Electronic Medical Records (EMR) Software can be a really expensive investment for any medical practice but one question which often boggles the minds of the physicians is that is this investment really worth it?
There are a lot of factors which need to be taken into consideration when purchasing and implementing an EMR Software in your practice. Practices usually consider only the setup expenses of the Electronic Health Records (EHR) Software but don’t pay a lot of attention to other significant costs such as the training costs, template options, and in some cases updating expenses.
This misunderstanding about the total expenses and hidden costs such as mentioned above lead to cognitive dissonance among the healthcare practices.
Electronic Medical Records (EMR) Software Pricing Analysis
Here is a detailed analysis of the costs and pricing of EHR Software by expert EMR Software consultants at EMRSystems.
Initial Implementation Costs
The initial set-up costs of EMR/EHR or Practice Management Software are normally a major burden on the physician clinics. All kinds of software require extra attention to detail in the first few days of use. A highly complex EMR Software System is no exception in this case. While the software may look clean and simple from the user interface or the first look, there are complex calculations going on behind the scenes which are very logically structured, and hence demand significant efforts and resources for the initial implementation.
Training Costs
The training and tech–support costs for the EHR Software Solution depend upon the level of tech-savviness of the physicians as well as the clinic staff. Some people are naturally tech-savvy and are able to easily figure out the software on their own, but the ones who are not so comfortable with it can require a signifact amount of training. These costs can be a little heavy on your budgets but will definitely help you get miles ahead. It can be justified by high returns on the investment you make in them since the more the staff is comfortable with the EMR System, the better is the productivity and in turn, the profitability of the practice.
Other Costs
These costs mainly include the expenses of value-added and additional services you might want to avail along with the actual EMR functionality. Some EMR vendors such as athenahealth provide integrated Patient Portal, e-Prescribing (e-Rx), Patient Scheduling, etc. in the same cost but other vendors might charge you extra for these features. You need to be very clear with your vendors on these integrated services as well as the software updating costs since these costs may be on-going and put a lot of financial burden on you.
