Although practice management has been around for quite some time now, some people still fail to understand the rationale behind the introduction of practice management software. While it is true that practice management helps physicians replace redundant documentation techniques and allow them to streamline the non-clinical operations, there is a handful of people who think that health IT applications are trying to replace physicians. This story, of course, is not new. There have been various instances where similar concerns have been raised regarding Electronic Medical Records (EMR) as well.
Let’s see where these people are wrong. Practice management is designed to ensure seamless workflow transition between the front and back office in any practice setting. Since physicians are occupied with their busy schedules, sparing time for paperwork and then maintaining those documents is a tough job for them. Practice management software allows them to do it all through the use of a computer or even a tablet. No longer do physicians need to spend long hours in managing patient records and then spend more time to retrieve them when required. With practice management, it just takes a few clicks to do all of it.
“It’s a matter of choice for physicians; they could either hire a resource to manage the business workflows or do it themselves. Practice management software could be used by them or the hired resource, it doesn’t replace the individuals. However, it certainly surpasses the outdated and tiresome workflow management methodologies”, says a Michigan-based health IT consultant.
However, with practice management in place, physicians do have an option of not hiring an additional resource to manage the administrative and billing operations of the practice. Because the software is user-friendly and allows physicians to perform all such tasks in, literally, no time, physicians could save themselves a good deal of money by not hiring a resource and manage the workflow, easily, themselves.
Throughout the blog, I have established the point that practice management allows “physicians” to perform the operations in a much efficient manner. Hence, it is definitive that the health IT applications cannot replace human personnel, however, they could make life easy for them by offering them completely digitized and automated system to manage their workflows.
