For a busy orthopaedic doctor, there never seems to be enough time in the day to do everything they need to do. A busy general practitioner might see 10-15 patients in a day—a busy orthopaedic specialist might see 60-80 patients in a single day. If the paperwork to process each one only took 5 minutes, that would still be roughly five to six and a half hours of paperwork on top of the time spent helping patients.
Many of the doctors who come to Phoenix Ortho say the same thing: They spend all of their time handling patient paperwork rather than helping patients or spending time with their loved ones. The multi-headed hydra of paperwork has taken on a life of its own in each of their practices, and for every head they cut off, two more seem to grow in its place.
However, there is a way for orthopaedic doctors to reclaim their free time and put the paperwork hydra to rest once and for all—with a little help from an orthopaedic-specific Electronic Health Record (EHR) software. How can an orthopaedic-specific EHR software help orthopaedic practitioners get their free time back?
Here are a few of the ways that Phoenix Ortho’s orthopaedic EHR software solution helps orthopaedic clinics save time so their doctors can have some free time:
All-in-One Electronic Health Record Overview/Interface
When an orthopaedic doctor, nurse, or assistant logs into the orthopaedic-specific EHR system, they’ll see an “all in one” interface that gives them ready access to the most important information about the patient they’re looking up in the system. This includes details such as:
- A list of treatment dates,
- The patient’s photo,
- Whether the patient is still in the “global period” from a previous surgery,
- The current billing code being applied to the visit,
- A history of present illness, and
- A list of previous treatments.
Putting all of this information at the orthopaedic practitioner’s fingertips helps them get up to speed with each patient’s medical history and present issues before even stepping foot in the examination room. Whatever details the doctor needs can be easily retrieved with a couple of finger taps or mouse clicks. This helps streamline the process of seeing patients and reviewing their medical histories so the doctor can spend less time sifting through paperwork and more time diagnosing and working with patients.
Reducing Mouse Clicks
Phoenix Ortho’s solution for documenting patient visits goes above and beyond what a standard general practice Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system would. The software is specifically engineered to do as much as possible to reduce mouse clicks and keystrokes for each individual practitioner in the clinic.
The ways that our orthopaedic EHR solution reduces mouse clicks/keystrokes include:
- Creating Practitioner-Specific Settings and Preferences. The Phoenix Ortho EHR software can remember custom settings that are specific to each person in an orthopaedic clinic. This allows each practitioner to set up their most frequently-noted issues, medical processes, and treatment maps in the software to save time later. Instead of having to manually input each field of the injury report, the practitioner can click one button for a common injury type and fill in all the fields.
- One-Click Report Generation. Phoenix Ortho’s EHR software supports one-click reports for frequently-assessed injury types. Each of these reports can be set up by individual orthopaedic specialists and customized to reference specific treatment steps or imaging requests that each one would make. With one click, a doctor could create an entire report for a common injury—such as a meniscal tear at a sports clinic—shaving minutes off of the time they need for filing paperwork.
- Multiple User Logins. Our orthopaedic-specific EHR system allows multiple users to be logged in at the same time. So, while a doctor is in the software to review patient chart information, an assistant can take over logging specific issues the doctor calls out to them, and another person can be putting in the request for a specific type of X-ray or patient image.
- Error-Free Patient Imaging Requests. With most orthopaedic EMRs, the picture archiving and communication system (PACS) is on a different database. So, when trying to retrieve patient images or transfer them to a patient chart, the user has to manually input the patient ID information. If the info is wrong, the image won’t transfer. Phoenix Ortho’s EHR software and PACS solution share a database, so images in the PACS software are automatically linked to the correct patient—saving time on both data entry and correcting errors.
Eliminating Transcription Services
A side benefit of the one-click reporting is that the Phoenix Ortho patient charting and EHR software solution virtually eliminates the need to hire a transcription service to write reports of patient encounters. Instead of recording verbal notes to send to a transcriptionist, the EHR software generates the report automatically.
This saves both time and money.
Automated Billing Code Generation
Figuring out the correct billing code for each patient visit can be both risky and tedious at the same time. The task is tedious because practitioners have to collate all of the data they collected from the patient during the visit and use that information to determine which billing code they can apply to the visit. The task is risky because if the practitioner assigns the wrong billing code to the visit and gets audited, they won’t get paid.
Phoenix Ortho’s EHR software helps to eliminate both the tedium and the risk from the process of assigning billing codes to patient visits. It accomplishes this by automating the billing code assignments based on the data collected by the doctor (and/or the nurse, assistants, etc.) during the patient’s visit. So, instead of going through numerous documents, the doctor just has to check a box to see what the right billing code would be.
The more information the doctor collects, the “higher” the billing code can be. By reviewing the reasons for the billing code assignment in the software, orthopaedic practitioners can see what information they would need to collect to bump up the billing code another step.
Automated Charge Capture
Historically, physicians would circle or write in “procedures” such as X-rays, injections, cast applications, or durable medical equipment (DME) that the physician or a support staff member might include in the treatment of the patient. This paper fee ticket or charge slip would then be given to the billing staff, who would need to manually enter the ticket/slip into the practice’s billing software or the billing portion of their practice management (PM) software.
These are all billable items. However, if someone forgets to manually add the proper procedure code, modifier, patient ID, etc. to the fee ticket/charge slip, then the billers won’t enter these items into the charges billed to the patient or insurance company. If this happens, the practice loses that revenue.
In many software applications, this remains a manual process requiring extra time and paper—which EHR software is supposed to eliminate. Phoenix Ortho’s EHR software offers an automatic charge capture that simplifies the process to save time, increase revenue, and avoid paper waste.
If the physician or staff member documents an X-ray order, injection, casting, knee brace, etc., the procedure code is automatically captured and is electronically sent to the PM software. This eliminates the need to manually “capture” the event and have the billing staff enter codes and modifiers themselves—saving time, money, and mouse clicks in the EHR software.
All told, the one-click report generation, saved practitioner preferences, automated billing code generation and charge capture features of Phoenix Ortho can, by themselves, save orthopaedic practitioners countless hours normally spent on paperwork.
Are you ready to save time and reclaim your afternoons? Reach out to the Phoenix Ortho team to learn more, or to set up a demo of our software.
