Many podiatric physicians today are in the early stages of considering a move toward a paperless office. In this section we have added a variety of information, largely created by IPS experts, to help guide and inform you about the process of coming to a decision that will be right for you and your practice. Two questions for beginning this process are:
a) What is your chief complaint about your practice that you wish to change?
b) What will happen if you don’t make this change?
The following documents are intended to educate and inform you regarding the terms you will encounter, categories of software, implementation methods and realistic projections of how to make these changes for your specific practice. All podiatry practices are not the same. The nature, scope, and staff skills of your team will affect how quickly you can move forward. IPS will take the time to understand your readiness and offer you an implementation schedule that will be most effective for you.
1. Technology: Obtaining a Return on Investment: The starting point for a practice looking to achieve a significant return on its investment in technology, is an understanding of the goals it intends to achieve through use of that technology.
2. Physicians Top Five Concerns: One of the most overlooked strategies for increasing revenue in private practices is identifying and adopting ways to increase the collection percentage.
3. Avoiding the pitfalls of EMR purchase and implementation: Effective use of an EMR requires not only a change in office workflow, but also a change in the way that software companies sell, train, implement, and support their software.
4. How will your practice survive: Physicians who anticipate and proactively prepare for change will survive – and even thrive in the future.
5. Six Sigma: The combination of correct coding, charge capture at the point of care, cash collection at the time of the visit, and acceleration of the billing cycle has a dramatic positive impact on the production and collection of practice revenue.
6. Outsourcing: Quality and patient satisfaction are playing an ever greater role in the success of medical practices, even outsourcing small or traditional tasks must be done with quality, as well as costs, in mind. In today’s world, the best strategy is to go for both.
7. Business Truths: Continuous improvement of the performance of a medical practice requires a focus on constantly “fixing” the processes within that practice, processes which impact such areas as costs, quality, physician productivity, and patient satisfaction.
8. Preparing for the future of healthcare: A host of changes (such as the use of electronic medical records, employment of evidence based medicine, better tracking of patient care, the inauguration of pay for quality, information transparency, and a shift from acute, episodic care, to prevention, wellness, and management of chronic diseases) will be forced upon doctors. We are prepared now to proactively take on these changes. What are we waiting for?