August 2017

With many choices available for practice management software for mental health practices, it pays to do your research up front. Do you know what to look for and what questions to ask?

Here are seven areas you should consider when choosing a mental health practice management software.

1. Security

One of the most important purposes of practice management software is to protect and secure its records.

Look for software that is HIPAA compliant, is ONC-certified, and encrypts data.

2. Support

Technology is always a great boost to productivity and management, but what happens when issues arise? Evaluate vendors based on the support they offer.

You want a mental health practice management software provider who has plenty of people on staff to quickly and easily tackle any issues you have.

Also look for a vendor who provides training before, during, and after implementation.

3. Size of your practice

Before reaching out to a mental health practice management software vendor, find answers to the following:

• How many clients does your practice serve?
• How many therapists are in your practice?

Some vendors price their systems based on how many therapists are active in your practice while others base price on how many clients you serve.

4. Software requirements

Make a list of the issues you want the practice management software to help you solve. For example:

• Do you want to monitor how your practice is growing and progressing?
• Do you want to track client retention or no-show rates?
• Do you need automated appointment reminders sent via text, phone, or email?

There are probably more issues you want to be solved. Make a list and compare vendors against it.

5. Demo

You definitely need to see a software demonstration before you decide. Look for a vendor who can run mock data through their system based on the information you need to collect. This will help you determine if the practice management software helps you manage the parts of your practice you need most. Look for functionality like intake and scheduling, reporting and analytics, authorization management, and more.

6. Cost

Cost is always a defining factor in the equation. Make sure you’re comparing like features to like features before comparing cost.

Also make sure the price quoted by the vendor includes everything you need, such as implementation, training, support, and data migration.

7. Fully Integrated Platform

The most important component of selecting practice management software is choosing a system that is fully integrated with clinical, revenue cycle management, and data analytics. A fully integrated platform that offers all of these functionalities in a central location and one dashboard will help your organization achieve efficiencies that make a difference both to your bottom line and to your clients.

Conclusion

Once you’ve done your research, it’s time to decide.

Then, have your new fully integrated practice management/clinical/revenue cycle management/data analytics platform installed and give staff time to become comfortable with it. You will be pleasantly surprised at the difference this platform makes in your day-to-day operations.

The Remarkable Health difference

Remarkable Health is the industry-leading provider of a fully integrated EHR solution designed specifically for the needs of behavioral health organizations. With our flagship platform, CT|One, we have passionately focused for over 25 years on providing behavioral health, substance abuse, and human service organizations the tools they need to provide remarkable client experiences.

Call Remarkable Health today to schedule a demo to witness the power mental health practice management software can give your organization over its operations.

Behavioral health practice management systems can make your day-to-day operations a little less hectic.

Look for a behavioral health specific EHR platform with integrated practice management software tailored to your organization’s unique needs and workflows. It covers patient intake and scheduling, authorization management and much more.

Here are the key areas of functionality you need to look for when evaluating a behavioral health practice management system.

Client intake

Before you see clients, you need to register them. Make sure any system you consider stores all the information you need to collect for client intake.

Part of registering clients is to confirm their insurance. Look for practice management software that lets your staff check eligibility right from the application.

Finally, choose a system that automatically keeps a tally of how many visits a client’s payer allows and alerts you when you’re reaching the limit.

Client scheduling

When you choose a fully integrated practice management software solution, you get built-in scheduling. Software should make it easy to keep up with which client is coming in and with whom they have an appointment.

Identify a software system that sends automated appointment reminders via phone calls, text messages, or emails to help reduce your no-show rates.

Reporting

You should be able to run reports to help you make smart business decisions about your practice’s operations. For example, you can run a report showing when clients have no-showed in the past month, or which provider is typically late in releasing notes.

Finally, you should be able to track and report on authorization management, so you know exactly how many visits an insurance or other payer covers.

Conclusion

The right practice management system for behavioral health organizations will make your life easier. It will also create efficiencies for your staff by streamlining your operations, so they spend less time on administrative work. Don’t discount the importance of happy staff to your behavioral health organization’s ultimate success.

The Remarkable Health difference

Remarkable Health’s flagship platform, CT|One, is a fully integrated EHR and practice management solution designed specifically for behavioral health, addiction, and mental health organizations. For more than 25 years, we have passionately focused on providing behavioral health, substance abuse, and human service organizations the tools they need to provide remarkable client experiences.

Contact Remarkable Health today to schedule a demo of CT|One to discover the power of a fully integrated behavioral health EHR/practice management solution.

What is practice management software for behavioral health practices? And how does it differ from an EHR? These are two important questions to ask to help you decide what exactly your agency needs from systems to help you manage your practice.

What is healthcare practice management software?

Behavioral health practice management software automates and streamlines the operational aspect of your healthcare practice. For example, you get comprehensive operational functionality that helps you manage and support authorization management, medication accountability, bed management, inventory, document tracking, and more.

An EHR system, on the other hand, is an electronic version of a paper chart.

How does healthcare practice management software differ from an EHR?

An EHR streamlines data entry for clinicians, assisting with assigning the correct codes. It also reduces or eliminates the paper chart needed.

Practice management systems manage the practice such as calendar and scheduling, intake, capturing demographics, a client portal, and more.

Do you need both healthcare practice management software and an EHR?

