Medical billing software provides increased convenience for providers, less tracking of paperwork and a more streamlined office. Physicians no longer spend valuable administrative time looking for records and retrieving past patients medical records from off-site storage facilities. Medical billing software can save money by avoiding claim denials and avoid the possibility of submitting incorrectly formatted claims.

EMR (electronic medical records) software can make your practice more efficient and support your patients in numerous ways. Here are five major reasons to make the transition from paper to EMR.

Medical practices rely on diagnostic and in-patient procedure codes to properly identify, track and document diagnoses for diseases and injuries, as well as classify signs, symptoms, complains and abnormal findings, among other issues. Thanks to an approaching shortage of assignable medical codes and obsolete terminology, a new set of standards must be placed into effect to better serve healthcare providers, payers and other intermediary organizations.

The government has made it known that electronic medical records are the wave of the future and they are implementing incentives to make it more attractive for early adopters to secure services now. If your eligible practice begins using medical records software from a valid medical software company, you can receive incentives by meeting the 2015 deadlines for Stage 2 Meaningful Use implementation. Starting the process now ensures that your practice has the time to learn how to use and effectively implement an EMR system to qualify as a "meaningful user" according to the CMS.gov Web site.

Medical billing software helps to prevent mistakes, enhances your patient experience and provides you with a streamlined interface for managing all of your practices expenses. Billing systems need to effectively manage payments from your patients, while alerting you to accounts that need special attention. Electronic Health Records can be integrated with your billing solution to further simplify invoice tracking and billing processes.

One of the complaints many doctors have had about adopting electronic health records (EHR) is the cost of the software the physicians are required to purchase from a medical software company. Physicians frequently overlook the return they receive on their investment with the money they save by using electronic health records.

The ICD (International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems) is a list compiled by the World Health Organization, containing a comprehensive medical classification. It includes alphanumeric codes for various diseases, the signs and symptoms which are indicative of them, abnormal findings, varying social circumstances affecting medical conditions, in addition to external causes of injury and/or disease. The ICD-10 is its 10 edition.

Stage 2 meaningful use is the second phase of the incentive program for electronic health records (EHRs). It calls on all hospitals, physicians and medical care providers to increase the interoperability of all health information and adopt standardized formats. It is a giant leap forward towards the secure exchange of medical information between patients and providers. Having the right information regarding a patient is a matter of life and death. The successful operability of stage 1 has led to the advancements towards the development of stage 2.

Adopting EHR Software More and more organizations are beginning to use software to help make their operations more effective as computing technologies continue to advance, with medical practices being particularly prominent examples of this trend. One example of this trend among medical practices is the adoption of electronic health records (EHR), which are composed of the information collected about medical patients and stored in a digital format that enables them to be shared by medical practices using the same database. EHR software can be used to collect the relevant information, access it, and make use of it throughout the medical practice's internal processes.

Establishing or updating to new EHR software can be a daunting task for many practices. Fortunately, Medicare and Medicaid offer an incentive program designed to ease the burden of cost for medical professionals who make 'Meaningful Use' out of the software. Of course, in order to receive the incentive, understanding what Meaningful Use is, how to demonstrate it, what the process is, and related terms is vital to successfully qualify.