Find the best Urology EMR Software

Selecting electronic medical (EMR) software can be a tough task when there are hundreds of options on the market. To simplify the search for the right medical software, it is important to understand the features, benefits and current trends in the market before shopping around. Keeping these things in mind, we’ve tried to make things less complicated for buyers by creating this guide. We’ll help you understand urology EMR systems and evaluate the right software for your practice.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

What Is Urology Medical Software?
Common Features of Urology Medical Software
Benefits of Urology Medical Software
Market Trends to Understand

What Is Urology Medical Software?

Urology medical software includes specialty-specific EMR solutions that have customized features to meet the needs of a urology practitioner. Some of these features include:

• Subjective, objective, assessment and plan (SOAP) notes with urology-specific templates
• Medication management
• Coding and billing
• Integration with lab and pathology reports

Urologists need a system that supports them in treating their patients in a discreet and respectful manner, while maintaining all the functionalities of generic and specialty EMR or electronic health record (EHR) solutions. Therefore, software that’s specifically designed for urology practices will be ideal, as it’s highly customized for the industry.

The successful adoption of urology medical software will reduce overhead manual tasks, prevent human errors, increase customer satisfaction levels and drive revenue. In addition, advanced systems facilitate electronic payments to reduce payment issues for patients.

Urology medical solutions are deployed either on-premise or in the cloud. Both of these deployment models have their pros and cons. However, there is a gradual shift toward subscription-based cloud deployments in recent years. By deploying cloud-based solutions, users can save their capital expenditure and simultaneously reduce the excess costs of maintaining hardware infrastructure. However, we suggest that urologists should evaluate their requirements before considering any solution.

 

Common Features of Urology Medical Software

Features commonly found in urology medical software are generally urology-specific versions of features found in all EMR software. These features can include:

Urology SOAP notes templates	Rather than using a one-size-fits-all approach, urology EMRs have dozens of customized templates for every condition imaginable, including cystoscopy, hematuria, incontinence, infertility, prostate screening and/or cancer, sexual dysfunction, UTI and vasectomy. These templates can often be customized, but most physicians prefer simply taking advantage of the ample number of pre-existing templates already at their disposal.
Urology-specific medication management	Your urology workflow solution can suggest medications and help prevent errors by alerting the physician if he or she tries to prescribe a dangerous or ineffective dosage, or urispas instead of urocit for a patient with kidney stones. These alerts are customizable for each physician.
Urology-specific coding and billing	Urology-specific EMRs use the unique vocabulary of urologists, incorporating the terminology into the system. They provide more assistance on ICD-10 and CPT coding and billing for common urology encounters, while avoiding the clutter of thousands of codes unrelated to your practice. Since these systems tie into the administrative and clinical workflow, they also know what procedures have been performed and which treatments prescribed, making the claim process faster and more accurate.
Integration with lab and pathology reports	Automatically receive results of electronic urinalyses, kidney MRIs or other medical tests. Before buying your solution, make sure it will be compatible with all your urology reports and devices.

In addition to these features, a strong management system will support medical billing and scheduling as well as improve office workflows, efficiency and patient correspondence.

Benefits of Urology Medical Software

Listed below are some of the common benefits that buyers can expect after successfully implementing urology medical software:

Improved efficiency in the practice. With the automation of manual tasks, such as appointment scheduling, medical charting, billing and writing prescriptions, medical staff can focus on more important tasks, namely ensuring patient retention, running promotional campaigns, writing blog posts and reviewing patient medical history. The software also enables urologists to access their EMR from remote devices. In addition, some solutions enable medical staff to share automated reminders for a revisit with their patients.

More quality time with patients. When urologists and their support staff spend less time on manual tasks, they can see more patients. With an e-prescription feature, urologists are able to quickly send prescriptions to pharmacies, which further reduces the scope of manual errors.

Increased revenue. Urology medical software provides the required documentation to support claims sent to insurance companies. Well-documented insurance claims have a lower rejection rate, which ultimately helps increase revenue. Moreover, advanced systems facilitate digital payments and credit card transactions, both of which provide additional conveniences to the patients.

Improved patient experience. The software documents a patient’s medical history, lab and pathology test reports as well as the past medication profile to help urologists prescribe the correct medication and dosages. Moreover, patient portals help patients schedule appointments, pay outstanding bills and generate health reports.

Market Trends to Understand

Increasing adoption of cloud-based software. The adoption of cloud-based systems are on the rise. With a cloud-based system, urologists and their staff are able to access patient records, import new patient data and manage appointments online. As upfront costs are generally lower with a cloud-based model, these systems are very appealing to urologist practices. While HIPAA compliance and the security of patient data in the Cloud is a concern for some, vendors are tackling these issues head on, to ensure sensitive data remains secure.

Mobile device support becomes popular. The growing popularity of online EHR urology software is also driving innovation in the ways medical professionals access patient records. Vendors are increasingly offering robust mobile technologies that make it easier to manage a practice on the go and increase mobility in the office. Many have developed mobile versions and some are even developing native apps for popular mobile operating systems (such as iOS, Android and Windows). For example, meridianEMR—a leader in urology EHR—offers a native iOS app, meridianMobile, that gives users access to real-time data and has the ability to schedule office visits and review appointments. The app also runs on the iPod Touch and the iPad, working for any user with the meridianEMR Version 5.2.3 or higher.