The more software you’re using at a time, the more work for staff, management, and clinicians to bring those pieces together for reporting and managing purposes. You lose massive efficiencies by having multiple disparate systems and it also becomes a cost burden.

Many practices maintain separate systems for calendar and scheduling, coding and billing, authorization management, clinician notes, bed and medication management, and more. Making these separate pieces work together consistently and efficiently can be challenging.

Imagine how efficient and effective staff, clinicians, and management can be when their system contains everything they need in one simple platform.

Conclusion

Healthcare practice management software is an important purchase. The choices you make can make a significant difference in your management capabilities, profitability, client outcomes, and staff happiness.

Take your time to carefully evaluate and demo several platforms to find the one that best fits your practice’s needs.

The Remarkable Health difference

Remarkable Health’s CT|One is a fully integrated behavioral health EHR solution to help you take client care to a higher level. We have assisted agencies just like yours achieve greater efficiencies and broader insights into improved client care and management.

CT|One is a complete hosted Electronic Health Record (EHR) – Clinical, Billing, Scheduling, Medication Management / e-Prescribing, Reporting, and more – for inpatient, outpatient, and residential settings.

Request a demo today to discover how your agency can help clients achieve remarkable outcomes.

Caring for the 25 percent of Americans who suffer from mental health disorders is complex. Clients may have underlying medical conditions and socioeconomic situations contributing to low compliance rates, along with many other variables making it more difficult to offer treatment.

Finding practice management software for behavioral health organizations can help you pinpoint and improve financial and organizational barriers. Here are two main benefits of implementing a behavioral health practice management software solution.

Creates operational efficiencies

How much time does your staff currently spend trying to track down insurance eligibility or find out what your no-show rate is for the year? If your answer is “a significant amount,” you could enjoy the operational efficiencies practice management software provides.

Another efficiency you can gain if you choose a platform that integrates practice management and an EHR solution is in intake and scheduling. Front office staff use the same system that clinicians use, so information like the number of payer-allowed visits and dates of appointments scheduled is attainable by everyone.

Finally, built-in scheduling and automated reminders allow interdepartmental sharing, reducing no-shows and helping you reach clients where and how they like communications.

Financial and security improvements

Consider how authorization management can help your practice financially. Every time a session note uses authorization, the system tracks the note. You get an alert when you’re nearing the limit of authorized visits, so you’re never saddled with the cost of a visit that’s not allowed by the payer.

The increase in data security a practice management software system provides can pay for itself in less financial risk of breach. Find a practice management software system that offers HIPAA compliance and reduce your risk of costly security breaches.

You’ll gain impressive efficiencies with an integrated practice management system, clinical platform, and revenue cycle management solution. If you currently have disparate systems that cover each of these areas, consider the time it takes to gather information because these systems don’t talk or sync together. An integrated system offers you data at your fingertips.

Conclusion

Your behavioral health organization has a unique operational design. That’s why you need practice management software tailored for how behavioral health operations flow. In fact, look for practice management software that’s integrated with EHR, billing and coding, and revenue cycle management systems. A fully integrated EHR/practice management software is a comprehensive solution that you can run from a single dashboard.

The Remarkable Health difference

Remarkable Health is leading the IT challenge by continually improving on our purpose-built, integrated EHR and practice management solution. We take our clients’ success very seriously: we passionately focus on providing behavioral health, substance abuse, and human service organizations the tools they need to provide remarkable client experiences.

Schedule a demo today of CT|One, an EHR and practice management solution consisting of clinical, billing, scheduling, reporting, and medication management for inpatient, outpatient, and residential facilities.

Paying for software can be expensive, but paying for numerous software programs is a waste of money. Integrated practice management software that includes an EHR platform allows you to work on all areas of your organization in one comprehensive, centralized application so you can save time and money.

Watch for the following trends to understand where integrated practice management software is heading.

Regulations

You need to be sure you’re in compliance with federal and state regulations at all times. An integrated practice management software solution lets you track regulatory measures.

A fully integrated behavioral health practice management software platform also lets you end paper records and set the stage for Meaningful Use down the road.

Cost reductions and increased productivity

When you choose a fully integrated practice management software solution combined with an EHR, you’re greatly reducing the costs of managing, maintaining, and upgrading numerous systems to allow you to run your practice.

Add on to that the efficiencies you gain through automating clinicians’ and staff’s routine tasks, and you get more done throughout the day. For example, you can automate billings, making payment faster and more accurate.

Mobile

Fully integrated practice management software providers are looking at ways to make their platforms more mobile for users. Access from a smartphone or tablet is a growing trend clinicians and staff would embrace.

Mobile access allows clinicians to meet their clients where and when it’s most convenient for them. Clinicians will still be able to take notes and have them uploaded later to the software platform.

Conclusion

There are many reasons for using a fully integrated practice management software solution. If you haven’t made the switch, seriously consider integrating all your systems into one comprehensive provider success platform.

When you take into consideration the many benefits and upcoming trends, it makes more sense to switch sooner rather than later.

The Remarkable Health difference

Everyone at Remarkable Health is passionate about helping our clients create amazing outcomes for their clients. For more than 25 years, we have diligently focused on providing behavioral health, substance abuse, and human service organizations the tools they need to provide remarkable client experiences.

Request a demo of our flagship platform, CT|One, to experience the difference a fully integrated behavioral health EHR and practice management solution can make in your organization.