Healthcare IT Update

Upfront costs could give way to savings in many areas, but do your homework first, and focus on balance.

If your medical practice has been considering the switch to an electronic health records (EHR) system, you may have heard how one can improve the efficiency of your billing processes, but you might also be frightened by the significant upfront costs.

So how do you balance the benefits with the expense? Follow these experts’ advice on how EHRs might benefit the key areas of your practice.

On a basic level, an EHR is a computer-based system for storing, retrieving, and managing patient health records over a secure network. But it should also be able to handle data for medical referrals, medical treatments, medications, demographic information, and other nonclinical administrative information. A good EHR system transmits claims to the insurers in a 24-hour period, calculates the correct level of service (requiring…