Determining a budget
Next on your to-do list is money management. Determining how to pay for an EHR (they don’t fall off trees, remember?) plays a huge role in whether you proceed and how you proceed with EHR adoption and implementation.
We recommend including line items for the following:
Hardware
Software
Chart conversion
Training
Installation
Network connectivity
Workflow redesign
Loss of productivity
Initial tech support
Additional fees associated with training (travel expenses for offsite personnel or vendor reps, catering, and so on)
Annual software maintenance, upgrades, and support
Hardware upgrades or replacement
Construction or facility fees (for example, adding permanent hardware or changing a file room to a patient exam room)
Miscellaneous
You can read more about the specifics of EHR costs and budgeting in Chapter 5.
After you settle on a budget that works for your organization, you have to pay for all these EHR goodies. Thankfully, you have options, and you don’t necessarily have to set aside a huge chunk of your annual organizational budget at one time:
Paying upfront: This is exactly what it sounds like — you pay out your entire EHR budget. Obviously, you can’t pay for ongoing costs ...
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