Improved Coding
Down-coding and poor charge capture can both be improved through an EHR’s E&M Coder. A study by Medical Economics Magazine estimated that a physician who is regularly down-coding may be losing $40,000 to $50,000 annually. A study done by Partners Healthcare System found an increase of 1.5% to 5% in overall billing simply through improved charge capture.
Total Potential Savings: For our example we will use a conservative improvement rate of 2.5% to factor in a reduction in down-coding errors resulting in an increase in income of approximately $25,000 per year!
Transcription
By utilizing voice recognition capabilities that come stock in our EHRs, this can be a savings of $1,000 per month for using a transcription service at the industry standard.
Total Potential Savings: Total potential yearly savings are approximately $12,000 per year!
Chart Management
Chart Management costs can be reduced through lower chart creation costs, lower chart storage costs and fewer chart pulls. The cost to create a new chart is estimated at $2/chart and the cost to pull a chart is $5 according to a study done by Partners HealthCare Clinic.
Total Potential Savings: For this example we will assume that there are 50 chart pulls per day including the 60% average for non-visiting patients. We will use a lower estimate for the cost of each chart pull at $3 and assume that we will only reduce our chart pulls by 40% the first year and not be paperless for 3 years. For the cost in searching for missing charts, we will use a conservative estimate of 25 minutes per day in looking for misplaced charts. 240 days x 25 minutes = 100 hours per year x $10/hour for office staff = $1,000 per year!
Prescription Refills
A study done by Journal of Healthcare Information Management showed that the time spent doing an Rx refill can be reduced from 15 minutes to 3 minutes. At 7 refills per day, that would be a savings of 84 minutes per day.
Total Potential Savings: 84 minutes/day x the average patient visit of 15 minutes = 5.5 extra patient visits/day. At an average cost of Medicare reimbursement for Office Visit level 99213 as of *2011 being $68.97 = an extra $379.34/day or $1,896.68/week OR a whopping $98,592 per year!
Capitated Patient Cost Savings
According to a study published in The American Journal of Medicine, the benefits of clinical decision support resulting in the reduction of ADE’s, lab and radiology tests and the ability to offer alternative medications showed that a conservative estimate of $29,000 could be saved per year by year 2 of EHR implementation!
Grand Annual Total of Potential Savings EHR Can Bring: 165,592 per year!
Average annual cost of owning one of MediPro’s Solutions: $4,200 – $5,988 per year!
Now ask yourself: “Does it make sense to deny myself this potential savings? Even if realistically, I can save my practice 1/2 of the $165,592 savings per year, would this be a bad thing?”