EMR for Pain Management

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strike5858

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Hey Guys,

Looking into an EMR for my practice. I was wondering what systems you guys use (pro/con)? Any system out there thats superior to the others?

I have had a demo with Care Cloud (seems like a nice system, but its expensive)

Epic would be available to me at a subsidized rate by the local hospital.

I recently heard about practice fusion as well.

So many systems out there, what would you guys recommend?

Ideally I would like something that also has a good patient portal and billing software. I plan on using an outside biller to start but once I get the hang of things and find some good reliable employee's I hope to bring that in house as well. ( Thoughts on this? In over my head?)

You guys have always been great at offering good advice and unfortunately for you I may be posting a lot more on here with questions about private practice.

Thanks
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eCW has been solid for me. You will spend a ton of time building the templates and such but that investment pays off. Billing aspect is good and all in-house.
 
CareCloud is very slow to load and flash based. What will happen when flash is phased out in a few years? Support poor.
 
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strike5858 said:
Hey Guys,

Looking into an EMR for my practice. I was wondering what systems you guys use (pro/con)? Any system out there thats superior to the others?

I have had a demo with Care Cloud (seems like a nice system, but its expensive)

Epic would be available to me at a subsidized rate by the local hospital.

I recently heard about practice fusion as well.

So many systems out there, what would you guys recommend?

Ideally I would like something that also has a good patient portal and billing software. I plan on using an outside biller to start but once I get the hang of things and find some good reliable employee's I hope to bring that in house as well. ( Thoughts on this? In over my head?)

You guys have always been great at offering good advice and unfortunately for you I may be posting a lot more on here with questions about private practice.

Thanks
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I think 2 pts used my pt portal before I shut it down. I've heard that from a lot of docs. There's only one way for a pt to get to me or to the chart, through my staff/me. Some of these ideas sound great in theory but fail in practice. I had a set up that had pts using ipads in the waiting room to complete the ROS, etc. I ended up replacing with paper that I scan in.

If I were starting out, I would look at Office Ally. It's free billing and cheap EMR.

If most of your pts are shared with the hospital, Epic might be worth it. Otherwise, it's probably still overpriced for what you need.

If you already have a very busy practice, ECW might be worth it.

For the most part, as an outpatient practice, you really should not have to spend $$$ just to keep records and bill.
 
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Has anyone used practice fusion? I will look into office ally
 
I am also looking for a EMR for my new outpatient practice, specifically one geared towards pain management. I heard if you want to be a truly self-sufficient practice, you should get an EMR, practice management, billing, and clearinghouse. Correct me if I am wrong, but you cannot do billing on your own without the clearinghouse right? Also besides scheduling patients, what does the practice management software do?

What is too much for EMR, practice management, billing, and clearinghouse? One of the local vendors is offering a regional special with free training and use of all these features for their EHR through the end of the year, but will be charging about $400/month/physician for them after the first of the year.

I want a system that is efficient, integrated, and can grow with the practice, as it may be a headache to have to export all the patient records and learn a new system if the EHR is not able to support efficiently a practice once it starts getting busier.
 
Last edited:
promethius said:
I am also looking for a EMR for my new outpatient practice, specifically one geared towards pain management. I heard if you want to be a truly self-sufficient practice, you should get an EMR, practice management, billing, and clearinghouse. Correct me if I am wrong, but you cannot do billing on your own without the clearinghouse right? Also besides scheduling patients, what does the practice management software do?

What is too much for EMR, practice management, billing, and clearinghouse? One of the local vendors is offering a regional special with free training and use of all these features for their EHR through the end of the year, but will be charging about $400/month/physician for them after the first of the year.

I want a system that is efficient, integrated, and can grow with the practice, as it may be a headache to have to export all the patient records and learn a new system if the EHR is not able to support efficiently a practice once it starts getting busier.
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There are plenty of docs who still use paper charts and submit claims on a paper CMS-1500 form and mail them in. This whole system is totally FREE and is the standard all other systems should be measured on.

Some payers are trying to restrict their claims to electronic and the benefits are cost of stamp, sometimes feedback that claim was received by payer, and theoretically faster and less manual work.

Many payers will allow you to become a "trading partner", meaning that you can submit electronic claims directly to them without a clearinghouse. Each payer has unique requirements in terms of how they want their claim file prepared and submitted. With a clearinghouse you just need ONE trading partner agreement. It's hard to justify dealing with all the various requirements of different payers, which are subject to change, when that is the sole purpose of a clearinghouse.

Submitting electronic claims directly to either a CH or a payer requires software that can convert your encounter into 837p electronic format and you need the ability to then submit this claim file to the payer over a secure connection.

