Medical Practice Management Software Features

Who uses MPMS? Medical practice management software isn't an all-purpose solution for medical staff. MPMS is used by the following roles in a healthcare organization. 

• Front desk administrators
• Receptionists
• Nurses
• Financial managers

What are the primary benefits of MPMS adoption? The primary goal of using medical practice management software is to streamline administrative processes in medical organizations. Other benefits of integrating an MPMS are as follows.

• Automation of administrative tasks
• Reduced paperwork
• Fast patient registration
• Facilitated appointments creation and management
• Improved billing and claims management
• Simplified document generation
• Improved medical records management
• Improved data quality and reduced duplicated records
• Efficient data analysis and reporting

MPMS REQUIREMENTS AND MANDATORY COMPONENTS

Defined medical practice management software requirements should be met to work without downtime. Let's check the obligatory requirements below.

Hardware Requirements

The four most popular options for installing MPMS are:

• Local desktop. An application runs on a dedicated computer in a clinic. All the data is stored on its hard drive.
• On-site server. An app runs on an on-premises server. Medical staff can access its functionality using desktops connected to a local network. Data is stored on physical hard drives in a clinic. A medical organization maintains all hardware and software.
• Cloud server. Remote servers run medical practice software, and data is stored in a cloud. Medical staff can access the software and medical data using desktops connected to the Internet. A third-party company manages all the hardware.
• Hybrid server. The combination of on-site and cloud servers that are connected into one system.

All the options have distinctive peculiarities considered by medical organizations, depending on their needs.

Every option needs clinics to supply medical staff with a sufficient number of desktops. However, the other hardware requirements may vary.

Let's take a close look at the technical medical practice software requirements.

Depending on practice management software features, a clinic owner may be required to install and connect additional devices, like:

• scanner and printer
• barcode scanners
• point-of-sale (POS) machine
• cameras
• biometric devices

Software Requirements

Medical software requirements vary depending on a selected option. In the case of using out-of-self software, vendors provide detailed software specifications. Custom-built solutions can be tailored according to your existing infrastructure or specific medical practice management software requirements.  

Most practice management systems require medical organizations to have an operating system (OS) and web browsers installed on desktops. Servers should have dedicated operating systems and database management systems installed.

Regulatory Obligations

Depending on the location of a clinic, many regulatory obligations to patient data management may apply.  

In the US, all medical institutions should comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). It defines solid rules that clinics need to follow to collect, store, and share sensitive patient data securely. Adherence to HIPAA rules helps reduce errors, protect patient data, and effectively respond to breaches. 

Medical Data Interoperability

Data interoperability helps ensure different systems can exchange and interpret clinical data error-free. A medical practice management system should support backward-compatible medical data interoperability standards to send requests and fetch information from other systems.

Security Requirements

It's vital to keep patient data safe by enabling the following security measures. 

• Role-based data access. Different roles can access only defined types of medical data. Access to restricted data should be approved by responsible managers.
• Automatic data backups. Crucial patient data should be automatically backed up. Backups need to be stored on dedicated devices.
• Encrypted information. End-to-end encryption keeps the sensitive information of patients safe in case of breaches.
• Response plans. A defined set of activities to effectively tackle unforeseen issues that lead to data loss.

FUNDAMENTAL AND ADVANCED MPMS FEATURES

In order to streamline administrative processes in a medical organization, the MPMS software should have basic functionality. Fundamental features enable small clinics and individual practice doctors to automate most administrative processes.

1. Appointment Scheduling

Patients can easily check the availability of doctors, pick the best time slots, and make appointments. The basic functionality should enable patients to check, update, and cancel their appointments. 

Feature-rich systems foresee the opportunity to automatically send appointment reminders to decrease the no-show rate. Messages can be delivered via email, sms, messengers, phone calls, etc. Also, patients may have access to a waiting list to occupy time slots freed because of canceled appointments. 

2. Patient Registration

It enables clinic staff to quickly find, input, and fetch data from external resources. The functionality should grant access to a database of patients, their past visits, diagnoses, etc.

