Patient Payments Blog

Wake up. Documentation. See a patient. Documentation. See another patient. Documentation.

And thanks to EHRs and Meaningful Use Compliance, there’s more Documentation than ever before for physicians. It’s easy to see why they’re at the top of the list for professions with the highest rate of burnout.

In the 2015 Medscape Physician Lifestyle report, 46% of all physicians surveyed said they were burned out. That’s up 16% from the same survey conducted in 2013.

The struggle that almost all physicians have had as of late is meeting the elaborate requirements for Meaningful Use in order to continue receiving federal incentives. The complaints have been heard; the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services just released revisions to MU that loosen up requirements for attestation and return the focus to the original goal—interoperability. 

So, how does this affect your practice's billing process as you continue down the road towards MU and interoperability? 

Computers, the necessary evil of the workplace, can often times provide more headaches than utility. But, learning to leverage computers and their programs for your benefit will greatly increase your productivity. 

The health IT space is finally gaining momentum as more software as a service (SaaS) companies move into the sector and increased regulations force physicians to report more data, more efficiently. The result is big data that requires big technology to keep it moving forward.

Inevitably, your computers become one of the most important operating forces of your practice. But what about the employees who are using them? Do they get no credit?

In the past five years, the healthcare IT space has grown immensely. Between 2001 and 2013, the percentage of office-based physicians that have adopted EHR systems grew from just 18% to 78%. That number is only going to continue growing as providers achieve further Meaningful Use standards.

Where healthcare-related technologies are growing even faster is in the mobile health and fitness application space. There are now over 40,000 health and fitness apps available for iPhone and Android.

Growing even faster than the number of apps out there? The number of physicians that are now “prescribing” these apps to their patients.

The New Year is right around the corner. It’s time to not only finish out 2014 with a bang, but to take a status check and make sure your practice has done everything to prepare for 2015.

Another year in healthcare is arguably different than another year in most other industries. Healthcare changes (especially those that have happened most recently) are often large scale and have a huge impact on daily operations. With all of these changes happening, making sure your practice has up-to-date technology is going to be a huge priority when thinking of the future.

Dedicate your efforts in 2015 to adopting these healthcare tech trends and reward your patients and your practice.