Solutions: Integrated EMR-PMS Key Features

From medical history entry, to check-in, to treatment, to check-out and to billing, digiChart provides all the tools and features you need to deliver outstanding care to your patients and manage your practice. Every feature is built with the goal of improving your clinical workflow and making your practice more efficient and productive. Here are some of the features that our OB-GYN customers use daily in practices across the country.

EMR Features

PMS Features

Electronic Medical Record

ACOG Antepartum Record
digiChart OB-GYN maintains a license with ACOG to distribute an electronic version of the Antepartum Record and Flowsheet. As you enter clinical and patient data such as fetal measurements, cervical examinations, pregnancy problems, medications and lab results , the record is automatically updated. A permanent, organized, consistent and legible record is available from any computer with Internet access. This means no extra templates and no reassembled, hard-to-use forms.

Hospital Access
digiChart OB-GYN provides your hospital Labor and Delivery staff read-only access to the ACOG Antepartum Record. This feature is a tremendous convenience for the hospital, patients and you. No more late night calls asking for the patient's records. Everyone operates from the latest patient information and your practice saves time and money because it no longer has to maintain charts at the hospital.

The Patient Portal
digiChart OB-GYN includes a patient history Web site. This portal enables your patients to communicate their medical history from the comfort of their home prior to their office visit. The content of the history is both general and specific to OB-GYN. For OB patients, this data will electronically create a history narrative and populate the ACOG Antepartum Record. digiChart's Patient Portal dramatically reduces time spent gathering medical history, so you have more time to spend with patients on their exams, treatment plans and counseling.

Phone Management
All phone calls can easily be documented and routed to the appropriate person within the practice for follow-up. The phone management section allows any staff member to view all outstanding calls. No more lost call slips. Phone notes include all current medications and allergies, so you spend less time searching for information. All completed tasks, calls and signed-off encounter notes are saved within each patient record.

Clinical Documentation
Documenting with specific OB-GYN clinical content improves productivity, standardization and thoroughness. All patient data, including vital signs and physical examination findings, labs, medications, allergies, body diagrams, abnormalities and other clinical data, appear in the patient encounter note. An encounter note and patient summary are electronically generated. Key women's health information is highlighted on every page for point-of-care efficiency.

Physical Exam
The physical exam section represents the typical exam documentation for all GYN and OB patients. The Delivery page and PostPartum exam were designed to mirror those typical exams, as well. All exams are documented "by exception," meaning that you can quickly capture typical and atypical findings, with few or no comments required.

Medical Decision Making (MDM)
The MDM section is designed to allow you to quickly select diagnoses, procedures, medications, and education materials for each type of encounter. Practitioners can create their own Treatment Plans to include the most commonly used diagnoses, procedures, medication, education and treatment notes. MDM standardizes and automates the documentation for routine encounters and plans.

Prescribing
Medication ordering, refilling, and administration are a major part of any OB-GYN practice. You can create your own set of frequently used medications including dosage amount, frequency, and number of refills. Medications can easily be ordered or refilled and associated with a diagnosis. During the ordering process, medications are screened against the patient's known allergies, other medications and known problems. For patient safety, prescriptions can be printed or faxed directly to the pharmacy.

Test and Lab Results
digiChart OB-GYN can electronically interface with many national laboratory companies. Test results can be automatically routed and flagged to the ordering practitioner or any staff member. Other test results and documents can be flagged and scanned into the Test Results Management section. The Past Due Labs section lists all patients with outstanding test results. Each practice can designate the length of time required before outstanding lab studies appear in this section.

Billing and Coding
digiChart OB-GYN recommends an E&M code based on 1997 Genitourinary Examination guidelines and the documentation and data elements selected. The code can be released, deferred to billing personnel, recalculated, overwritten, or where appropriate, reported by time. With digiChart, the Billing Review allows billing personnel to immediately review and verify the level of service and other billable services before they are entered into the practice management system. This feature helps your practice recognize billable services that are sometimes left off the typical bill.

PMS Integration:
digiChart offers digiChart Practice, which integrates digiChart OB-GYN with our Practice Management System to give you full control of your practice: clinically, financially, and administratively. Should you choose another vendor's PMS, digiChart can integrate any system that uses the standard HL7 protocol. This integration will bring patient scheduling and demographics into digiChart OB-GYN in real-time as changes are made.

Practice Management System

Patient Information Management
Patient data is organized into tabs on the same screen, so you can quickly find what you need without endlessly searching through the system. Point-and-click navigation moves you easily through the patient's demographic information, insurance, financial history and appointments. When entering patient information, the system intelligently searches out duplicates to keep your database clean. digiChart also lets you view scanned documents and images like insurance cards, lab results and reports directly from the on-screen patient medical record

Scheduling and Check-In
The Scheduler's color-coded layout is easy to learn and efficient to use on a daily basis. Search and navigate effortlessly with the click of a mouse-finding what you need instantly. It's easy to set up multiple physicians, locations, block times, appointment types and other preferences to get your appointment book just the way you like it. You can even handle scheduling a provider across multiple locations. Deductibles and Co-pays are calculated upfront. Any payments are immediately posted to the patient's account.

Charge Capture
Customized online charge slips (superbills) allow providers to utilize a "point-and-click" screen that has the appearance of the paper charge slip. A unique visit tracking number is assigned to each appointment. This number follows the patient though the entire transaction. It is included on the insurance claim form and returned on the EOB, making payment posting and tracking a breeze-no more hunting for dates-of-service. Billing supervisors can review entries by providers after being entered but before being posted and billed.

Check-Out
All charge data entered is instantly updated to the front desk, so when the patient checks out, the patient portion is already calculated and the return visit information is available. The patient check-out screen automatically calculates patient portion based on carrier information. The recall visit tool makes follow-ups a breeze and eliminates the need for manual tracking, and even helps boost revenue by scheduling necessary recurring visits right at the time of check-out.

Billing Outbound Interface
You can significantly reduce the amount of data entry required in posting charges and payments. Coding will push from the EMR into the PMS, generating charges for review by your billing manager. Electronic Remittance is available for payors who participate, eliminating the need for data entry with many of your payments. It also flags any under/over paid payments based on your contractual fee schedules so that you can follow-up on problem claims in an efficient workflow.

Integration with Clearinghouse
Set a timer on your claims and receive pro-active alerts if your claims are delayed, resulting in faster claims payment. Should you need to prove timely filing or refer back to your EDI communications, all of your clearinghouse reports are retained (never deleted) within the application for quick, easy retrieval via a simple date-range search.

Claims Management
Claims that are incorrectly posted with errors, such as a service date outside the range of insurance coverage, are refused and show up on a convenient work list. Claims rejected because of problems found by the Claim Inspector also show up on this unbilled list. The Run Alerts tab on the Claims Center lets you track claim runs and includes alerts for potential problems.

Reporting Tools
Over 100 reports come standard with your system, including many ways to target outstanding balances. All reports can be exported to Microsoft Excel for further analysis. You configure system to view aging by date of service or date of entry, depending on your needs. Tracking accounts receivable activity by carrier and viewing descending balances and financial totals is easy, enabling you to efficiently organize notes and send collection letters.

Cash Flow Management
Daily statement batches are simple to run and help produce revenue faster than monthly batches - a key to reducing A/R. You can easily track denials and establish follow-up processes to resolve denied claims. The Track Claims feature prompts further investigation when payments have not been received after a user defined period. The Claims Inspector can reduce rejections to less than 5% by identifying errors before submitting claims.