One of the most important features of many electronic medical records is security of confidential patient data. However, that may not stop nosy medical staff of snooping.
According to a survey by Veriphyr (which interviewed 90 IT managers), a whopping 70% of medical practices reported a breach of patient information within the last year. And most of the breaches were committed by employees. In fact, 35% of those employees have snooped into other employees’ medical records, and 27% has snooped into records of family and friends.
In the past, if an employee needed access to someone’s paper medical records, that request would have to be made through the person in charge of records. Now, with EMR, the employee would simply find the data with a few clicks.
The survey highly recommended not just employee authentication (such as restricting access) but employee monitoring and compliance.
Other notable survey findings include:
* Detection of data breaches was not as timely – 30% of breaches were detected in a one-to-three day time frame, whereas 17% of breaches were uncovered within two to four weeks.
* 79% of practices do not have adequate controls to prevent and report breaches – and they were either “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” about this.
* But 47% plans on making improvements on this within the next year.
For more information on EMR, please download our white paper “Electronic Medical Records: Choosing the Best System for Your Practice.”
One benefit of electronic prescribing and electronic medical records: they improve patient compliance in taking their meds.
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Despite the financial incentive from the feds to migrate to EMRs, 78% of hospitals still expect to use paper patient records for the next five years. For many, this could be a hybrid process (using both paper and electronic records), due to limited guidelines from the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on how to effectively scan paper records. However, 70% of hospitals have met the stage one requirements of CMS’s meaningful use guidelines and expect to receive federal money.
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Electronic medical records (EMR) have many benefits – lower operating costs for medical practices, increased efficiency, and greatly improved patient care. But it has an additional benefit.
It can help ease staffing shortages in medical practices.
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Medical providers are increasingly turning to third-party billing companies, due to lean staff and complex billing and coding practices. But does your billing vendor have a compliance plan?
If not, it should.
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Because of higher co-pays / deductibles and unemployment, more revenue comes directly from patients’ pockets. Once the patient leaves, it’s less likely the practice will ever see that money.
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It’s a tough time for healthcare providers.
Thanks to an increasingly complex web of coding regulations and payer rules – plus a rough economy making patients and insurance more tightfisted regarding their finances – it’s harder than ever for practices to collect the money they’re owed.
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Technology changes rapidly, and EMRs are no exception. Doctors who already are utilizing EMRs may need to change from one vendor to another, for a variety of reasons (cost, functionality, etc), but there are some pitfalls to watch out for.
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The federal government is pushing healthcare providers to make theswitch to electronic medical records (EMRs), pledging billions of dollars instimulus funds to help cover the costs of installing EMR systems. And starting in 2015, hospitals and doctors that aren’t using EMRs will bepenalized in the form of decreased Medicare payments.
Even before the stimulus was passed, many healthcare providers hadbegun installing EMR systems to take advantage of the increasedefficiency, lower operating costs, and – most importantly – better quality ofcare for patients they offer.
This white paper will explain the details of the federal incentive program for EMR software, as well as the steps to take to choose the right EMR systemfor your facility, and how to keep patient data secure and confidential whenit’s converted to an electronic format.
Download your free copy of Electronic Medical Records: Choosing the Best System for Your Practice (pdf)