Medical practice management software helps clinicians stay on top of their daily operations while giving the most attention to what’s really important: patient care. We’ll get into the nitty-gritty of practice management software and how it works together with other solutions, like Electronic Health Records (EHR).
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What Is Practice Management Software?
Medical practice management system handles the day-to-day operations of a medical practice. Think about it as the “oil” in a well-oiled machine, keeping everything running smoothly.
It bridges the gap between clinical duties, including diagnosis documentation and generating procedure codes, and administrative work, such as appointment scheduling, insurance management and medical billing tasks, like processing claims.
While it definitely helps clinicians get the job done, practice management systems don’t deal with the medical side as directly — that’s where tools like EHR come in. More on that in a bit.
Key Features
Here are some of the main features of practice management software and how they can help your practice.
- Dashboard and Reporting: Gain insights into key aspects of the practice, ranging from patient visits and treatment notes to accounts receivable, expenses, inventory and employee performance.
- Billing and Claims Management: Generate individual patient quotes and bills, and streamline payment collection.
- Personalized Calendar: Schedule appointments remotely. View notes like patient details and treatment progress to ensure appropriate care, and check equipment and bed status to confirm availability.
- Clinical Management: Store and access key medical documents, including health records, treatment notes, prescriptions and lab test results.
Some additional tools that come with this functionality include:
- Assessment notes
- E-prescription
- Dose calculator
- In-clinic patient tracking
- Medication history
- Voice transcription
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Practice Management Software vs. EHR
The keyword in practice management software is “practice” — it’s all about the day-to-day operations of your business, what it takes to keep things running. It helps staff schedule appointments, keep track of billing and manage the overall flow of the office.
EHR, on the other hand, helps doctors organize patient health information, which can get pretty hairy otherwise, especially if you’re dealing with complex cases or a high volume of clients. It stores all of your patients’ medical information, diagnoses, medications and treatment plans.
It’s worth noting that the two softwares are generally made to integrate. Since they cater to what are essentially both sides of a medical practice, bringing both in provides more complete support.
Key Differences
Let’s take a look at what distinguishes the two:
| Medical Practice Management | EHR |
| Doesn’t require information sharing | Provides data-sharing capabilities |
| Office managers and receptionists are primary users. | Doctors, nurses and care staff members are primary users. |
| Doesn’t provide government incentives for implementation. | Provides incentives for implementation. |
Automation
Both EHR and practice management software feature automation. Practice management software automates tasks such as organizing appointments and scheduling specific tasks.
It also lets you store and reuse patient data after the first visit, including names, demographics, insurance coverage, contact information, etc.
The automation functionality in EHR is more clinically focused, helping physicians identify and forecast health patterns to determine things like allergies, diagnoses or treatment plans.
Incentivization
Unlike practice management software, the Federal Department of Health and Human Services prompts and incentivizes the use of EHRs with an aim to increase the overall quality of healthcare. Eligible medical providers can earn tens of thousands of dollars simply for implementing an electronic health records system in their practice.
These EHR incentives are really just icing on the cake for health care facilities, who generally notice an increase in their bottom line when they start using EHR.
Data Sharing
Most practice management data is clinic- and organization-specific and doesn’t require information sharing with third parties.
On the other hand, EHR helps doctors, staff, patients and other health care agencies securely exchange data. This collaboration improves decision-making and treatment outcomes.
Primary Users
The people who use practice management software are mostly office managers and front desk staff. EHR is mostly handled by medical staff, like doctors, dentists and nurses. Both types of software work to increase productivity in the practice, essentially from different sides.
Clinicians who only need admin tools can use practice management software to streamline their workflows without the broader set of electronic modules (and potentially higher costs) of a full EHR system.
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Similarities
Despite their different functions in a medical office, practice management and EHR solutions have some overlap.
Data Centralization
Both systems serve as centralized repositories for storing all your patient information, covering demographics, appointment details, staff assignments, consultation notes and diagnostic test results.
This consolidated approach makes it easy to get the data you need as soon as you need it. It also significantly reduces potential for both medical and admin errors, including invoicing mistakes, appointment scheduling conflicts, duplicate tests, adverse drug interactions or inappropriate treatment decisions.
Workflow Optimization
Both EHR and practice management solutions can help you streamline appointment scheduling, enabling staff to access real-time provider availability, book slots and management patient schedules.
Medical billing features expedite revenue cycle management, reduce billing errors and optimize cash flow, enhancing profitability and billing accuracy.
Customization and Configuration
Whether you buy a practice management solution or an EHR (or both, since the two work well together), you can customize dashboards and other functionalities that serve your office’s unique needs.
Each type of software comes with configurable settings and templates to meet specialty-specific requirements.
EHR vs. EMR
EHR may sound a lot like EMR, but they’re not quite the same.
While both handle patient health information, EHRs provide more comprehensive records, pulling from multiple providers or facilities. An EMR, or Electronic Medical Record, is maintained by one provider and contains information from a single practice or facility, like a patient’s chart note from a doctor’s appointment.
