5 EHR tips that could save your dental practice

Knowing the ins and outs of EHR could make a huge difference for your dental practice.

The transition to EHR may seem daunting for a lot of practices, but it doesn’t have to be. In the ever-evolving world of dentistry, adaptability is crucial for success-not to mention that many of the new developments in the dental industry will make your practice run much more smoothly in the long run. By streamlining processes, making communication simpler and generally helping your practice function more efficiently, making the switch to EHR is a crucial next step for group and solo practices alike.

Related reading: The DPR archives: Everything you need to know about EHR

The bottom line: EHR could save your dental practice. But we know dipping your toes into the EHR pool (or changing vendors, or renegotiating contracts, or staying HIPAA compliant) can feel overwhelming. To help, we compiled a list of the top five EHR articles by our software editor, Mike Uretz, that we feel all dental professionals should read.

Continue to the next page to see the must-read tips.

How to negotiate your EHR deal

Knowing your way around an EHR proposal can pay off big time for your bottom line. Everyone loves a good deal, but too many times vendors convince groups that they're getting the best deal possible-and that there's no wiggle room. But in a competitive situation, if you are important to the vendor, then all bets are off. The goal is to establish a win-win situation so that you are getting a great price and the vendor is getting something in return for working with you.

Read more here.

The benefits of EHR in group practice

EHR can play a positive role in group practices in more ways than one. There are several reasons both financial and clinical, but one reason that I hear consistently from group practice CEOs and COOs is that with numerous providers and locations in the organization it is important to try to standardize on various parts of their operations; with none more important than clinical data. So, with that goal in mind, where does one start?

Read more here.

What you need to know about the EHR Incentive Program

Though some portions of the subsidy program are now closed, groups and DSOs can still take advantage of the EHR Incentive Program. But because of all the misinformation and misunderstanding about the rules behind this program, many groups and DSOs will miss out on millions of additional payments over the next five years if they don’t truly understand what their ongoing rights are. So, it’s important to know which aspects of the subsidy program are closed and how groups and DSOs can still take advantage of the part of the program that allows for continuing payments. 

Read more here.

How to protect your dental EHR from cyber attacks

There has been some recent publicity regarding an online scheme where practices are having their patient database accessed by unauthorized individuals. Based on this, some providers have been worried about potential dangers of using electronic health records (EHR) that store patient data on a server database.Worries like this have been vocalized for a number of industries over the past few years. There have been instances of financial databases being hacked. So does that mean that banks and financial institutions should go back to keeping all their customer records on paper?

Read more here.

How dental EHR can streamline referral processes

Coordinating with outside specialists or referrals can be complicated and cumbersome-but EHR could make it easier. It is becoming possible that, with a state-of-the-art EHR, while with the patient in the exam room, the provider could choose the specialist that needed to be seen, and send the referral along with the pertinent records for that referral. As  we are increasingly looking at EHR that have the capability to support electronic referral features, here are a few of the features of EHR-based electronic referral networks that you should know.

Read more here.