EMR Billing Matters

My previous post about imagining an EMR that didn’t include billing certainly has driven a lot of conversation. Actually, that was the purpose of the post. I indulge in great conversation with multiple perspectives. It’s the beauty of blogging and of life.

However, please don’t let that post confuse you. Billing is an absolute essential part of an EMR software. There’s a very good reason why most EMR software out there amounts to little more than a big billing machine. The demand for healthcare software was initially to solve the challenges associated with medical billing. Markets are great at satisfying demands and that’s why the EMR software is the way it is today.

This means that EMR vendors CANNOT ignore billing. Rightfully so, doctors want to get paid for their work.

Of course, the point of the previous post was to try and expand the conversation beyond billing. Basically, the goal was to try and imagine an EMR software world where patient care was the focus instead of billing. What kind of good could we accomplish if this was our goal?

This follow up post was prompted by this somewhat disturbing email I received:
“I have built just such an EMR product for the iPhone and iPad. I am struggling with financing it because everybody wants billing. They really don’t care about the quality of the EMR.”

I’d make one qualification. No one cares about the quality of the EMR, if you don’t satisfy their billing needs too. Reminds me of HIPAA. No one would purchase an EMR that didn’t meet the HIPAA standards. However, once they hear it meets those standards, they move on to other things like the quality of the EMR.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

4 Comments

  • Hi John, I would like to get in touch with the person/company that built its EHR for iPhone and iPad. We are in the process of porting our MDnet-EHR to iPad and obviously there are challenges in leveraging the feature rich iPad platform. For all you know, we might help them integrate our billing platform and possibly take assistance from them to speed up our release on iPhone and iPad.

    Having said that, yes I agree and as posted earlier, its a necessity considering the smaller clinics do not have the bandwidth to deal with disperate systems. Billing is a essential function in the smaller market and since it affects the cash-flows immediately, Providers sometimes (many times) consult with their biller/office manager before finalizing on the EHR. Its the nature of the beast and comes with the territory.

  • Anthony,
    I’m trying to get a website and contact info. I’ll forward him your info and maybe he can contact you directly.

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