In the medical field, Psychiatry deals with treatment in anxiety, depression, and mental health issues. It offers continuing and comprehensive healthcare for individuals, providing counseling to patients of all ages. Psychiatry EHR is designed to enhance and simplify psychiatrists’ workflow and administrative and financial tasks.
Psychiatry EHR not only streamlines communication and staff productivity but also delivers customizable templates, dedicated patient portal and increased efficiency in documentation. It offers patients an advanced charting facility along with undivided attention.
What are the critical requirements for a Psychiatry EHR?
Any practice’s electronic healthcare needs depend on the needs of its patient population. All the psychiatry practices will require the core functionalities offered by regular EHR. To fulfill the psychiatry practice needs, the Psychiatry EHR has to offer sophisticated features such as monitoring care and medication, seamlessly sharing patient data and providing patient engagement. Some of the most critical requirements are:
1. Medication Monitoring
To deal with mental illness, extra attention is required and so it should not be treated like any other physical illness. The best way to monitor a patient’s health is through sharing data with other providers, and also by keeping track of the medications patients are consuming, show alerts if harmful drug interaction is present.
2. Interoperability
All the practices face one common problem – they serve patients who are receiving care from other providers too. The on-going treatment data from a psychiatry practice is to be shared easily with the other providers to coordinate care across different settings. Thus, the ability to share clinical information seamlessly is vital.
3. Patient Engagement Tools
The patient portal with scheduling abilities offers patients to schedule appointments online, thus reducing no-shows. A free flow of information/communication between patient and provider facilitates greater compliance with treatment, particularly with medication adherence; should be allowed by an EHR. Another important tool is telepsychiatry. This tool eliminates shortage in rural areas, and providers can engage a patient directly via remote link up or with primary care providers who are on-site engaging directly with the patients.
What are some features of Psychiatry EHR?
- Fully integrated EHR and practice management solution; access the patient records from hospitals or practices. Also prescribing medication remotely.
- Seamless communication between practice and labs, radiology, pharmacies, and other referring doctors.
- New and returning patient treatment plans for common issues such as – anxiety, bipolar disorder, etc.
- Multiple methods of data entry, such as point and click, voice recognition, complete scheduling management, and health reminders.
- E-prescribing and lab automation should be supported.
- Compatibility with iPhone, iPad, etc.
- HIPPA and ICD-10 compliant, Meaningful Use certified and HL-7 interfacing.
- Increased accuracy and completeness of documentation
- Reduces transcript costs and medication errors
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What are the benefits of Psychiatry EHR?
- Cloud-based technology permits easy access over the internet from any platform, at any given time.
- It gives rise to more efficient billing operations. Psychiatry EHR takes care of the time-consuming process and makes sure that all insurance claims are filed properly, keeping track of payments and deposits and generating accurate statements. This will reduce the hassle for the front office administrative staff.
- This software also enables to confidently charge the appropriate level of service, using built-in E & M coding.
- The other side of billing is, how successfully the practices’ revenue cycle management is performing. Psychiatry EHR allows to track costs, profits and take care of patient billing.
- Communication is vital, and therefore, seamless communication with all the other medical facilities where patient data such as lab results, etc. are shared. The overall purpose of communication and collaboration within the practice and with other practices is patient care.
- Easy access to patient records can provide flexibility to quickly access complete patient records whenever required. Even though it assists providers/specialists in getting crucial information on medication or other diagnoses; it is secured and the privacy of the patient is not invaded. Thus, data is stored intuitively and securely.
- The days of hunting paper charts are over. The staff can effortlessly document patient data via either point or click or voice recognition; allowing fast retrieval to search the entire patient database based on specific requests.
- Scheduling in Psychiatry EHR solves issues pertaining to the availability of beds or myriad appointments. Also, there is a reduction in no-shows as automated appointment reminders keep patients on track with their treatments.
- Staff must be aware of patient health maintenance, allergies, drug interactions, timely updates, and EHR notifications; thus sending alerts to staff/providers about patients’ health condition can decrease the liability.
- The care to the patient can be given from anywhere at any time by e-Prescribing antidepressants, antipsychotic medications, sedatives, mood stimulants and more. Also, easy access to patients’ medication histories allows ordering refills in a secured manner.
- It improves patient encounters and streamlines all administrative tasks by allowing patients to sign and submit forms regarding insurance information, even before the appointment; saving valuable time of patients and providers.
This software sanctions your practice to move closer towards creating a completely paper-free workplace. It manages all the billing issues, for example, creating payment reports, creating superbills, making billing statements to submit insurance claims and handling other CMS forms. Its chart-centric workflow makes record keeping and documentation user-friendly. With simple customization, one can easily add notes and move on to the next patient.
Related Article: Improving behavioral and Mental Health using Technology-based Tools
Psychiatry EHR provides a customizable review of systems and physical examination. It simplifies the decision-making process; additionally, it provides education for patients, electronic referrals, allows to configure templates according to the requirements, more organized workflow and last but not least, the patient portal which is a perfect messaging system between patient and the provider.
It safeguards readiness with the healthcare industry standards and aligns all the operations, ultimately saving time and energy to maximize value and return on investments. Psychiatry EHR, is designed to enhance interoperability between specialists, patients, laboratories, and other health departments, care teams, referring sources, other hospital networks and payors.
