Running a modern day orthopedics practice involves a great number of time-consuming tasks that can make day-to-day operations more complicated as compared to other specialties.
In particular, members of your team have to spend more time arranging for diagnostic imaging and the large files that are associated with generating this information. On any given day, they may need to take multiple castings, observe and test the patients’ range of motion, set up surgeries, and arrange for the necessary follow-up appointments. The team must be knowledgeable and experienced in a wide range of physical therapy treatments to address a laundry list of complaints, from problems in the knees, hips, shoulders, skull, spine, torso and the muscles.
What’s more, patients often have secondary complaints to their primary issue when they come in to see orthopedic professionals.
Get paid, increase your cash flow, and improve your efficiency and productivity with Practice Management Software.
Clearly, there are a lot of complicated moving parts to consider when running orthopedic practices that make them different from other medical practices. And given the unique requirements of this area of medicine, it makes sense that practitioners will need to work with specialized orthopedic practice management software instead of generic software designed for any type of practice.
Managers and owners of practices should know that using dedicated orthopedic practice management software will help you improve overall operations in your organization as well as assist you in taking better care of all your patients.
What is Practice Management Software?
From the moment a patient calls or actually comes into your facility, an enormous amount of information will need to start being collected, stored, and updated by your staff. This is where practice management software comes in. PM software helps members of your team check on the insurance status of each patient and set up appointments. You also use the software to cut down on the time and effort required to deal with any claims that have been denied by the insurance providers.
Practice management software also is crucial for when your staff needs to generate reports, such as to update main stakeholders during recurring meetings.
The ability to work with analytics lets you get a better grip on your practice’s financial situation. Now, with PM software in place and integrated with electronic health record software, it is a simple matter to generate a report on which patients routinely are no-shows to appointments or to identify those patients who are late in paying their bills. Do you need to see how average weekly claims compare from season to season or year to year? This type of report and many more are a snap to generate when you have the right PM software in place.
Busy practices that must devote more effort to streamlining their operations and running more efficiently can save a lot of time when they deploy a browser-based, mobile-friendly secure integrated Electronic Health Records and Practice Management system such as MedicsCloud.
Specialty-Specific Orthopedic Practice Management Software
If you’re unfamiliar with what is involved with specialty-specific orthopedic software, you should be aware that MedicsCloud for Orthopedics can be used in your quest to satisfy or qualify for a number of CMS initiatives that can produce incredibly significant revenue, such as:
- The Chronic Care Management (CCM) and Transitional Care Management (TCM) initiatives
- Satisfying the certified EHR requirement needed in ACO membership
- Attesting to Stage 2 MU and reporting on PQRS while eliminating the penalties associated with both
Remember to check that your software provider has a proven track record in developing and supporting practice management software before you deploy it in your organization.
You’ll want to work with software developers who stay on top of industry best practices and keep track of government regulations as well as financial incentives and their updates. They will ensure that the software stays relevant for use in clinical settings and continues to meet governmental as well as institutional requirements for privacy, data security and data reporting.
There’s More, in the Form of Clinical Trials:
Since orthopedic practices deal with so many patients with complaints who would benefit by the latest medical research, practitioners need to pay particularly close attention to various clinical trials that may be available to their patients.
Orthopedic PM software is designed to automatically alert the physician during the encounter if the patient is a candidate for a clinical trial based on parameters such as diagnoses, procedures, age, gender, and location.
The doctor can read an explanation of the trial and then obtain consent from the patient right on the spot. Of course, there is an option for the patient to review the offer and advise the practice later about whether he or she wants to participate.
Another important feature to keep in mind is the ability to proactively data mine your entire patient population in order to identify new candidates for a particular trial or set of trials. This gives you the ability to advise those patients that a trial exists for them to participate in.
And when you become involved in clinical trials, the orthopedic practice management software will give you a great return on your investment, because now it will be effortless to manage and report on your various clinical trials, as required by the sponsoring pharmaceutical companies as well as any clinical research organizations.
The potential improvements in patient health that can result from taking advantage of these newly developed therapies can be quite gratifying to your team. And the additional income typically derived by the practice from the sponsoring companies can be quite extraordinary, further improving your practice’s bottom line.
In addition to these capabilities, all of the features you’d expect of an Orthopedics EHR today are handled by Orthopedic PM Software, such as e-Rx for quickly and efficiently setting up prescriptions for both controlled and non-controlled substances and mechanisms for continuity of care. You also enjoy the efficiencies that come with embedding patient imagery files with their individual record and the easier access to images and documents that result.
There are more benefits to consider, including cases. The application must clearly delineate a patient’s different cases, which is typically an area of concern for the stakeholders in any orthopedics practice. This means, for example, that a patient’s work injury is clearly separated from that patient’s skiing accident.
Orthopedic practice management software will help your team address a number of orthopedic-specific needs, such as:
- Castings
- Range of motion tests
- Surgeries and post-op follow-ups
- Physical therapy treatments
- Knee, hip, shoulder, extremities, spine, skull, torso, muscle injuries
Special emphasis must be given to patients with multiple complaints. To that end, the software allows for numerous orthopedic-specific encounters, with the ability to handle secondary complaints, which is a highly important need in orthopedics.
When it comes to digital imaging, the PM application provides the ability to store each patient’s images directly, as part of their MedicsCloud record for easy viewing and retrieval. Your team can quickly make notes on images through the system’s built-in handwriting capability.
Cloud computing services are more than convenient for your team. They could make the difference between keeping your practice’s doors open following an emergency, such as an earthquake or other natural disaster. All the patient data is stored securely in the cloud, enabling you to access it via the Internet using secure connections to your laptop or even mobile phone.
Your IT department won’t have to bother with predicting how much server space to purchase for local use, since the cloud computing services provider will have its own dedicated IT team to take care of such issues.
If you have plans to expand your practice to include branches in other locations, using a cloud-based PM system will make your efforts much more easy, and staffers can input and share data with one another more readily. You can also share data with other physicians, such as a referring doctor when the system maintains data in the cloud.
Key Takeaway:
Your high-volume, high-traffic orthopedics practice definitely stands to benefit from the efficiencies that are only possible when you deploy a modern practice management application.
In fact, you and your fellow stakeholders may be kicking yourselves, wondering why it took so long to modernize your practice with the latest in software and computer technology. But once you do deploy this software, you can rest assured that you’ll be more competitive with other practices. Your patients and staff will be glad when you have more efficient software in place, since so much time will be saved.
You’ll also find that cloud computing will make data more accessible, even while your doctors and nurses are out and about, since they can now access it securely with portable devices. With all the complexities that come with diagnosing, imaging, treating and following up with the various patients in your orthopedic practice, it makes sense to go with dedicated software designed for your specialty in mind. For more information on practice management software, click here for our free practice management demo.
- Orthopedic practices have special requirements that make management different from other specialties, meaning they need specialized practice management software.
- It’s best to go with a practice management software solution that allows for cloud computing, for greater efficiency.
- The large amount of data files that are routinely generated, stored, and manipulated for your patients are easier to manage with PM software.
- With dedicated PM software in place, your doctors will quickly be notified when clinical trials suitable for the patient are available, with the ability to consent on the spot.
- The PM application will make it easier to comply with the reporting requirements of various clinical trials.
- A PM application helps your staff when it comes to prescribing (and e-prescribing) controlled substances, which are often required to manage pain in orthopedic treatment.
