What is practice management software?
Medical practices are one of the busiest office environments. They have tons of administrative tasks to accomplish on an everyday basis. Without finding an efficient way to streamline these tasks, professionals can spend tons of time and resources trying to complete them all. Practice management software is a solution for practices to simplify their workload and maintain efficiency under a single web-based platform. It streamlines tasks like medical billing for physicians, scheduling, accessing patient records, submitting insurance claims, and keeping tabs on financial data in one easy-to-use dashboard. It’s the go-to system for medical practices of all types and sizes, and many can’t imagine their job without it!
Related: Best 5 Medical Practice Management Software in 2020
How is it different from Electronic Medical Records (EMR)?
Practice Management Software is not quite the same thing as Electronic Medical Records (EMR). EMR is a digital file for each patient’s medical history at your practice. Most medical practices today utilize EMR for various reasons.
On the other hand, Practice Management Software helps medical practices manage and oversee a wide range of administrative tasks. This includes but is not limited to looking up patient EMRs. If it’s convenient for your medical practice, you can integrate your EMRs with your Practice Management Software, but know that the software can do so much more!
Note: Practice Management Software also often allows access to Electronic Health Records (EHR), which is slightly different than EMR. Learn about the key differences between EHR and EMR.
Which features are ideal in practice management software?
Nowadays, practice management software can help medical practices manage tons of tasks under one dashboard. If you are searching for the best practice management software, there are some features you definitely want to consider. Here are a few features that will help your practice run more efficiently.
Patient records
Your practice management software can integrate with patient EMRs. It can create a digital file for patient information such as demographics, medical history, and more. This way, you can easily locate patient information when they visit your office.
Claim submission manager
Especially if you have an in-house (vs. outsourced) billing staff, you will want a platform where you can keep tabs on the status of each submitted insurance claim. Your software should be able to list your submitted claims and whether they have been accepted, denied, or pending. This is crucial for your financial team to stay on top of your practice’s revenue.
Outstanding balances
If a patient owes a balance on a submitted insurance claim, your software should be able to notify you. This way, you always know how much money you are owed and decide how you want to handle it with your patient.
Financial data and reports
Practice management software also has tons of other financial data and reporting functions. You can usually customize your financial dashboard to display the analytical data you want to see regularly. For instance, you can easily access information like patient billing history, monthly revenue earned, and more.
Appointment setting
All great practice management software allows easy appointment setting. This will allow you to easily schedule appointments with patients, as well as change or cancel them. Many softwares also allows patients to access the portal remotely to schedule their own appointments. This function can save you some serious time when it comes to managing appointments!
Automated reminders
In addition to appointment scheduling, many practice management softwares can automatically send appointment reminders to patients. Depending on the way you set this up, your software can alert patients about upcoming appointments via text message, phone call, or email. This can help to make sure patients do not frequently miss appointments.
ICD-10 Code Converter
If you are using an in-house billing staff, they will need to be able to easily look up ICD-10 codes each time they are submitting an insurance claim. Practice management software that includes a code converter will help your staff easily translate procedures into codes for an easy and convenient medical billing process.
Insurance Eligibility
One of the most commonly asked patient questions is whether or not their insurance will cover a certain procedure or medical visit. You will want your staff to be able to answer these patient questions quickly and confidently. Practice management software that has “insurance eligibility” verification can help you do this.
What are the top benefits of using practice management software?
Practice management software can streamline your medical practice’s tasks and improve productivity across the board. Take a look at the top benefits this kind of software can offer your practice:
Reduce manual paperwork
Gone are the days that administrative professionals in medical offices have to file paperwork manually! Practice management software lets you file all paperwork digitally, which can seriously speed up your workflow. Not to mention - it’s less tedious!
Get reimbursed faster
When using practice management software, your billers and coders will be able to get through the medical billing process faster. By reducing physical paperwork, using quick look-up tools for EMRs and ICD-10 coding, checking in on the status of claims, you will ultimately get paid more quickly and improve your practice’s cash flow.
Cost-efficient
Believe it or not, using a paper trail to file insurance claims can actually be more costly than using a convenient software! Not to mention, by making everything run more quickly and efficiently. practice management software helps practices reduce paid work hours, staffing needs, and more. This means that you will get a great ROI from purchasing the software.
Quick updates
Medical billers and administrative staff have to constantly check to make sure all the information entered into the practice’s system is up-to-date and accurate. They also need to stay on top of industry coding updates. Practice management softwares will automatically notify you of updates, correct inaccurate data, and much more, so you can always ensure your system has the most accurate data at all times.
Reduce time spent scheduling
When added up, the time it takes admins to schedule, reschedule, and cancel each patient appointment can distract them from focusing on high-priority tasks. This software can either handle appointment setting automatically using a self-service model or otherwise make it much quicker and easier on them!
Improve Organization
At a medical office, staying organized is under-rated! There are so many tasks to complete throughout the day that it can become stressful when processes feel disorganized. Practice management software will simply organize all your tasks and needs in one place so you can do your job more efficiently.
Learn More
Interested in learning more about software that can help your medical practice succeed? Learn more about medical billing software and cost. We also recommend exploring outsourced medical billing options, as well as these 9 steps for finding the best medical billing company for your needs. If you are looking for additional ways to effectively collect patient balances, read more here.
Keep in mind that medical practices that benefit from practice management software also tend to consider medical answering services and VoIP phone systems for healthcare.
Ready to compare the best prices in the industry for practice management or medical billing software? Use 360Connect’s free online comparison tool to get started!