In this month's Electronic Health Reporter, Nextech's Jeff Lew, VP of Product Management, discusses "What's Ahead in Electronic Health Record Technology in 2018." As the electronic health records (EHRs) continue to evolve, there are exciting new developments that are emerging, read all about which three trends that Lew thinks are worth watching out for.

In this month's issue of Practical Dermatology, Nextech's very own Senior Professional Services Consultant, Robin Ntoh discussed the 5 tech trends that your dermatology practice can leverage today. From increasing referrals and retention through data analytics and reporting to preparing your practice to be MACRA ready, you can make sure your are on top of the latest technological innovations and trends.

According to the HIMSS Analytics 2017 Essentials Brief: Outpatient PM & EHR Study, 44.1% of respondents noted patient portals as the top technology for addressing the MIPS Clinical Practice Improvement Activities (CPIA) measure. The study notes that the expanded portal technology surpases health information exchange, which was indicated by survey respondents in 2016 as the technology needed to implement to address CPIAs.

Cloud adoption numbers are up in health care, and dermatology practices are no exception.

It has always been important for Plastic Surgery practices to recognize the direct effect that patient experience has on retention and practice growth. Now more than ever, Plastic Surgery practices must increase operational efficiency to be more competitive. Many practices are looking to new technology options to help fill the gaps in operational efficiency.

In specialty practices such as ophthalmology, dermatology and plastic surgery, physicians spend the majority of their time using information from images and textual data from the electronic medical record (EMR) to make decisions. Integrating images into the EMR is therefore a great benefit to improving functionality for physicians. Read the full article from Becker’s Health IT and CIO Review to learn more about improving EMR efficiency by integrating imaging and other features such as a patient portal.

As the popularity of high deductible health plans with low monthly premiums increases, the out-of-pocket maximum for each patient and the cost for each visit also increases. This creates a growing challenge for specialty practices to collect, as there is a 62 percent lower likelihood of payment once the patient leaves the office. The changing payer model creates a need for a patient-centric specialty practice experience to help collect more at the time of each patient visit.

Payment policies for aesthetic services are more akin to booking a luxury cruise than buying a car. You can’t repossess a facelift, so it only makes sense to require payment in advance and to charge a substantial booking fee. The business of medical aesthetics may seem straightforward—you provide a service, the patient pays a fee—but the reality of patient billing is more complicated.