Let’s face it—keeping organized isn’t easy. It’s been tough since you first learn learnt what organization is in school, and it only gets tougher as you move on into your professional life. As I delve deeper and deeper into our software, and learn more about the needs of physiotherapists, I’m beginning to notice just how much paperwork there is. For instance, every single patient that walks through the doors of your clinic needs their very own physiotherapy medical record. And whether you have one patient, or one hundred, filing clinical documentation is a whole job unto itself. In this article, I’m going to discuss some practical ways to help keep your physiotherapy medical records organized.

 

Electronic medical records

 

Clinics are steadily doing away with traditional paperwork and converting their medical records into electronic formats. This trend is partially due to the fact that electronic medical records (EMR) can easily be created and stored on your office’s computer. A recent article on Healthcare IT News sates 500 per cent more healthcare institutions are poised to adopt an EMR software.  The article goes on to say that the industry has begun to recognize that “electronic medical records are the basic building blocks for care improvement.”

Evidently this trend has being going on for some time now. A recent study by the American CDC found that “In 2014, 74.1 percent of office-based physicians had a certified electronic health record system, up from 67.5 percent in 2013.”

 

Categorize your patients

 

Some patients come to you because of auto collisions and workplace accidents, others will come to you because their prescribed treatment is covered by a national healthcare plan. But regardless of how a patient finds themselves in your clinic, it’s essential that you keep track of the reason that brought them there in the first place. The reason that the patient is seeking treatment is almost always related to the types of documentation that you’ll be preparing for them. Certain physiotherapy EMR software will let you do this from within the patient’s client profile and assign categories, or “divisions”, to your patients so you can know what types of documents you’ll need to prepare for them at a glanc.

 

Electronically billing your patients and payors

 

When you’re able to bill through your software and simultaneously post it to your clients’ profile, you reduce the risk of misfiling and make it easier to stay organized. I’ve come to find that there are some pretty strict rules when it comes to receiving reimbursement from payors. As you know, payors will require you to submit different types of forms depending on the nature of the incident. In many cases, your clinic isn’t able to receive payment unless the forms are filled out to their exact specifications.

 

Keep an electronic calendar

 

The benefits of using an electronic calendar are glaring and we needn’t discuss them in detail. But, among the benefits are: the ability to share your schedule, make appointment changes at a moment’s notice, and access your schedule from a variety of different platforms. Depending on your choice of EMR software, you’re able to update a patient’s medical record as per the information that you’ve included in the appointment details and eliminate the possibility of double entry.

 

Identify a software solution

 

If you’ve chosen one of the better physiotherapy EMR software solutions, you’ll be able to perform all of the above functions without the use of additional third-party applications. All of these key functions for keeping your physiotherapy medical records organized can be included in the software—but be wary of the software solutions that charge extra to include what Practice Perfect believes should be standard features.

 

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