The NextGen Office EHR/PM Patient Portal is an extremely useful and powerful tool that fosters patient engagement by allowing your patients to securely message your practice and participate in their care. The following is the first in a series of educational videos showing how you can email patient's an invitation to join and how the patient can respond

In this post, you’ll learn strategies to avoid missed revenue and save staff effort by using smart efficiency improvements, such as checking insurance information up front. You’ll also learn how you can get back to caring for patients, not chasing payments—and the secret to achieving strong financial outcomes. Finally, you’ll discover how you can get paid quickly, easily, and fully—all while addressing your patient demands for an improved, more efficient experience.

When patients cancel their appointments last minute (or don’t show up), it affects your bottom line and weakens practice efficiency. By using NextGen Office to create and implement new policies that encourage patients to adhere to scheduled appointments, you’ll be able to capitalize on the revenue you were expecting and provide the level of care the patient needs.

The Protecting Access to Medicare Act (PAMA) of 2014 established the Appropriate Use Criteria (AUC) Program to increase the rate of appropriate advanced diagnostic imaging services provided to Medicare beneficiaries. Examples of such advanced imaging services include:

Switching to a New Specialty EMR to Enhance Podiatric Care

A passion to get people back on their feet

Have you configured your NextGen Office for the Medicare Beneficiary Identifier (MBI) transition?

Calling all podiatrists! - Looking to get a step ahead for MIPS in 2020? NextGen Healthcare has partnered with the American Podiatric Medical Association (APMA) as its preferred EHR vendor.

We have worked with APMA to integrate NextGen Office EHR/PM,  a cloud based Podiatry EHR solution with the APMA MIPS app and Registry. The APMA MIPS app and Registry are free APMA member benefits; however, for a fee, APMA non-members can take advantage of these resources as well. The next registration deadline for the APMA MIPS app and Registry is December 13. To learn more about the APMA MIPS app and Registry and how to register, review our FAQs below:

APMA Registry FAQ
Have questions about the APMA Registry?
ANSWER:
NextGen® Office has partnered with the American Podiatric Medical Association (APMA) to provide our podiatrists a direct connection between our EHR and the APMA MIPS app and Registry.

What are the APMA Registry and APMA MIPS app?
The APMA Registry is an online repository of data designed to help build the evidence base around podiatric medicine and surgery. The data collected in the APMA Registry helps support legislative-, regulatory-, and research-related efforts.

NextGen Office has integrated with the APMA Registry. As a provider who enrolls in the APMA Registry, you are able to monitor your MIPS score using the APMA MIPS app. The APMA MIPS app enables you to track your performance and submit data directly from the app to CMS for MIPS Quality, Promoting Interoperability, and Improvement Activities. The integration between the APMA Registry and NextGen Office offers podiatrists more flexibility in reporting options and seamless transmission to CMS.

Webinar Replay - In Case You Missed It

Studies have shown and the data support the fact that the widespread use of technology is driving patients to seek out health care providers who offer the convenience of telemedicine visits for routine care and the ongoing management of chronic conditions.

What is Telehealth?

The rapid advance of technology in the form of high speed internet everywhere and the explosion of smartphones and tablets is rapidly changing how and where medical care is delivered to increasingly  tech savvy patients both young and old. According to the Health Resources Services Administration telehealth or telemedicine is the “use of electronic information and telecommunications technologies to support long-distance clinical health care, patient and professional health-related education, public health and health administration” From the patient’s perspective telemedicine is when they video conference with the health care provider from their smartphone, tablet or computer instead of being seen in the office.

The NextGen Office cloud based patient portal has a new Custom Check In process designed to save you time in the exam room and increase patient usage of your portal.

Let’s face it, using an EHR to document a patient encounter can sometimes be a slower process than the old way of just scrawling a handwritten note -especially when you’re trying to focus your attention on what the patient is saying.

But at the same time providers and patients alike have come to appreciate the benefits of using an electronic health record - real time anywhere access across a wide variety of devices, electronic connections, sharing and easily recalling/reusing data are some of the many benefits that offset the time added by using a cloud based EHR.

So how can you have it both ways?

One powerful strategy to save time in the exam room is to encourage and train your patients to enter their subjective and historical information before coming to your office, from the comfort of their home or even on an iPad in your waiting room. (along with signing off on your practice forms)

This information then flows immediately and seamlessly into NextGen Office EHR where it can be reviewed and pulled into the encounter with the tap of a button. Saving valuable provider time, allowing you to focus more time and attention on the patient.


Making It Even Better: The New Custom Check In Process in NextGen Office
A new premium Patient Portal feature - Custom Check-In allows you to create custom check-in processes per appointment type. Presenting your patients with a more streamlined process to complete documentation in the subjective section of your encounter specific to the type of visit before arriving to the office.

The NextGen Office Patient Portal includes a number of other time saving and patient satisfaction benefits such as built in Telemedicine.

What is a custom check-in process?
The Custom Check-in Processes page enables you to create customized check-in processes for patients to complete on the Patient Portal. You can select which forms to present to patients in the Patient Portal that are specific to appointment types. Patients can then complete the documentation before the appointment, saving providers and staff time in the exam room.

How Does Custom Check-in Benefit Our Office?
The new features enable you to create check-in processes specific to appointment types: For example, for pediatric clients, the office could create appointment types and custom check-in processes for each stage of well visits. Parents could then complete the information on the Patient Portal for their children, populating the note for the medical team.

Or a primary care practice could have a custom check in for new patients and a second custom check in for follow ups, Med Checks, Annual Wellness Visits etc.

This benefits the patient by eliminating the need to enter lengthy, redundant information leading to greater patient satisfaction and patient adoption of your portal.

How to Create a Custom Check-in Process

Navigate to Administration: Custom Check-in Processes
From the menu bar, click Admin.
Below Premium Portal Management, click Custom Check-in Processes.



Click Add Custom Check In Process


Enter the desired name, in this case Well Child 1 Year


Add the desired custom form(s) from the list on the left to the Custom Check in


Then assign the appointment type from the list on the left by dragging it to the right side


Example - Staff Schedules a Well Child 1 Year Appointment
Select Schedule > Calendar > Day View.
Click an appointment time.
For Type, select Well Child 1 Yr - 30 min.
Complete the form.
Click Save Appointment.


Parent Completes the Well Child 1 Year Custom Check-in Process on the Patient Portal



Patients or their parents/caregivers can use the cloud based Patient Portal from the comfort of their home, or in your waiting room on their smartphone, your check in tablet or other device, speeding up your time to document their visit allowing you to spend more time focusing on them rather than your computer!

If you have any questions or would like assistance please feel free to reach out to us at info@avsmedical.com or call 877-975-9160

In case you missed it!  Learn about the latest NextGen Office integration with CoverMyMeds. 

Important prescribing information for users of Practice Partner, Medisoft Clinical and Lytec MD.