ePractice Management Features to Help You Save Additional Time & Cost

October 14, 2022

Each medical practice has its requirements to operate effectively. Besides, all healthcare facilities need to automate and streamline redundant tasks to save operational costs and time. Finding the best software for managing your hospital or medical practice will provide you with the necessary tools to reduce time-consuming administrative tasks that complement your specific workflow.  

Plenty of practice management (PM) platforms are available for you to choose from in the market, but a few features are essential to make it worthwhile. In this guide, we will discuss the five practice management features to help you save additional time and cost.

Practice Management Features:

Must-Have # 1: Real-Time Eligibility Checks

Manually checking insurance eligibility can delay the process of administration. Instead of having your staff make calls for every patient, consider using a practice management system that can do this quickly for every appointment. The software should let you quickly check the patient's insurance information for deductibles, co-payments, and co-insurance. Many treatments require prior approval; therefore, your practice management tool should offer easy access to insurance firms.

Must-Have # 2: ICD-11 Compliance Is Essential

Another essential feature of a good practice management system is ensuring it complies with the most current ICD codes.  

It is a crucial requirement to interface with insurance companies and other entities like Medicare properly. Your practice management platform should let you use the latest ICD codes along with ICD-11, the latest coding revision WHO (World Health Assembly) adopted in 2019 and became effective on January 1, 2022.  

Many healthcare facilities are slow when updating their software to the most current standards, like ICD, which is maintained and administered by WHO. However, to stay up-to-date and survive in the competitive healthcare space, you must use practice management software current to the most recent coding standard.

Must-Have # 3: Fast Scheduling Option

Today, all healthcare organizations must become more efficient as they rebound from the devastating economic damage that occurred during the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Thus, to take a step towards achieving efficiency, your practice management software must include an option that lets your staff quickly make appointments for patients without needing to switch to another software or database.  

With this feature, if one person creates a new appointment with the patient or changes an already scheduled encounter, the other employees on your team will immediately know the time and date of the visit. As a result, it becomes much easier for the specialist to schedule an appointment in parallel. It mitigates the risk of scheduling two conflicting appointments.  

Instead of using a separate scheduler, you'll be more effective using practice management software with a fast-scheduling feature to manage your patients' data requirements.

Must-Have # 4: Automate Billing Capabilities

While you try to get your finances in order following the economic repercussions of COVID-19's destruction, it's essential to have financial systems that permit quicker processing of claims. Thus, opt for a best practice management system with automated billing capabilities. With it, you can enhance the billing process for increased reimbursements. It assists you in creating and submitting claims faster, minimizing errors in claim processing, and ultimately reducing the claim denial/rejection rate and A/R days.

Most importantly, the software comes with billing codes and sub-codes to assist your workers in processing bills efficiently and smoothly.

Must-Have # 5: Appointment Profiles

By creating appointment profile templates, you can determine how long an appointment will take in your schedule based on the nature of the encounter. It will optimize your timetable by ensuring you don't put too much or too little time on your calendar. You can assign the time required for each visit from new patients to routine physical appointments and select which intake forms must be filled out before every appointment.  

It is also possible to preload the most popular medical billing codes and curate notes related to that type of appointment to the profile. By using appointment profiles, you can reduce the chances of mistakes and head start your charting for each visit.

How Can talkEHR’s Practice Management Software Help You?

talkEHRs' practice management platform can help you achieve practice efficiency by streamlining your process and automating your mundane routine tasks. It has the following unique features to make your life easier:  

  • A simple and powerful scheduler lets you easily create and confirm appointments with a holistic view and automated reminders.  
  • Effective appointment tracking, billing notifications, and simple collection workflow  
  • With single-view dashboards and real-time reporting, there is a seamless billing workflow to help you get paid faster.

Conclusion

This guide walked you through the five main features to look for while choosing a practice management platform for your healthcare facility. These include appointment profiles, automated billing capabilities, fast scheduling options, ICD-11 compliance, and real-time eligibility checks. If you are looking for good practice management software, get talkEHR’s practice management solution now.