As healthcare practices all over the country began switching from paper files to electronic health records (EHR), the government stepped in and developed minimum requirements for handling patient data electronically. This is called meaningful use. While an excellent idea, in reality, it puts a significant burden on healthcare providers of all kinds, including orthopedic practices.
Healthcare practices must now find the time and resources to devote to meeting meaningful use requirements, which can translate into long hours spent charting and less time taking care of patients. Many orthopedic doctors are left wondering how they are supposed to manage both. Fortunately, outsourcing can be a viable option.
The Key Benefits of Working with a Healthcare IT Service Provider
Before you explore the multitude of healthcare IT management companies to choose from, it’s important that you understand the benefits of outsourcing your practice’s IT functions. Depending on your practice’s needs, some benefits may be more valuable than others, and some may only provide a higher level of IT function within your practice while others resolve core problems and obstacles.
Staff Augmentation
If your orthopedic practice is like most others, your staff is already stretched thin. Achieving meaningful use can be challenging in the day-to-day clinical practice for physicians, nurses, technicians, and administrative staff. By outsourcing to an IT company specializing in healthcare, you can give your staff the extra support they need. Your healthcare IT management team takes care of the details, while your staff takes care of your patients. Hiring additional staff members in-house and training them extensively to accommodate the extra time created by meaningful use requirements can be costly. Working with an expert healthcare IT service provider helps prevent unnecessary staffing expenses.
Advisory Services
Most orthopedic practices today have completed the intensive process of migrating from paper records to electronic health records. However, it doesn’t stop there. To meet meaningful use requirements, your practice must continue to utilize EHR properly. Exactly how to do this may not always be clear and mistakes can be expensive. When you work with healthcare IT management professionals, you can continue to receive ongoing education about how best to use your EHR and how to streamline the achievement of meaningful use within your practice. You have a team that you can call on at any time to ensure that all your bases are covered.
Expert Help
Many IT services make the claim that they can work in a variety of markets, from schools to hospitals. However, healthcare providers and orthopedic practices, in particular, have unique needs that general IT service providers may not understand. It’s critical to work with a provider who stays up-to-date on the latest changes to meaningful use laws and can advise you on how they affect your practice. You need a team that completely understands the IT needs of a healthcare practice, not just a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none.
Managed Services
Many healthcare IT service providers can offer much more than augmenting your staff and assisting you with meeting meaningful use requirements. Your orthopedic practice may benefit from a total managed services package, where your IT is taken care of from soup to nuts. From proper use of Office 365 and hardware and phone services to HIPAA assessments and vendor management, a healthcare IT professional can offer you complete services so you can stay focused on caring for your patients. Even practices with smaller budgets can benefit greatly from having a trusted professional handle their IT needs because often, trying to manage complex technology matters in-house can be costlier than outsourcing.
Disaster Preparedness
With all of your patient records stored electronically, computer crashes and other IT disasters can be detrimental to your business. It’s important to work with an IT company specializing in healthcare that understands the need for adequate disaster preparedness and has adequate backup plans for negative events. Whether there’s a fire, flood, natural disaster, or just computers that go down, your electronic health records need to remain protected and intact. Discuss disaster preparedness with your potential healthcare IT management professional and ensure that they take making Plan B a priority.
Ready to Outsource Your Orthopedic IT Needs to a Trusted Healthcare IT Professional?
Call Reliable IT Healthcare
Reliable IT Healthcare is an experienced healthcare IT service provider with significant experience working with healthcare practices both small and large, including orthopedic practices. We understand your unique IT needs and are prepared to meet them. We offer peace of mind, security, HIPAA compliant solutions, trust, and teamwork. We can customize your healthcare IT package to fit your budget — whether you’re looking for a team to help augment your staff and provide advisory services strictly regarding meaningful use or you need a company with the capacity to do it all, we can help.
Your medical records are at the core of your orthopedic practice, and the proper management of them is crucial to avoiding unnecessary costs and potential penalties. Contact Reliable IT Healthcare to discuss your needs and what your next step should be. Call now at (720) 543-2240 or fill out our online form to get in contact with us. We’re available now to help you and have a dedicated Help Desk for healthcare practices that need ongoing support.
