EHR – Alleva

April 21, 2023

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April 5, 2022

How to Choose Addiction Treatment EMR Software

While new technology or procedure changes in the workplace can be intimidating, switching from paper records to electronic health records is essential in today's behavioral health market. Many clinicians resist change, even if it promises to make the day-to-day feel easier. Many people think, “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it,” when asked to update their charting procedures. But if time is wasted trying to decipher handwriting or figuring out which antiquated symbol to click to view the most recent treatment plan, then an EMR will definitely simplify the process and increase efficiency.

With the right software system, one that is intuitive and handles tasks seamlessly, productivity improves and clinicians discover that they have more time to do what matters most--caring for those they serve.

In the behavioral health space, there are a few competing software programs. It is important to make sure that the time and effort spent adopting a new system is worthwhile. When looking for the EMR that best fits your addiction recovery facility, pay attention to how the system will help you achieve your clinic's goals and what kind of support is in place to see the implementation through.

What is EMR software?

EMR is Electronic Medical Records, sometimes referred to as EHR or Electronic Health Records. It is a major decision to choose what EMR to use and there are many factors to consider: cost, functionality, training, support, and compliance. The short-term time commitment cost of learning a new system is significantly outweighed by the benefits experienced by counselors able to document and track their clients' history more easily and efficiently.

Choose a system that helps to track patient progress and challenges, and updates other team members on patient engagement, seamlessly. Consider the following criteria to determine if the addiction treatment EMR software is right for your facility:

Is it customizable?

It is important to use software that is designed specifically for your industry. Behavioral health treatment centers need an EMR that is secure, makes documentation easy and helps with reporting and compliance. With a task-based system, the clinician is less likely to skip an essential step in the record-keeping process.

Is it collaborative?

Adopting a new EMR is generally done with the purpose of streamlining processes that are already present. Letting staff know that this is intended to be less work and save time is imperative. Giving the people who work with the system the most a say in what they need from an EMR can also allow this to feel like a collective decision. When a system is secure and cloud-based, information can be shared easily. Telehealth features facilitate communication and should be a requirement.

Is it easy to use?

Upgrading to a user-friendly EMR can take some of the paperwork burdens off of therapists. Clinicians who spend exorbitant amounts of time documenting or fighting with old systems are more likely to feel stressed at work. The longer this continues, the more likely it is that clinicians will burn out. Here are some ways that an EMR can alleviate this struggle and help therapists do more of what they love to do.

Spend Less Time Charting - Being able to type notes quickly and have a system that flows smoothly just saves time. A thoughtful setup simplifies processes.
Find Information Easily - When you need to dig around an old system or binder, it can take forever to find a specific record. With a system built to organize client information logically, counselors spend more time reading the actual data instead of clicking around.
Keep Track of Progress- Do screening assessments electronically and see how scores change over time. It makes treatment planning and assessing progress and goals so much easier to understand.

EMR Made for Therapists by Therapists

As a clinician, your needs are a priority. When time is wasted on an incompatible EMR, paper charts, or separate excel sheets to track client information, then there is a risk of burnout, the quality of treatment suffers, and a clinic's ability to meet its goals is at risk.

When an EMR is designed specifically for therapists and not just as an afterthought or an add-on option, our needs are truly addressed. An EMR platform that offers everything in one place makes the most sense.

Alleva's mission is to bring technology to therapists that actually improve their quality of work and takes the stress out of the work. Alleva works to make a system that is intuitive to your personal needs. If you are interested in a hassle-free demo or to learn more, reach out today.

May 4, 2021

EMR vs EHR: What is the Difference?

EMR vs EHR: What is the difference? Actually, the two terms are significantly different. However, these terms are frequently confused because some in the industry use them synonymously. I'm here to help you understand how the two are different.

The easiest way I can help you know the difference is through the terms of medical and health. An EMR (electronic medical record) has a very specific focus on a patient's medical past. However, an EHR (electronic health record) looks at a much broader view of a patient's health as a whole.

If you use an EMR or EHR, is it digital or paper? Comment below with the answer. I'm just curious how many of you are using each one.

EMR vs EHR: What is an EMR?

EMRs are digital or electronic versions of paper records of a patient's medical history. So, if you're a clinician, you take and keep notes of your patient's medical past. This is usually diagnosis and treatment information. The federal government started pushing medical providers to use EMRs instead of paper records years ago.

There are several reasons for this:

Digital records provide more data that can be tracked over time
They help you as a health care professional get patients in for important preventative visits such as health screenings
Improves the quality of health care and patient monitoring

EMR vs EHR: What is an EHR?

