
Detailed eye graphics
The software offers multiple diagrams to enable the provider to document ocular occlusions or other such problems graphically.
Eye-care expert workflow management
An ophthalmology practice should have workflows that meet the requirements of the eye care experts, offering online scheduling, testing, and visual field examination, ordering of corrective lenses, follow-up visit reminders, and diagnosis.
Coding and prescription assistance
Once the results and devices are integrated into the software, the EMR can recommend ICD-9/CPT codes and prescriptions, reducing the chances of under prescribing diagnoses and lenses.
Solutions for Ophthalmology EMR
- Clinical Insights
- Simple and Powerful EMR System
- Built-In DICOM Imaging
- Flexsys Optical
- Improved Patient Care
- Solution for different practices
Image Management
- View, Diagnose, Interpret, & Bill
- Powerful Imaging Options
- Improved Patient Safety and Enhanced Productivity
- Better Image Results
- Options to Interact with Images
Revenue Management
Get advanced analytics to help users make informed strategic decisions. Have instantaneous insights into your practice's billing data.
It simplifies patient records, offers flexible reporting metrics, and streamlines scheduling.
Features to Look for an Ophthalmology EHR System
| Medical Billing | Medical Billing systems manage the submission of insurance claims and automate the development of patient statements. Key features include coding, payment posting, eligibility inquiry, e-claim submission, claim scrubbing, and reporting. |
| Patient Scheduling | This module helps users automate the entire process of scheduling patient appointments. Key features include sending reminders via text message, phone, and email, multi-location support, and automated follow-ups. |
| Picture archiving and communications systems | PACS helps users to manage, store, and retrieve DICOM images. These systems are used in combination with a Radio Information System (RIS). |
| Medical Accounting | This module helps users automate accounting processes for medical practices. Essential functions include A/P, A/R, financial reporting, and general ledger. |
EMR Software by Practice Size
You must pick a software package that suits your practice size. There's a difference in needs between managing multiple practices and simply operating from one site. Your EHR must be able to handle the unique challenges of multi-site operations. Also, there's no need to pay for that feature if you'll never use it.
- Solo or Small Practices
Small practices usually have a small office space and a limited number of staff members as they don't have big budgets. Therefore, they prefer cloud-based EMR solutions and consider affordable options.
- Mid-Sized Practices
These practices require multiple tools and features such as multi-device support, dedicated customer support, interoperability, and extensive reporting functionality to track their overall performance.
- Large practices
Larger medical practices cover services for multiple medical specialties such as Chiropractic Medicine, Pain Management, Surgery, Orthopedics, Family Medicine, etc. These practices usually include fifteen to twenty medical providers and require multiple users to access the systems simultaneously.
- Enterprise organizations or Hospitals
Enterprise organizations or hospitals have the most challenging set of requirements. These are documented in the form of an RFP or RFI to shortlist vendors that can adapt to their workflows.
Ophthalmology EHR Software Workflow
- Offers eye test templates, including diabetes, cataracts, degeneration, high blood pressure, glaucoma, macular degeneration, etc.
- Patient education materials: URTI, dry eyes, etc.
- Provides customized SOAP note templates, E&M coding assistance, etc.
Critical Considerations for Ophthalmology Software
When looking for the right ophthalmology EHR Software solution for your practice, keep your requirements in mind and consider them based on their importance. We have listed down some parameters that will help you choose the best solution:
- Choose the right deployment model: You must decide between a cloud-based system and an on-premise system. With the latter, your data will be held on servers, which means you start by making a huge capital investment. The benefit here is that you have control of your data, and if you already have servers, this is often an ideal option. However, remember that a cloud-based system can easily be set up for mobile use of data so you can access patient files via digital devices no matter where you operate. That's ideal if your activities are both hospital and practice-based.
- Offers ophthalmology-specific features: Many generic EMR systems do not cut for ophthalmology practices. Therefore, these practices require ophthalmology-specific EMR systems that provide features relevant to the specialty. Some of these features include integration with visual field machines (autorefractors, keratometers), ICD/CPT codes, graphical diagrams, and other ophthalmic tools.
Personalize Your Ophthalmology Electronic Medical Records
Users can certainly run a smooth and profitable ophthalmology practice with a specialty-specific EMR software. Just to clear away any fogginess, it is imperative to say that an effective EMR will drive the growth of your practice in today's health care market. There's a room for personalization in some eye-care systems, and users must take full advantage of that.
The Cost of an Ophthalmology EHR Software
It is tough to get pricing for specialty EMR systems as the cost varies according to the size, the method of deployment, and the requirements of practice. Usually, specialty-specific EHRs, such as Ophthalmology EMR software, cost around $100 or $200 more than the average cost of a generic cloud-based EMR software.
Which Ophthalmology EHR vendors should you consider?
The vendor offers a web-based certified EHR, revenue cycle management, practice management, and patient portal. The platform includes built-in templates specific to ophthalmology that can be customized to suit a practice's workflow.
CureMD
Modernizing Medicine offers an Electronic Medical Assistant® (EMA™) for ophthalmology practice that includes an iPad and cloud-based EHR and practice management solution. Other than its EHR functionality, the EMA Ophthalmology supports outcome-based reimbursement and quality of care reporting.
- EyeMD EMR
A solution designed by ophthalmologists for ophthalmologists, EyeMD EMR, offers multiple features, including integration with the IRIS Registry and built-in DICOM imaging to automate both patient care and clinical discovery.
Market Trends to Understand
The ophthalmology EMR market is gradually developing with advanced solutions. We have listed here some current market trends in the ophthalmology EMR market space:
High-quality retinal imaging: Most non-invasive technology-based devices allow ophthalmology practitioners to take scans of the posterior segment and capture high-resolution photos. These devices are significantly replacing the traditional methods of performing retinal angiography.
Combination of surgical and diagnostic devices: The integration of surgical and diagnostic devices into fully integrated EMR software is gaining popularity. These systems allow users to share information and automate the entire surgical process.
Introduction of in-office electrophysiology device: These in-office electrophysiology devices are designed to simplify the complicated battery of tests. It captures electroretinogram (ERG) and exclusively visual-evoked potential (VEP) tests that are simple for the patient to undertake and easy for physicians to understand.
The above trends can help make you aware of the latest breakthroughs in the ophthalmology EHR Software market. They can also help you in selecting the best EMR software from a plethora of options.
