Advantages of Electronic Medical Records | medicalrecords.com
There are many advantages for physicians to Electronic Medical Records, and these tend to fall into one of three main categories: qualifying for federal incentive payments; workflow benefits, and adminstrative cost benefits.
Qualify for Federal Incentive Payments & Avoid Penalties
Federally funded payments under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) are available for qualifying health care providers under either Medicare or Medicaid programs. All (Medicare) or the majority (Medicaid) of payments under either plan require “meaningful use” of an EMR system accredited by a proper certification authority. It’s important to note that there are several stages to meaningful use, all of which must be met for ongoing payments.
Maximum available payments vary depending on whether a health care provider qualifies and applies for payment under Medicare or Medicaid grants. Under Medicare, a maximum of the lesser of 75% of Medicare Part B claims or $44,000 is available to medical providers over a period of five years. Under Medicaid, a maximum of the lesser of 85% of the purchased EMR cost or $63,750 is available to medical providers over a period of six years.
Use of an EMR systems is required by the end of 2015 in order to avoid Medicare reimbursement penalties, which start at 1% and increase to 5% in 2020.
These and other EMR incentive programs are discussed further here.
Workflow Benefits
Once an EMR system is installed and staff are trained in its proper use, retrieving and updating patient clinical records is performed substantially faster and with fewer errors. In most cases, this allows health care providers to finish patient charting more quickly, and to do so while with the patient, increasing accuracy and completeness of the record. This efficiency can result an increase in scheduled visits per hour with no degradation in patient care quality. Alternatively, by reducing the burden of administrative work, it allows a health care provider to concentrate more on the patient and less on paperwork.
While paper based patient charts are difficult to copy and are susceptible to fire or water damage, computerized medical records storage allow for easy and secure backup off site.
Compliance with HIPAA standards, such as ANSI 5010 claims submission standards and the transition from ICD-9 to ICD-10 diagnostic and procedure coding, are made substantially easier, since necessary changes be performed programmatically and automatically.
Furthermore, virtually all EMR systems allow integration with insurance payment systems, allowing for more efficient and timely claims submission.
Sharing patient charts and medical information with other health care providers is also made substantially easier with an EMR system. While EMR interoperation is a long term goal and one not realized yet, it is possible to select patient information, including lab results and other diagnostic information, and share that with other providers, substantially increasing the quality of patient care.
Administrative Cost Benefits of EMR / EHR
Besides improving the delivery of health care to patients, another advantage of EMR integration is that it can reduce administrative and other related costs for physicians. Storage space dedicated to paper charts can be essentially be eliminated once the transition to an EMR is complete. Likewise, staffing for filing and retrieval for a patient files and the need to purchase paper based supplies is substantially reduced or eliminated.
A 2003 study by the University of California that focused on solo and small group physicians found that though results greatly varied, some physicians saved up to $20,000 per year through EMR / EHR implementation. “More successful users decreased transcriptionist, medical records, data entry, billing, and receptionist costs,” states the report.
Systemic Benefits
Once widespread use of EMR is in place and the transition to ICD-10 is completed, it will become easier to build longitudinal patient records, and gather broad-based epidemiological and efficacy data, improving the quality and efficiency of health care delivery.
Takeaways
The government has approved over $27 billion in EMR stimulus benefits for EMR/EHR adoption.
There is data that suggests that EMR/EHR implementation can save physicians significant money even without the incentives.
Benefits of electronic medical records savings vary greatly practice to practice. Workflow efficiency improvements can lead to substantial cost decreases, and offer the potential of increased revenues through more efficient use of time with patients.