The purpose of EHRs is to have more than just the usual medical data by having a more complete view of a patient's overall health. A good EHR will have all of the information from all of the medical professionals caring for a patient. But EHRs don't stop there. They also help you (the care provider) communicate and share patient information with other providers including laboratories, specialists, etc. Essentially, EHRs help you follow patients throughout their medical journey and make it easier for you to provide better care.

This is also incredibly useful if you're the patient because it prevents you from having to coordinate hospital visits and relay information from doctor to doctor. This was all started in the government's Meaningful Use program designed to help health care providers provide better care and lower costs. You can learn more about Meaningful Use here.

If you're looking for a new behavioral health EHR, you can learn what to look for here. One key thing to look for in an EHR is one that gives you a way to easily communicate about patients' needed care without violating HIPAA.

EMR vs EHR: How does an Electronic Health Record improve patient care?

The purpose of EMRs and EHRs is to correct inefficiencies. In addition to helping you communicate internally and with other medical practices about patients in a HIPAA compliant manner, they also do the following:

Reduce the time needed to pull charts
Improve access to complete patient data
Make scheduling appointments easier and more efficient
Give you remote access to your patients' charts
Help manage prescriptions
Cut down on duplicate testing. This saves you and the patient time and money
Improve relationships within your practice and other disciplines through better communication
Make it easier to pull a patient's chart information by removing handwritten information
Aid diagnosis by helping you see a patient's complete medical history
Track a patient's allergies and medications
Automatically check for problems and conflicts when a new medication is prescribed
Patients can log in and see their health records, test results, etc over time.

How are EMRs and EHRs interdependent?

By now you can probably see that even though the terms EMR and EHR are frequently used synonymously, they actually mean very difficult things. But they frequently work together. If you're looking for a new behavioral health or substance abuse EHR or EMR software, you can get a free demo of ours here. In the demo, you'll see how our EMR and EHR software work together.

So, how do EMRs and EHRs depend on each other? The answer is actually pretty simple. While an EMR is used primarily to look at a patient's health in that clinic, that information only tells part of the story. By sharing your patients' information with other practices, specialties, laboratories, etc., you're able to give them better, more complete care. This gives the patient less to keep track of in their medical care. They're interdependent because the EMR is needed to improve communication and coordination in a particular practice while the EHR then helps multiple practices communicate and coordinate patient care.

How much does it cost to implement an EHR system?

Now that you've seen how useful and effective EMRs and EHRs can be for your medical practice if you don't have an EHR, you should get one, and it should be a great one. But how much does it cost to implement an EHR system?

According to HealthIT.gov, there are five core areas of EHR implementation that will help you get an approximate cost. Keep in mind that these costs are related to ambulatory primary cost settings.

EHR Software: Your potential costs associated with an EHR software include an EHR app, upgrades to your EHR app, and interface modules. Don't forget that software costs can range greatly depending on whether you have an on-site EHR or a SaaS EHR.
Hardware: Hardware costs include desktop and laptop computers, scanners, printers, tablets, database servers, and more.
Help with Implementation: You may also incur costs helping with the implementation of your new EHR. These vary from IT contractors, electricians, consultant support, attorneys, hardware installation, workflow redesign and more. If you're in the mental health and addiction recovery field, we can help. If not, your Regional Extension Center, aka REC, is a great place to start. Reach out to them to see if you're eligible to get free support.
Training: When you're setting up a new EHR, you and your staff should absolutely get trained on how to use it. Fortunately, any good EHR vendor will provide this training as part of their service. We definitely do. When you're considering various EHR vendors, ask around and check their reviews to make sure they provide in-depth and thorough training.
Ongoing Maintenance Fees: There can be a lot of fees down the line including software and hardware licensing agreements, continued education of staff, IT support fees, training of new staff, and more.

The Michigan Center for Effective IT Adoption estimates your costs would be as follows.

In-office:

Upfront: $33,000
Yearly: $4,000
5-year TCO (Total Cost Ownership): $48,000

SaaS:

Upfront: $26,000
Yearly: $8,000
5-year TCO: $58,000

EMR vs EHR Conclusion

In conclusion. the difference between an EMR vs EHR is simply this: EMRs are set up to improve communication in a single medical practice while EHRs work to improve the overall health of the patient.

EMRs and EHRs should work together to make life easier for the patient, such as appointment scheduling between doctors, specialists, etc., and for medical professionals, so they can coordinate with other doctors and offices on things like prescribed medication, treatment, etc.

If you're looking for a behavioral health or substance abuse treatment software EHR or EMR, we can help with a free demo. Just fill out the form below or give us a call and we'll schedule a free demo. Whether you go with us or another vendor, be sure to get a cost estimate beforehand on implementation.