Using advanced components of the patient registration functionality, a clinic' staff can:

• create customizable registration forms
• scan and digitize documents
• verify the identity of patients
• create and share consent forms
• fetch data about patients from third-party platforms

3. Insurance Eligibility Check

The insurance coverage availability check is a daunting option requiring significant manual input, depending on the provider. A digital system can help automate the majority of processes by using the following solutions:

• insurance provider information submission form
• electronic insurance eligibility verification
• access to the information about patients' coverage plans
• API integrations with top health insurance providers

4. Billing and Invoicing

With the help of medical practice management software features, a clinic' staff can use the collected information about patients' coverage plans to compose invoices. A digital system can automatically analyze data about services offered by a medical organization to automatically compose:

• claims to insurance companies
• bills to patients for non-covered services

Digital solutions help medical staff reduce the number of errors and track payments effectively.

5. Reporting and Analytics

Automatic reports provide clinics' management with complete visibility of all the processes. A digital system can automatically analyze different metrics, compose reports, and share them with those defined personnel.

Different types of reports containing diverse information can be shared with various roles in a clinic. The foremost details that generated reports can comprise are as follows.

• Financial metrics: information about income, expenses, services offered, accepted & rejected claims, submitted invoices, and other crucial financial metrics. 
• Patient data: anonymized information about location, average age, gender, diagnoses, treatment procedures, satisfaction rate, etc. 
• Appointment details: summarized scheduling data, including the number of visits, rescheduled & canceled appointments. Also, reports can indicate the average no-show rates, waiting time, types of appointments, and other details.
• Employee performance: information about the number of visits per day to defined doctors, average visit duration, patient outcomes & satisfaction, etc.

Systems with advanced features can help medical staff simultaneously get custom reports that include data of defined ranges or match only picked criteria.

6. Messaging

It is one of the advanced medical practice management software features that enables medical staff to communicate with patients, insurance providers, and doctors seamlessly. The messaging functionality can help medical staff to get the additional information and clarify details by contacting other people via different sources.

7. Integration with Other Systems

The integration with systems like electronic health record (EHR) systems helps clinical staff access information about patients remotely, including the following:

• patient demographics
• medical history
• lab test results
• allergy information
• prescribed medications
• insurance information

Medical data can be fetched from other systems automatically to speed up the registration process and simultaneously access crucial patient information.

8. Patient Portal

A dedicated portal helps improve patient satisfaction by offering instant access to crucial information and self-service functionality that offers the opportunity to:

• check, reschedule, and cancel appointments
• update personal information
• communicate with a clinic's personnel
• request prescription refill
• access educational resources
• fill in medical forms and share feedback

An advanced patient portal should be accessible using mobile devices. It can be a mobile app or a mobile-optimized web application.

9. Electronic Prescribing

Electronic prescribing is one of the advanced components of medical practice management software that provides a clinic's staff with the opportunity to:

• check patients' medical history
• check allergy reactions
• prescribe new medications
• accept/decline refill requests
• submit dispensing requests to pharmacies

THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN IMPLEMENTING A NEW SYSTEM

Whether an out-of-shelf or custom-built software is considered, the following steps help implement a new solution.

1. Planning. Prepare a detailed plan for implementing new medical practice management software features. It's recommended to define time frames, deliverables, and roles to involve

2. Data migration. Configure the best option to migrate patient data from spreadsheets or a previous system to new software.

3. Staff training. Create learning materials and define skills that should be learned by medical staff. Also, you can conduct a workshop and create a detailed learning plan to train staff efficiently.

4. System maintenance. Monitor the performance of new software and upgrade it to increase the computing power and disk space upon a need. Also, it's necessary to troubleshoot technical issues rapidly.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Small medical practice offices and large clinics widely adopt MPMS software. According to statistics, the global medical practice management software market is projected to double its size from 2022 to 2029, with a CAGR of 9.30%.

The core components and requirements for medical practice software are as follows.

• Hardware requirements define the technical specifications of servers, desktops, network equipment, and other devices to install.
• Software requirements define supported operating systems, browsers, and obligatory-to-install tools.
• Regulatory obligations define data processing and maintenance rules to keep sensitive information safe. 
• Interoperability enables error-free health information exchange between systems that use different technologies.
• Security requirements define a set of measures that help keep patient information safe and rapidly respond to unforeseen issues.

The list of the most popular medical practice management software features includes the following:

• appointment scheduling
• patient registration
• insurance eligibility check
• billing and invoicing
• reporting 
• messaging 
• integration with other systems
• patient portal