EHR software, or electronic health records, are digital platforms that host patients’ medical records from throughout their health history. However, the best EHR software can do so much more (and they can also do it from a mobile device). Your EHR should be a hub for clinical workflows, practice management, medical billing and even telehealth. Whether you need to e-prescribe medications, create a custom clinical note, order labs or more, your EHR should have you covered. Ensuring that you find the best electronic medical record for your practice can make clinical operations faster and more efficient.

Though EHR and EMR are often used interchangeably at this point, they are slightly different. An electronic medical record (EMR) is a digital version of a patient’s medical chart and treatment history from one medical practice. An electronic health record (EHR) is a more all encompassing record featuring clinical notes and medical histories for a patient from all of their providers. However, people will often refer to an EHR as an EMR and vice versa.

Physicians need their EHR systems to have a strong suite of features to streamline their clinical workflows. First you will want customizable clinical forms and intelligent charting tools like free draw and medical-speech-to-text dictation. Your electronic health record platform should also be integrated with a big pool of labs, locally and nationally, to make sending and receiving lab orders a breeze. If your practice has to send prescriptions for patients, your EHR should have electronic prescription capabilities.

An EHR software should also have an integrated, HIPAA compliant patient portal where providers can securely share and receive information from patients. Finally, make sure that you sign onto a mobile EHR that works on iPhone, iPad and desktop. This allows you to use all of those other features from anywhere without having to sit at your desktop, facing away from your patient.

DrChrono is certified as a Complete EHR by the ONC-ATCB, meaning our platform meets the standards for stages 1, 2 and 3 of Meaningful Use. DrChrono EHR 11.0 was Stage 3 certified by UL on 12/27/2018. Our EHR Vendor Certification ID is 15.02.02.2897.A083.02.01.1.200618. Use DrChrono in your practice to qualify for government incentives per the HITECH Act.

Meaningful Use Stage 3 aims to make the Meaningful Use program more flexible for providers. It aims to clear up the process and promote interoperability, ideally leading to better patient outcomes along the way. MU Stage 3 emphasizes measures that allow for the secure exchange of health information between patients and providers. DrChrono continuously monitors changes to the MU program to ensure that your practice will meet its requirements.

The EHR implementation process requires patience and effective communication to ensure your practice’s mastery of a robust software. When you sign up with an EHR software company, you should begin the onboarding process led by an EHR implementation specialist. Work with your IS to establish expectations on both sides, and then schedule your meetings over the course of the 30-60 day process.

During the EHR implementation process, you should be given clearly structured learning modules to ramp up your ability to navigate the software. You should also have accessible support from your IS, chat support or ticketed support. To ensure that you can learn on your own as questions arise, look for an EHR vendor with a large library of support articles. After implementation is complete, you should be assigned a dedicated account manager as a main point of contact moving forward.

DrChrono EHR has four EHR pricing plans: Prometheus, Hippocrates, Apollo and Apollo Plus. These EMR pricing plans are structured based on the amount of features your practice needs, so smaller practices might not have the same needs as larger ones. For practices that only need the bare bones EHR features such as charting, appointment scheduling and such, Prometheus is perfect. If your practice needs a slightly more robust system with insurance eligibility checks, lab integrations, e-prescribing, patient flags and more, Hippocrates would be a great fit.

Some medical practices might have complex medical billing work that could be simplified with the right software. With the Apollo plan, your practice can have all of the EHR and practice management features of Hippocrates along with DrChrono’s powerful integrated medical billing software. However, you might be ready to completely hand off your billing workload to an RCM service. In that case, the Apollo Plus plan contains all of our EHR and practice management features in addition to our team of medical billing and coding experts to handle your revenue cycle management. Providers can speak with a DrChrono product expert to find the right EHR pricing for their office.