EMRs are useful — but, as EMR/EHR expert Dr. Akhil Malhotra explains, they’re limited, and can’t provide “a one-size-fits-all solution for all doctors.” He also notes that EMRs are challenging for practices that have “more than one speciality, and hence cannot choose a single speciality-focused EMR.”
Basically, an EMR is helpful for a doctor within their specialty and practice, but may not offer a complete picture of complex cases, or if their patient sees other specialists.
EHRs come with the advantage of not only containing patient health information, but also tracking and consolidating that across their entire medical history and healthcare journey.
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Why Choose Practice Management Software?
Whether you’re looking to increase your admin team’s productivity or streamline your daily activities, a practice management solution can be your silver bullet. Here are some of the benefits you stand to reap.
Save Time
Using practice management software can significantly reduce your staff’s daily workload by making it easier to handle admin tasks and retrieve important data.
Documentation modules also streamline the clinical side, helping you prepare treatment notes, create forms, fill out necessary documents and organize patient medical records.
Reduce No-Shows
Appointment scheduling through the software sets automated reminders for upcoming patient visits and appointments, keeping everyone in the loop.
You can also give patients access to a dedicated patient portal, which not only gives them more control over their own care, but also makes them aware of upcoming appointments and allows them to make changes.
Improve Communication
Practice management solutions streamline both internal and external communications. You can contact patients and other third parties from the comfort of your desk, cutting out the middleman of reception. Office staff and clinicians can easily exchange medical information through secure communication channels.
Minimize Costs
In addition to streamlining day-to-day operations, helping you get more bang for your buck, practice management software also offers insight into key processes and workflows, which helps you identify and eliminate inefficiencies.
Use the software to analyze things like patient flow, inventory and expenditures usage to ensure you’re allocating resources efficiently and cutting unnecessary costs.
Software Selection Strategy
There are a lot of software products on the market, so planning ahead and comparing your options helps ensure you end up with the right pick. We suggest using a two-pronged approach.
Determine Your Requirements
- Meet with stakeholders and department heads to pinpoint practice needs and areas of improvement.
- Gather feedback from staff who would be working directly with the software to see what would support them best.
- Create a list of essential features that you can’t do without.
- Conduct research and get recommendations from colleagues to gain more comprehensive insight into your options.
Shortlist Software Vendors
- Look into how vendors and their products cater to industry standards and typical medical practice operations.
- Discuss your needs in-depth with potential vendors, including requirements specific to your practice, like customization options.
- Get a clear picture of service level agreements and cost transparency.
In today’s market, medical software platforms are much more diversified and come chock full of specialized components to help practices do everything from patient consultation to billing. So, while the odds are in your favor, taking these steps ensures the software you pick is the most ideal your practice can get.
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FAQs
Some potential downsides of practice management software include:
- Cost: These systems can be expensive due to subscription, licensing, implementation, training and maintenance fees.
- Learning Curve: Staff need time and resources to learn how to operate new software and adjust to changes in their workflow.
- Security Issues: Storing data electronically poses security risks. The system needs strong security measures to protect sensitive information.
- Long-Term Contracts: Some vendors require long-term contracts, locking you in for extended periods.
There are two types of systems:
- On-Premise: Data is stored on physical servers at your practice. You have full control but need to manage the servers yourself (or hire someone). This option might be better for smaller practices.
- Cloud-Based: Data is stored on a remote server that requires internet access to use. This is ideal for larger practices with multiple locations since it’s more flexible and maintenance is handled by the vendor.
Some key benefits for patients include:
- Improved Appointment Scheduling: Patients can book online appointments using the patient portal and set automated reminders for upcoming visits.
- Enhanced Communication: Patients can interact directly with providers through secure messages, and review lab test reports, prescriptions, treatment summaries and more.
- More Control Over Care: Patient portals provide direct access to medical records, as well as tools to explore and pursue different care options, like other specialists within the practice.
Medical practice management software focuses on the administrative side of a doctor’s office. It helps manage appointments, scheduling, billing, patient records (often integrated with EHR) and staff communication.
Telemedicine solutions, on the other hand, deal with virtual doctor visits. They provide the technology platform for conducting secure video consultations with patients remotely, allowing for diagnosis, treatment plans and even follow-ups without needing a physical visit.
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Next Steps
Practice management software is a great addition to any medical office, especially when you bring in other tools, like EHR, to build on its capabilities. If you’re ready for the next step, try our free, intuitive comparison report to check out how top products stack up.
So, does your practice use practice management software, EHR or EMR (so many acronyms!)? If not, what are you looking for in a practice management solution? Let us know in the comments below!
SME Contributor
Dr.Akhil Malhotra is a healthcare professional with over a decade of experience in the private and public healthcare sector. A Masters in Public Health, he specializes in Healthcare Informatics, EHR product development, and Clinical Decision Support Systems.