The following is a guest post by Tom Giannulli, MD, MS, Chief Medical Information Officer, Kareo. Follow and engage with him on Twitter @drtom_kareo or @GoKareo.
Over the past two years, there has been a lot of talk about a big EHR switching trend. Some of this has been because of Meaningful Use, and some of it has been because of market changes. There are simply more options today if you are unhappy with your current EHR.
Surveys show that many physicians are frustrated with the cost or functionality in their EHR, which has prompted considering a switch. There is also frustration with too much third party interference and regulation. Despite some of these challenges, one thing is clear. Most physicians believe EHRs improve care, reduce errors, and improve billing.
What sometimes gets left out are the other opportunities created by using an EHR. Some of these are new revenue sources that might be impossible or very hard to access without one. Here are a few examples, but certainly not the only ones.
Medicare Programs
There are some new codes that have come out in the last two years for services that are revenue generators, but you really do need an EHR to manage them. The first is transitional care management (TCM). While TCM doesn’t require you to use an EHR, the complexity of it makes it hard to do without one. The ability to easily put in your notes and set reminders for needed follow up makes managing TCM much easier. With reimbursement ranging anywhere from about $100 to over $200 per patient, this can be a great opportunity for providers who see many patients who need post hospitalization follow ups.
The other Medicare program is newer and does require the use of a certified EHR. It is the Chronic Care Management (CCM) code that came out this year. The reimbursement is about $42 per patient and can be billed once a month. The requirement is that the patient has two or more chronic conditions that are expected to last at least 12 months or until the patient’s death. Clinical staff must spend at least 20 minutes performing CCM services for the patient each month that the code it billed. The services are non-face-to-face and direct supervision is not required, which means that nursing staff or non-physician practitioners can render CCM even if the physician is not in the office. Again, if your practice sees a lot of patients with chronic health problems, this can be a great way to add revenue by using nursing or mid-level staff.
Affordable Care Act Opportunities
By now I hope everyone knows that preventive care services are covered with no copays or deductibles. What many providers still aren’t very aware of are the other types of programs that are now covered by insurance that can be great revenue generators. While they don’t require an EHR, this is another area where using an EHR makes running these programs much easier. The two programs that make a lot of sense for primary care providers and specialists who see patients with certain types of qualifying conditions are group visits and weight loss programs.
With group visits, the practice identifies a group of patients who have a similar, chronic condition that requires frequent visits. You can do this using your EHR (it would be tough using paper charts). Some examples include HIV, chronic pain, COPD, and hypertension. Vitals are done individually as patients arrive and then the whole group spends the rest of the 1.5 – 2 hour visit together with the provider. Once a group visit is completed, each patient’s insurance is billed for the appropriate E&M code for their individual situation. The ability to use templates and copy note features in the EHR can make documenting after the group visit much faster and easier than it would be if done by hand.
For patients with certain conditions, a weight loss program may be mostly or fully covered by insurance like preventive care. The great thing about this is that it can be as simple or complex as you are willing to manage. You can do simple nutritional counseling and weigh-ins or go for a fully formed program through a third party that includes food and supplements. Again, using an EHR makes it much easier and faster to manage and track multiple follow up appointments, set reminders, and copy notes and simply update them each time. You can even have a group visit component!
The key to all of these opportunities is that an EHR helps reduce the complexity of managing the requirements and helps insure that you can quickly and easily show accurate, thorough documentation to payers. Without an EHR, these revenue generating programs would simply seem too difficult to manage. In a time when every penny counts, you can’t ignore opportunities like these.
Kareo, the leading provider of cloud-based software and services for independent medical practices, is a sponsor of EMR and EHR. Find out more about Kareo’s award-winning solutions at http://www.kareo.com/.