The Medical Front Office

The Front Office

Easy to Create Internet Presence Why would a medical office want a high quality Internet presence? If you are an emerging "virtual medical provider" then the answer is obvious, but what about a "bricks and mortar" primary care provider or clinic? One answer is that more and more patients expect it and are seeking access to more information about their health conditions online. Another reason is that in the new healthcare universe (Health 2.0) providers will need to compete fiercely for patients by differentiating themselves from the competition. A high quality online presence is likely to become, sooner rather than later, a matter of economic survival. First movers will have an advantage in their respective geographies. Read more Practice Management, Electronic Records & e-Prescribing There is probably no greater “pain point” for providers than the constant challenge of billing and reimbursements. With a bewildering array of claims submissions processes from a variety of payers, it is no surprise that a significant number of claims are rejected due to improper coding. To make matters worse, the rules frequently change. With the pressing movement toward e-Prescribing, Electronic Medical Records (EMR/EHR), and Personal Health Records (PHR) the choices for a Medical Office are daunting. Moreover, the wrong choice could waste thousands of dollars and hours of staff time. Want to watch a video of an EHR/EMR in action? Click here to see a video of how a physician uses an EMR. Read More Clinical Data Management: Crossing the Healthcare IT Chasm There is a significant amount of discussion regarding how clinical data should be managed in order to better serve the goal of improved patient outcomes. How clinical data is managed is obviously foundational to providers and extends significantly beyond any narrow definition of what might be included today in an electronic health record (EHR/EMR). According to a recent IOM report, and widely acknowledged by leading healthcare IT commentators, the lion's share of prior investments in healthcare IT has been made in transactional systems, and not in the kinds of systems that handle unstructured data and other rich media necessary to support providers in the acquisition of clinical knowledge. Unstructured digital media ranges from genetic fingerprints to lab and radiology results. The ability for providers to store, organize and search unstructured data will become an increasingly important component of healthcare delivery. Read More Enhance Communication & Collaborate with Colleagues Although providers have been slow to adopt email as a mode of communication with patients because of HIPAA, privacy, and other reasons, that may soon be changing.  Patients will come to expect providers to be electronically enabled, including the millions of retiring baby boomers. It is simply the way a large section of the population communicates, and healthcare providers can no longer afford to be the last of the Luddites. Those that refuse to engage will likely be at a competitive disadvantage. In addition, giving the "data sharing imperatives" acknowledged by the IOM and others, providers may soon be required to collaborate with patients, colleagues, and other stakeholders via non-traditional methods. Read more Clinical Knowledge Management (KM) Clinical knowledge management is defined as information about medicine that originates from experience, research, and knowledge of clinical conditions in the industry. Medical knowledge changes rapidly and often healthcare professionals find it difficult to keep up, thus relevant medical knowledge that should be brought to bear is not always available or used for healthcare decisions.As discussed above in the section on Clinical Data Management, medical knowledge (both within the practice and in the healthcare industry) is key to making the right decisions, for the right patient, at the right time, and for the right reasons. It is widely recognized that it is impossible for providers to know everything there is to know about general medicine. Worse still, it is now often impossible for providers to keep abreast of developments even in their individual specialties because medical knowledge quickly evolves. There are now mature enabling technologies that will allow for significant progress in managing clinical information, conditioned on the premise that the healthcare industry as a whole, and individual providers in particular, can improve the means through which clinical knowledge is aggregated, published and disseminated. Read more