Patients arrive, providers treat them, claims are filed, providers leave for the day. Behind the scenes though, there are several dozen minutiae that are taking place as a receptionist answers phones, confirms appointments, obtains insurance verification, looks up treatment codes, relays information for billing, informs others of new plans, takes notes, and interacts with healthcare staff, all within a matter of moments.  Practice management software offers an alternative to a PC filled with scattered file folders and disconnected applications.  It offers a centralized record and resource for management and scheduling as well as a significant reduction in processing time allowing staff members to focus on value added work. A good practice management system streamlines appointment scheduling, patient registration, billing, claims processing, reporting, and communication, and provides administrators with a quick summary of what is going on at any given moment in the practice. I...

A person could be able to buy a French press on Amazon, check in at a hotel on their phone, and transfer their money between accounts all within a few minutes yet arriving at the doctor’s office for their weekly appointment can be a sticky group of phone calls, forms, and waiting rooms while repeating the same information over and over again.1 That’s one reason patient registration software has become such an easy-to-use tool for healthcare organizations today. It can allow practices to move patient check-in from cumbersome paper forms into a leaner digital workflow. Instead of trying to have staff transcribe demographic, insurance, or contact information, and any other pieces of basic info, quickly and easily, the system can gather it all and prepare it for entry before the patient even sets foot in the practice! This isn’t complicated, but small changes can have a surprisingly large impact when a practice takes care of dozens or hundreds of patients a day. Unfortunately, it is not o...

Healthcare communication has become even more efficient but that does not necessarily make it safer. Sending an appointment reminder takes only seconds but the security of that communication still needs to be taken into account. That is where the issue of HIPAA compliant text messaging enters into the discussion. Medical practices require new mechanisms for talking to patients without allowing regular texting to be accepted as an automatic solution for protected health information.  Patients want a quick message of reminder, confirmation, follow-up, or office update. Employees want the same because phone tag is so frustrating. Healthcare entities are also entrusted with duty of privacy. Finding a new communications solution that is quick and easy for consumers as well as providing treatment organizations with reasonable protections of sensitive data remains the focus. This is not about requiring each text to be time-consuming. It is about designing a system of communication that i...