February 14, 2019

How to Choose a Behavioral Health EHR: 10 Things You Need to Consider

1. Identify your goals

It is so important to understand your business goals when looking for a behavioral health EHR. What are your overarching goals for your business and where are you going? Are you trying to cut costs, grow revenue, expand locations, beds, occupancy or census? Are you trying to better retain staff? Do you have clinical goals that require better oversight or more time to accomplish - more efficiency, or better connection with patients? Identifying your goals, whatever they may be, is hypercritical to knowing what you want. Pain is just as important which is the next step.

2. Identify your need: Why do you need a behavioral health EHR?

It is critical to understand your motivations for needing a behavioral health EHR. What is your challenge with your current software? What are general pains with your business? Are you losing insurance dollars because of audits or record requests with missing documentation? Are you struggling with licensing or other concerns? Is there a lack of oversight because you are on paper or a weak system with little reporting or business intelligence tools to get what you need? Is there a department that is inefficient? Are you on a system but certain aspects of your business are still being done on paper?

3. Evaluate your current Process: What's working today that you wouldn't want to lose?

Is there anything your current vendor is doing right that you would be loath to lose? It is important to establish what is working and make sure you are not taking one step forward and two steps backward.

4. Assign priority

Try to list your pains with your current behavioral health EHR in order of biggest to least. Also, list the things you want to keep in order of importance. This will help you identify the best fitting EHR by how much value it will give you.

5. The Net

Your mental health EHR search needs to be done thoroughly. Make sure you gather a minimum of two EHR providers to go through. Having three or four would be ideal. Do an initial demo with each, keeping the demos to 30 minutes or less to narrow down to your top one or two.

6. Due diligence: Getting References on the Behavioral Health EHR Provider

Make sure you speak to references. This is an important step many people miss when selecting a behavioral health EHR. Whether they blindly sign up with a company or whether they discount that company because another competing company discouraged them from continuing to talk with them, make sure you do your due diligence and speak with people that are actually using the software every single day. You should also check their reviews on sites like Capterra and G2Crowd. Look at how many reviews they have and if the majority are good or bad.

7. The Behavioral Health EHR Demo

Make sure you have in mind some key areas you are looking to improve and have those outlined before the demo to help the presenter know what to focus on. Your time is precious and it should be focused on the things that will bring you maximum value and enable you to maximize your results with your new software. This will also help your behavioral health software provider to know the important things they need to be working on and where their customers are looking for help.

8. Your Current Contract

Some contracts have notice clauses that require one to give a certain amount of notice before you may cancel. This is important to know when thinking about your timeline to transition. Timing your notice with your implementation is key so that you are not paying for two systems longer than you need to. If your clause is 60 days or less, there isn’t much to worry about. Your new provider can advise you on when the best time will be to give notice. If it is longer than 60 days, you may want to consider giving notice even before you select a new partner.

9. A Good Fit

The partner you choose needs to be a good fit technically, but what about culturally? Some partners might be more online-tutorial based, some may be support-center based, and others may be account management based. It’s important to identify what is important to you and what is included. Also, where is the company headed? Most software today is cloud-based and delivered as a service (SAAS). What does their roadmap look like for the next year? How often do they do releases into their product? How are those communicated? How many engineers do they have on their team? Are they full time or part time contractors? Are they based in the US or overseas? This is important to know based on your past experience and deciding on the right fit for your business.

10. Cost vs. Value: What's the value of each option?

Listing the choices in order, regardless of price, is a great way to help yourself determine what you really want. Next, you'll want to assign a price to each option. If the price of the first one is worth the value it brings, then your decision was just made for you. If there is a discrepancy, then you need to think a little harder. One suggestion that is worth trying is calling that number one option and telling them they are the number one option but that their price seems to still be a barrier. Maybe they can be flexible. Sometimes they can and other times they can’t. It will depend on the situation. If option one cannot make it work, repeating these steps for option two and so forth will help you get the best possible solution for your needs and budget.

Choose a Behavioral Health EHR that best fits your needs

When you're looking for a behavioral health EHR, you should first identify your goals and needs. It doesn't matter how great a mental health EHR software is if it doesn't do what you need it to. Once you've established this, look at your current process and find an EHR that keeps what's currently working for you.

Next, assign priority to the pains and items you want to keep in order of importance. Then make a list of potential EHR vendors and get references on them. The best way to conduct an EHR search is to make it thorough. Then, get a demo! Most, if not all, EHR vendors provide a free demo. If they don't, you probably shouldn't consider that vendor. You can schedule a no-hassel demo with us here.

Check your current contract to ensure it doesn't have any clauses preventing you from leaving without sufficient notice. If you're able to leave your current contract, don't do so until you know the new vendor is a good fit technically and culturally. If it is going to save you time and give you peace of mind, it will be worth the switch.

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How to Choose Addiction Treatment EMR Software