Urgent care centers occupy a significant role in the healthcare market, but urgent care centers are also very unique in how they work within the healthcare ecosystem. That’s why one of the questions they need to answer is what to use and why to pick an electronic medical record (EMR) provider.

The truth is, because urgent care centers are unique, the EMR market is not a broad one. That said, it’s still important to have an EMR in this continually evolving healthcare market, especially as more and more places go away from paper records. Being able to find an EMR that works best for a center is vital, as is any decision made by a center. There are things you have to consider not only with the software, but about the software provider.

The Urgent Care EMR Essentials

Here are some of the essentials that anyone picking an EMR should focus on;

Coding

If you submit a chart with the wrong coding, there are a host of insurance issues and financial issues that will result. And with most urgent care centers, the cash flow is of great importance, so having a poor coding system is out of the question. Using an EMR with coding built in allows clinicians to focus on charting a visit, and the EMR will also alert the clinician if there are documentation issues to head off insurance troubles before they get filed away.

Robust Reporting

Any urgent care center, because of its place in the health care ecosystem, has to make sure that it is maintaining a solid cash flow to keep operations ongoing. Being able to have the type of center-specific EMR that keeps track of billing, collections and operations allows a center to study the ebbs and flows of patient visits and possible adjust its strategy in regard to hours open for business, reimbursement for services rendered and more.

Show Me the Data

With the ebbs of flows of an urgent care center, being able to analyze data from visits effectively helps run your center more efficiently, which brings in greater revenue and continues a circle of success. Partnering with an EMR that will allow you the data to analyze and help you understand what the data is saying brings an added level of sophistication to your business, and it promotes an atmosphere of cooperation between you and the EMR provider. The right tools allow you to both succeed, so make sure you’re looking at EMR partners that can effectively explain what the analytical data is showing and is willing to have it all open for your inspection at any time.

Specialized Practice Management Software

Sometimes only see a patient once because of a minor accident, unlike a private practice that has patients scheduled at regular intervals not only throughout the day, but during the year. Being able to know that your EMR can handle occupational services, be compatible with patient self-registration systems, and work for the specialized business that you run, it’s not going to be an EMR that you can trust in the long run. And if you can’t trust it, then why use it?

System Integrations

Being able to share data is important because of the efficiency needed to see patients in an irregular pattern, as any urgent care center knows all too well. There’s also patients that are out of pocket, or have insurance with stipulations attached, or a pre-authorized credit card. Being able to have an EMR that can integrate all those needs into one system is crucial to its overall value.

Training: What’s Included?

If you contract with an EMR and they are invested in making you a success as well, and you have access to all the data you could need, but they haven’t trained you properly in the best practices of using the EMR, what good is it? Find out if proper training and support during off-practice hours is part of the pricing or if there are additional costs involved.

Urgent Care Specific Chart Templates

Some EMRs will have templates that are specific to a regular doctor’s visit, and that’s not what an urgent care center needs. Your center has needs specific to you, just like patients have specific needs that you treat. Your EMR should be working for you, not throwing up roadblocks with difficult templates that take time and don’t give you the efficiency that having things recorded electronically should.

Finding the Right Partner

When searching for a vendor, are you able to connect with an EMR that will be sure to answer any questions during the initiation process, provide adjustments to the services based upon your specific needs as they may change over time, and more. The type of EMR vendor that knows how important the revenue cycle is to your center’s viability is the type of vendor that you should want to work with as a partner.

For the past 40 years, Med USA has built profitable relationships by providing medical billing and practice management to practices of all shapes and sizes. Our Electronic Health Record (EHR), medical coding and credentialing services are unrivaled in our industry and each service we offer is geared to do one thing: to help make your job of running a medical practice easier.

Our services are rooted in the concept of adaptability. Whether you need office-based physician practices or hospital-based physician practices, our 100 percent privately owned and operated company is here to help. Save time, energy and boost your ROI by tapping Med USA to help with your practice optimization!

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