Electronic medical records - the software, the hardware, implementation, training, cost, interfacing, and more - have the ability to greatly impact you and your practice for the positive - or for the negative. And this impact will be felt DAILY!

Many physicians base their choice of a medical health record heavily on the EMR software. While the software is important, there are bigger issues out there.

Consider these real life examples:

• A physician went with a hospital chosen (and discounted) EHR. He decided he did not like the EMR and wanted to choose one of his own. When he contacted the hospital to obtain his patient records and data, he was informed that the records were not "his", but rather they belonged to the patients. Each patient would have to call and give permission for their record to be released back to the physician....which would be a logistical nightmare for the physician to be able to continue.

• A hospital selected an EMR and implemented it into the first pilot office of the afffiliated physicians. This was a multi-specialty office who had a complicated billing situation based on how their multi-specialty practice was set up. Prior to the EMR switch, they had an existing 15 year Practice Management billing system that worked very well for them. However, the hospital EMR had a practice management system integrated into it. The practice was forced to switch to the new practice management that was integrated into the new EHR. The new Practice Management software was not able to handle their billing system, thus impacting their cash flow and ability to send claims and receive money. Because of this, the hospital was forced to halt implementation of the system.

• A practice chose an "affordable" EMR, only to find out that they would be billed separately for "training" - and this would include a daily training rate, lodging, and travel expenses. Because adequate training is often times minimized in the original quote, these affordable electronic medical records turn out to be extremely expensive. What a vendor considers adequate training (3-5 days) is simply just not enough for the average office....picture being at the receiving end of a fire hose.

• A physician chose a "big" EMR company who - like other vendors - promised "interfaces" to hospitals, labs, and equipment. Three years into his use of the system, he received a letter from the "big" company stating they would not be providing the interface to his local hospital. He was forced to go thru the process of purchasing a new EMR system.

• A Multi-Specialty practice purchased an EMR system, not realizing that various "modules" or "features" of the EMR (eprescribe, scheduling, faxing/letters, scanning)- were only included in the electronic medical records software price for 6 months. After that, if they wanted use of these features - which are now required "meaningful use" features - they would now need to purchase these "modules" separately.

All of these situations were avoidable with a little more research about electronic medical records.

Let's face it - this can be a confusing, complicated, and expensive purchase. Right now, this is playing into the hands of the EMR vendors. The vendors and companies are very, very reluctant to give out any kind of "comparison" info, and its like pulling teeth to get pricing!

And don't be fooled by the pricing you see - there are all kinds of "back end" markups that EMR companies are adding.

We have put together an EBOOK! for evaluating electronic medical records, which provides checklists, comparisons, questions to ask, negotiationg tips, and more!

And, one more interesting fact - there is an MAJOR communications industry leader who is working to bring a very affordable EMR to market (less than $100 per month per provider AFTER Meaningful Use is achieved).

Plus, this communications leader is working to also have a "hybrid" product that allows the "back end" of the practice to use EMR and achieve meaningful use, but still allows for the actual physician to use a paper chart.

Find out more in our EBOOK!