Most integrated systems have all these things in one package. There are sooo many competing systems, it's not worth reinventing the wheel IMO. I would just look for something SIMPLE, reliable, and cheap. Avoid the bells and whistles that sound cool but will not be used. The standard is the FREE paper charts and billing.
 
What is the price range for eCW? Do they have good customer support? I'd rather start with something that I am more likely to keep as my practice grows. For those that are using this system, do you think their system is something I would be more likely to stay with long term?
 
For the all in one systems, PracticeEHR looked nice for me. Modernizing medicine is getting into pain management as well. Aprima is also another option.

Athena is on the pricey side but they have a good billing team.

As for just EHR, praxis seemed very interesting.

Look around and ask for demos.
 
I know some of these EHR systems promote various bells and whistles, but what are the really important features you feel actually help with productivity and patient care? So what's the general consensus for a good, economical, all-inclusive EHR with EMR, practice management, billing, and clearinghouse for pain management that a pain practice will not outgrow? Even though I will be starting up shortly, I personally do not want to deal with the hassle of changing systems because it will translate to lost productivity. Any pricing information on these systems would be much appreciated. Options right now seem to be Office Ally, eCW, and PracticeEHR.
 
Any other suggestions for cost-effective, all-inclusive EHR systems that are good for pain management?
 
pmrmd said:
eCW has been solid for me. You will spend a ton of time building the templates and such but that investment pays off. Billing aspect is good and all in-house.
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I have eCW also. I have some issues with it. Where do you document information you want to show up on all notes thereafter, such as injection/procedure history and result, UDS lab result history, imaging result history with date?

Since I couldn't find a good option I use the "hospitalization" tab to type in their injection history since it auto loads into all future notes. I cut and paste MRI results in the free text area underneath the physical exam section. Wish I had better alternatives. How are you managing with it in your practice?
 
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Papa Lou said:
I have eCW also. I have some issues with it. Where do you document information you want to show up on all notes thereafter, such as injection/procedure history and result, UDS lab result history, imaging result history with date?

Since I couldn't find a good option I use the "hospitalization" tab to type in their injection history since it auto loads into all future notes. I cut and paste MRI results in the free text area underneath the physical exam section. Wish I had better alternatives. How are you managing with it in your practice?
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Can you just cut/paste a previous note as your template?
 
strike5858 said:
What is the price range for eCW? Do they have good customer support? I'd rather start with something that I am more likely to keep as my practice grows. For those that are using this system, do you think their system is something I would be more likely to stay with long term?
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ECW -- my current EMR. Some of the worst garbage I have ever dealt with.
 
I went with eCW, let’s see how it goes. My regional hospital is on Epic and this works well with epic allowing me to see patient records from
Epic and allowing epic users to see my notes. Price was similar to everyone and they didn’t charge the set up fees.
 
they are charging 4-7%. I thought that was pretty standard.
Athena does the same but if you leave so does the software. Ithought this was a better solution because you could just buy eclinical later and switch billing.
 
I've used Athena before when I was part of other groups. They charge a percentage of the collections for using their EHR and billing software. I think 4% to 7% is standard in the EHR industry. You know how numbers and statistics can be manipulated to not sound so bad? Oh it's just 4% to 7% of what you collect. Well if you are collecting $50-$70K a month, which is not unreasonable, that's $2000 to $4900 a month, which comes out to $24 to $60K a year! I should start my own EHR company if physicians are willing to pay these kind of rates. Am hyperalgesia and I the only ones who thinks it's crazy that physicians are spending hundreds and thousands of dollars on a RECURRING monthly basis for an all-inclusive EHR system? I would understand if the software is like the IBM supercomputer Watson version 2.0 and helping to see patients for you, but I have yet to see an EHR system do that.
 
You have the option to do all the billing yourself in most of these systems and in that case $6-700/mo isn’t to bad in the grand scheme of things.
 
promethius said:
I've used Athena before when I was part of other groups. They charge a percentage of the collections for using their EHR and billing software. I think 4% to 7% is standard in the EHR industry. You know how numbers and statistics can be manipulated to not sound so bad? Oh it's just 4% to 7% of what you collect. Well if you are collecting $50-$70K a month, which is not unreasonable, that's $2000 to $4900 a month, which comes out to $24 to $60K a year! I should start my own EHR company if physicians are willing to pay these kind of rates. Am hyperalgesia and I the only ones who thinks it's crazy that physicians are spending hundreds and thousands of dollars on a RECURRING monthly basis for an all-inclusive EHR system? I would understand if the software is like the IBM supercomputer Watson version 2.0 and helping to see patients for you, but I have yet to see an EHR system do that.
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Athena quoted me 6.6% of whatever they collected for you. Steep price, but the contract didn't have any nickel and diming of services like paper statements, and no monthly minimums.
 
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