News

Nextech's VP of Regulatory and Compliance, Courtney Tesvich reviews what you need to know before the end-of-year deadline for EHR development companies to comply with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) Cures Act certification updates.

Giving your patients the attention they deserve while still regularly and reliably reporting performance measures can be difficult. Robin Ntoh, Nextech's Senior Professional Services Consultant, provides tips to achieve the perfect balance between value based-care and quality reporting in Physicians Practice. 

With so many new reporting and analytics solutions on the market it can be difficult to find out what suits your practice the best. This article by Robin Ntoh, Nextech's Senior Professional Services Consultant, explores why it's important to find the perfect solution, what to look for when implementing them and how to ensure an optimal return on investment for your practice. 

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. 

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.

Ophthalmologists are trained to provide the full spectrum of eyecare, from prescribing glasses to precision eye surgery. Yet while they may be experts at treating patients, very few have business degrees or specialized practice management skills. Poor real estate decisions and bad hires, for example, are common mistakes that constitute part of the typical learning curve. However, many doctors make serious financial mistakes that can devastate their businesses, such as choosing the wrong electronic health record (EHR) and then sticking with it because of sunk costs.

Some early adopters of electronic health records (EHRs)—specialty practices in particular—are experiencing buyer’s remorse to the point that they are considering changing vendors. Think about the movements of a patient during an appointment in a retina practice. He or she may be tested or screened in one or more areas of the facility, transitioned to another area to consult with the retina specialist, and then moved to the payment counter. Most all-purpose EHRs cannot accommodate such complicated workflows.