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Starting a New Practice - The EMR
perspective
Starting
a new practice is not an insignificant task. Is that the
best time to really look at an EMR? Many of the new docs
have voted yes by going the EMR route. The logic here is
why not start now and avoid a whole conversion effort
later? However, this move needs to be planned carefully
as this does add another layer to consider in your newly
minted practice. The following are checkpoints taken
from our standard implementation plan for you to add to your
new practice checklist.
Gather your
physician/provider setup information. This typically includes:
Gather
your physician/provider setup information. This
typically includes:
- License
Number(s)
- DEA Number
- SSN and
or/ Employer Id Number (Your federal tax ID)
- Office
location(s) and addresses
- Hospitals,
Nursing Homes, ALFs that you may see patients in
- Your
commonly used ICD codes, CPT codes, HCPCS codes and Medications
Gather
your practice setup information. This typically includes:
Gather
your practice setup information. This typically includes
- Practice
Address
- CLIA
number
- Practice
hours
Gather
your insurance related information. This typically includes:
Gather
your insurance related information. This typically
includes:
- Your
insurance carriers ? names and addresses.
- Your
practice group number (if applicable) for each carrier
- Your PIN
number for each carrier
- Default
charges for each CPT or HCPCS code
- Allowed
amounts for each CPT or HCPCS code (if you have an integrated
package)
- If you are
planning on filing electronic claims, please be aware that it
will take about 4-8 weeks to get approval for electronic claims
submissions for Medicare, Medicaid and Blue Cross. Plan
for this delay and sign up early.
Training
-
Please
make sure that you schedule UNINTERRUPTED time for
training. This is the single biggest favor you could
do for yourself to prevent a lot of headaches later.
-
Please
make sure that your staff are sufficiently trained in the
appropriate areas and please participate in the training
to ensure that they understand the software
Other
items
Other
items
- Your
referral network ? who refers to you and who do you refer to?
- List of
users ? who is going to be using the system
- List of
access rights for users ? who is going to be able to do what?
- Plan a
lighter schedule for the first couple of weeks to ensure a
smooth transition.
While
this is not an exhaustive list for all EMRs, getting all of
this ready prior to starting any EMR software implementation
will make things smoother right from the start. In any
EMR or Billing software, the more time you spend in carefully
planning and setting up the system, the less time you will
have to spend on a day to day basis fixing things!
Naveen V.
http://www.emr-electronicmedicalrecords.com/
DoctorsPartner EMR and PM
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