Why practice management applications (PMAs) are integral to running a thriving healthcare practice in the 2020s
Practice management applications have the capacity to revolutionise your medical practice by improving cash flow, optimising work processes and securing your business for a relevant and sustainable future. Ultimately, they enhance the work satisfaction of healthcare workers, as well as the patient’s journey through that practice.
While it might not be the way it was done decades before, managing your practice digitally is integral to any modern business operating in the healthcare space. Not only is it international best practice in the 2020s, but it’s also the safest and most secure way to run a business and when it comes to electronic health records (eHR), it’s essential for POPIA compliance in South Africa.
Digital tools like practice management applications (PMAs) exist to secure steady cash flow and optimise work processes, ultimately improving the base line of primary health care and enhancing the patient’s journey through any given practice. More than that, they reduce paperwork and automate onerous billing processes. They also have the capacity to revolutionise your medical practice and your work satisfaction as a healthcare worker.
Gone are the days when manual patient inputs, faxed medical aid submissions and yellow-file record keeping were sufficient to maintain a thriving practice. Healthcare professionals are now more time-poor than ever, and they’re losing precious face time with patients, wasting hours on patient bottlenecks, scheduling conflicts, faulty medical aid submissions, and manual administration.
And yet, we live in an age of instant gratification, where the fast pace of digital technology compounds the demands of the modern rat race. Patients and doctors are under pressure, and the pace of life in the 2020s means that a streamlined practice with efficient work processes goes a long way to putting both parties at ease. These days, a proficient practice is a valued one, and it could be the key to ensuring that you run a sustainable and patient-centred practice.
What you struggle with as a healthcare professional will differ depending on your role. You might be a specialist clinician, running low on time to offer your patients much-needed one-on-one care. Maybe you’re a practice manager or clinic head, and you need to make sure that your business stays solvent while you strive to offer best-in-class care. Perhaps you’re a community GP, struggling with dwindling foot traffic and drowning in paperwork.
Whatever your pain point, a comprehensive and integrative PMA can help you streamline your business. An online diary, for instance, makes it possible for you to access your practice schedule from anywhere, with smart functionality eliminating human error and highlighting potential bottlenecks or schedule clashes. The latest in PMA technology also gives you access to your patient notes and history, at any time, from anywhere in the world, all via a central portal.
With cloud-based scheduling, email or SMS reminders can be automated (saving you time) and, depending on the integration, patients should be able to book their own appointments and input their personal and medical aid details before they see you, which is especially helpful if they’re new to your practice. Depending on the patient’s needs (and your discipline), patients can also determine if they want a telehealth consult or if they would prefer to see you in person.
Thanks to a PMA, streamlined booking processes not only free up your time for patient-centred care, but also lessen the load on your front-of-house staff, assuming you have a practice manager to help with administration. If not, PMAs also serve to streamline your billing process, taking admin off your hands.
Med school might have prepared you for patient consultation, diagnoses and follow ups, but it almost certainly did not teach you how to run a business. Right?
Nevertheless, billing and claims management are what keep your practice afloat, ensuring you and your staff get paid and that you’re able to maintain a thriving business that serves the community.
With intelligent billing and automated real-time claims switching, PMAs help you process payments quickly and efficiently for easy cash flow management, and ensure a positive working relationship with patients and their medical aid schemes. The shift to digital practice management should, by now, be a no-brainer. Times are changing and the industry is evolving rapidly and exponentially, leaving late adopters in the dark. For medical professionals who want to stay up to date and relevant, PMAs are synonymous with patient-centred, best-in-practice care, not only because they boost the base line of primary health care, but also because of the growing potential of PMA intelligence, and what it can do for the future of healthcare.
As a pioneer in practice management and electronic health records, Altron HealthTech stays up to date with the latest in healthcare technology, so you don’t have to.
And now, in line with our commitment to transforming healthcare through technology, we are embarking on our own journey of transformation to becoming more than just a healthcare products and services provider.
Our vision at Altron HealthTech is to leverage the power of our PMAs, and all integrative products, to keep abreast of the latest tools in the industry. With the power of AI and machine learning, it is now possible to collect, analyse and harness the results of big data in support of optimised primary health care and preventative treatment in a way that honours doctor-patient confidentiality and complies with POPIA regulation.
The future of healthcare is an ecosystem of invested parties that work together to achieve early diagnoses, take preventative measures, engage dutifully and respectfully with patients, and deliver prompt patient-centred care.
At Altron HealthTech, a transformed healthcare sector is one that keeps patient records safe and secure in an encrypted cloud-based system. It’s an industry that values the patients’ needs first, and it comprises professionals who are able to meet those needs at any time, from anywhere in the world, with state-of-the-art technology that’s there when you need it.
For more on Altron HealthTech’s flagship PMA, Elixir Live, click here. Or if you’re looking for more information about HealthONE, the future of cloud-based electronic health records, click here.