Paperless Office Management Made Simple for Medical Practice Management: A Step-by-Step Guide

Going completely paperless in healthcare would have made you laugh ten years ago. Coming to your practice as a patient back then meant zoning out in the lobby and staring at endless rows of shelves stuffed with patient records until their name was called for an appointment. After a decade, most of the practices use some kind of digital system. People now have a completely different experience when they visit your office. Those massive piles of records have vanished, allowing access to the lobby. Some modern healthcare organizations even prioritise interior design.

However, switching to a practice management software is only half the battle; there is still work to be done to opt for medical practice management. Going paperless in healthcare is more complicated than it appears. The benefits, however, far outweigh the effort required.

Here is our list of benefits explaining why one should opt for paperless professional medical billing.

1. Removes External Risks 

Sending a patient’s statement to the wrong address is a data breach when a healthcare organization uses paper, it puts a lot of sensitive information at risk. If you send the majority of your patients' statements via mail and they are accidentally forwarded to the wrong addresses, you are in violation of POPIA & HIPAA. Consider how humiliating it would be to call each of those patients and inform them that their most sensitive information was shared with someone neither of you has ever met.

Not only that but what if a storm like the ones recently in KZN or other natural disaster hits your practice's town and damages your building? When you returned to your office, you'd find all of your paper records scattered across the parking lot, damaged, or lost forever.

2. Record Maintenance 

Beyond the risks associated with keeping paper records, having them unsorted is very inconvenient. If you still use paper records, how long do you think it takes your employees on average to find the patients’ data when they come in for an appointment? If you want an approximate figure, it's about 20% of their time. If your records are stored electronically in professional medical billing software, all of your employees will have access to them in one location. The best part is that you don't have to recite the alphabet in your head or run your fingers over mildewed folders to find a patient. A search bar is all that stands between you and any of your patients.

3. Data Protection and Security 

Let's go over a brief scenario. Your front desk worker forgets to place the PHI-containing file back on her desk after leaving for lunch. The file is gone when they return. In two senses, this is a tremendous concern.

First off, there is no way to determine who removed the file unless your practice has security cameras pointed at the front desk. Second, you wouldn't receive a report if the employee returned and forgot entirely about that file. That poses a big liability. The aforementioned situation might be enough to convince you to make the switch to paperless professional medical billing if you haven't already.

4. Convenience Enhanced by Mobility 

When you use paper, you also end up with a lot of clipboards that are crooked lying around the office. If a patient asks you a question while you're seeing them, you'll either need to give it some serious thought or bring a stack of diagrams to go over with them. Not to mention that taking your work home with you would be too risky given how expensive it would be to lose it.

Going paperless, however, also promotes the usage of mobile devices like phones and tablets in the workplace. By adopting this trend, you demonstrate your industry's inventive side. You can obtain crucial information from any location. You may safely log in using your phone and instantly get any information you need without having to go to the office to search it up.

5. Environmentally Friendly in Your Patients' Eyes 

People are more environmentally conscious than they have ever been, and they want to reward businesses that share their values. This is especially true for the next generation. It's perfectly normal to be concerned right now. When you stop using paper, your carbon footprint vanishes. This is something you can share as part of your word-of-mouth marketing strategy to bring in younger patients.

Switch to the best medical billing software IsoEvolve in order to overcome all the above-mentioned situations and transform into a paperless office with ease. Our best-in-class solutions and content — includes a digital assistant, practice management software, debt collection software, online presence software, and client management software. We couple our incredible products with interesting content - which includes in-depth free guides, popular industry podcasts, premium courses, and more.

Conclusion 

The advantages of going paperless in healthcare go beyond simply reducing clutter. If you're still hesitant to make the switch after reading this, I have one final point to make. The vast majority of practices, hospitals, and other organizations in your industry have already made the switch. As a result, many of the vendors who will assist you in switching have already worked out many of the issues that arose during their services' early adopter phase.

Go paperless and find out more about a paperless medical practice management solution which can be found here https://kitrin.com/medical-practice-management. Many of our clients also prefer to concentrate solely on the medical billing solutions rather than the more comprehensive practice management aspects. In this case, we created a useful resource to guide them through this process - which can be found here https://kitrin.com/medical-billing-solutions.