by Delcie Bean IV
With $19 billion in grants and loans set aside for infrastructure and incentive payments under Medicare and Medicaid for providers who adopt certified EMR technology, why are doctors hesitating? The US Department of Health and Human Services acknowledges that the failure rate for EMR system deployments is between 30 to 50 percent while other independently published studies report that failure rate is as high as 73%. With the cost of an EMR implementation being as high as sixty thousand dollars per doctor and such narrow success rates, it is not hard to imagine why even the most tech savvy physician would hesitate. The real question is why such an alarming failure rate? The answer is simple inexperience. Medical offices are trying to go through a process that is incredibly complicated without the needed knowledge and tools and without outside professional help.
Today’s physician needs to see more patients than ever to make up for cuts in insurance reimbursement and additional regulations and requirements. Leaving most medical practices scrambling just to keep up and stay afloat. When these same over stressed practices also attempt to simultaneously embark on the journey to electronic medical records – it is no surprise that so many fail. A successful EMR Implementation requires months of planning, research and attention to detail which is simply a luxury that most medical offices cannot afford using only their existing staff.
Imagine if a doctor stressed his office with the task of reinventing the wheel. Also, imagine an environment where the information available to his staff is incredibly biased and constantly changing. At the same time his staff is expected to keep up with all of their normal tasks and increased patient loads. The reality is that the amount of time and energy that staff can devote to a process they know nothing about, will never have to do again, and have no experience with is incredibly limited and therefore produces limited results. This doesn’t even begin to take into account the lost revenue that is the result of diverting staff and providers from doing what they need to be doing, taking care of patients.
However a solution to this potential disaster is emerging. A new breed of specialized consults is making themselves known to the marketplace. Referred to as EMR Implementation Specialists, these expert coordinators take all of the guess work, frustration and headache out of medical offices going electronic. Practices that have worked with an EMR Implementation Specialist are enjoying success rates of nearly 100%. Why such a dramatic difference? When working with an EMR Implementation Specialist practices have access to an entire team of experts who do this exact type of work on a daily basis. These specialists are able to work with offices from beginning to end while simultaneously allowing their focus to remain on providing quality patient care throughout the entire implementation. Most EMR Implementation Specialists are even reporting that they have been able to accomplish these goals for less money than practices that attempted to do it on their own.
The consequences for offices that do not use an EMR Implementation Specialist are even greater than a loss of investment. Practices with a failed implementation have documented loss of patients, loss of staff and even serious medical mistakes that lead to injury to their patients and subsequently to malpractice lawsuits.
Buyer beware. In a rush to grab as much of a growing market as possible, many phony vendors have come out of the woodwork. “Consultants” that claim to have the practices best interest in mind but whom are financially compensated by one specific EMR vendor. There is no such thing as the perfect EMR. Even beyond specialties, medical offices are each unique. They have unique billing practices, workflows, scheduling protocols, and patient follow up procedures. Practices that don’t select an EMR product that matches their office are going to have to make too many changes to their office to possibly succeed in their implementation. That is why it is important that there be a proper selection process where different products are evaluated and the one that is the best fit for the practice is chosen. However when an office is working with a consultant that is paid by one particular vendor, they are not going to get that third party perspective and consideration – all roads will point to the EMR vendor that signs the consultants paycheck. For this reason doctors need to find a specialist who does not receive financial incentives from any vendors and whose only objective is to achieve a successful implementation.
There will be many more changes in the EMR industry in the years to come, but for doctors looking to apply for a piece of the 19 billion dollar stimulus pie, they have to act now. Given that a typical successful implementation takes between 12 and 18 months and those funds become available January 1st 2011 – the clock is ticking for doctors to get started. The best way for a practice to get started now and not head in the wrong direction is to find a good solid partner – an EMR Implementation Specialist who has experience working with many medical offices and has completed several EMR Implementation sin the past. With the right help and a lot of patience – this endeavor can be achieved successfully, ultimately putting the medical practice in a much better position to face the changing industry.
Delcie Bean IV is the President of Valley ComputerWorks in Hadley, MA. He can be contacted at dbean@valleycomputerworks.com or 413-587-2666.
