Electronic Health Records For Dummies

Improving billing accuracy and claims

You already know that implementing your EHR will save you time in the end; however, an EHR can also affect profitability by improving billing and claims accuracy. How you manage the EHR has a lot to do with ensuring those improvements.

Some EHRs base their functions on collections and billing analysis. If you want to make sure you and your staff improve in those areas and are interested in having the EHR help you do this, ask your vendor about how your new e-toy can maximize that focus.

Coding is the key to making sure your EHR is actually helping you improve in these areas. Your EHR will most likely offer drop-down lists of codes for the purpose of recording patient visits. This saves your staff from chasing down the right codes, but it can also become rote and disallow individual alterations based on specific patient needs. For example, if a patient presents with a skin condition that may have symptoms not typically associated with a skin disorder, the EHR may not prompt you or your staff to mark it, thus missing an opportunity for accurate coding. This could then affect the final billing or claim. You have to educate staff on ways to overcome this obstacle. Ask your vendor to provide training.

Although the EHR offers prompts, reminders, and ...