You can buy off-the-shelf scheduling software to schedule patients and financial software to track inventory and expenses, but if you don’t have all of these modules truly integrated and “talking to one another,” you are crippled when it comes to actually analyzing your facility’s operations. How do you track OR turnover time, cost per case, equipment repair history, utilization of block times, implants used and/or implant costs per case ,or per specialty, or even know exactly where your patient is at all times? If you answer those questions with “on paper,” that typically means you are using staff to keep track of these details. Paper records present numerous challenges — they are easily misplaced, handwriting can be hard to read, there is no backup system, and so forth. All of this can be avoided through the use of IT.
Although the choices for ASC software are somewhat limited, the packages offered today often include features that allow you to schedule patients, track employee and physician credentials, track inventory, automatically analyze cost per case and handle billing/collections. The last two facilities we developed were started on the first day with the EMR already in place. We integrated ProVation’s EMR system with Experior’s business system and our facilities are (almost) paperless. We also added e-prescribing and our lab integrates electronically with the patient records, thus everything is stored in the patient’s chart. The physicians now “dictate” by clicking their customized operative reports with a mouse, editing for their current patient with a few keystrokes and they are done. Typically this takes less time than it would take for them to verbally dictate.
The upside to the facility is that we can get bills out that afternoon, send them by electronic bill, receiving payment in less than 45 days. We don’t have to wait for the operative report to come back to be reviewed and signed as the physician already performed this task at time of procedure. The physician also customizes his discharge instructions when he does his operative report, which results in the patient leaving the ASC with clear instructions. This is helpful when a procedure was changed or there are special circumstances requiring the patient to have different instructions than the routine template.
Note: A related mistake made by ASCs is not utilizing the software purchased to its fullest. Often people purchase software with “all the bells and whistles” and only spend the time to set up the minimum functions when opening. Soon the facility has been open a year, but because certain modules in the software were never activated or utilized, the data you could have used has not been stored in the reports.
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