Electronic medical records (EMRs) play an integral role in improving profitability in healthcare organizations.  Profitability refers to the condition of yielding a financial gain. In healthcare, profitability is achieved through increased ventures of revenue income as well as by reducing unnecessary expenses.

How EMRs Improve Profitability

By Conserving Cost, Time and Resources

EMRs immensely cut down the amount of paperwork-based tasks; hence, cutting down the amount of time medical staff spend sifting through paper patient records and other documentation. Unquestionably, through transition from a paper-based environment to a paperless system hugely cut down office supply expenses, physical file storage requirements, as well as eliminate any transcription costs. You need to gradually adopt and embrace certain process in order to get rid of your paper records. For instance, you could start by entering information on patient’s insurance cards directly into you EMR instead of scanning insurance cards of each and every single new patient.

By Revenue Generation from Documented Electronic Claims

EMRs further improve profitability by increasing claim revenues for each and every patient seen and attended to. EMRs are capable of accomplishing this task by helping doctors document every part of a certain visit by patients. This immensely reduces corruption of the billing department within healthcare organizations. In the past, when many organizations hardly knew about EMR, doctors would bill government payers for less than the work they actually handled or performed. This is because documenting all the routine medical check payers consume a lot of time; hence, it becomes hard to carry such a routine at every patient’s visit. In most cases, doctors only bill for those items for which they have written evidence since Medicare call for documentation of every item billed. This practice demotivates many doctors since it deprives them of approximately 15 percent of their legitimate reimbursement on annual basis. EMRs also help doctors avoid falling victim of down coding since they have proper documentation to justify all claims.

By Efficient Healthcare System which Equals Profitability

Likewise, EMRs improve profitability by increasing efficiency of healthcare organizations. There are several ways through which EMRs boost efficiency of medical practice. It helps doctors bring forward patient’s histories for easy viewing and quick access, send prescriptions straight to the pharmacy even before finishing with a patient, as well as document common complaints from patients in a quick manner. These methods help doctors reduce the amount of time spent documenting visits and managing the entire practice. This clearly implies that if the time spent with a patient drops from 30 minutes to 25 minutes, doctors can be in a better position to attend to two or more patients on a daily basis. Therefore, such a doctor has a high likelihood of generating more revenue per patient on a daily basis as well as reduces office staff’s workload in a significant manner. As a result, such a doctor does not need to hire an extra staff; hence, saving an entire employee’s salary.

By discount offers from Insurers

Adoption of EMRs contribute enormously to the reduction of your liability premiums. Physicians that utilize EMRs are offered discounts by malpractice insurers like MMIC and Texas Medical Liability Trust. This move has immensely been influenced by the relationship between EMR adoption and malpractice claims.

Conclusion

Adoption of EMR in healthcare organizations plays a vital role in improving their overall profitability. This is achieved by increasing claim revenues, reducing liability premiums, increasing efficiency, as well as by cutting down the amount of paper work.