Do the providers, clinical staff, and office staff feel burdened constantly by all the administrative requirements out there? Are you starting to see some of the telltale signs of burnout among everyone in your clinic? For many medical offices, the answer to these questions is a resounding yes. Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot that you can do to reduce the administrative burden (although CMS and payers indicate they are trying to do so). But there is something you can do to make the impact of those administrative burdens a little easier on your physicians and staff: customizing the software you use in your practice, from scheduling and EHRs to medical billing software and practice management software.
Benefits of Customization
Every clinic has its own way of doing things, and in most cases, there isn’t a “right” way to take care of a particular task in your daily workflows. Where many providers and staff do get hung up, though, is when software requires certain steps that are counter to or vary from your normal workflows. If you can’t customize your software, staff and providers get frustrated and give up on using the software entirely (using it only to complete what they can’t do manually), or they find workarounds that are even less efficient.
Customization provides the opportunity to align your software processes with your existing workflows, which has several benefits for your clinic:
- Less physician burnout
- Less frustration for your staff, including clinical and office staff
- Improved patient satisfaction because the physician can engage with the patient and not the computer during each appointment
- Streamlined billing for faster reimbursements
How to Get More Customized Clinical Software
As we’ve established, customization is great for your clinic, but there are some challenges you might encounter when trying to customize your software:
- Lack of customization capacity – many software programs are built to work a specific way, and the developers did not build in the capability to customize the program.
- Lack of time – it does take time for someone to evaluate the current software and find the most efficient and effective ways to customize it, so there is an initial investment of time from you and/or your staff.
- Lack of will to get it done – for many clinics, the time and effort required to learn the best ways to customize aren’t worth the hassle; people end up frustrated while trying to use the software, but nobody is willing to put in the time to make changes
- Lack of expertise or help – chances are your software vendor will know how to customize your workflows, and can help reduce the time and effort required to do so, however, you will need to choose a vendor that is willing to invest the time in you as a client.
AdvancedMD Can Help
AdvancedMD offers a fully customizable suite of practice management software, including medical scheduling, appointment reminder software, electronic health records (EHRs), medical billing, patient portal software, and more.
