EHR vs. Practice Management Software, this is one of the questions often asked by many people who want to understand healthcare administrative tasks. Together, they help healthcare providers streamline their daily management tasks, save a lot of time, and reduce continuous human errors. They help us to stay compliant with data privacy laws while improving patient care.  


While the two software are currently among the most popular medical billling software used in the healthcare industry, many people wonder about the difference between them, and which one is the best. 


In this blog, Unify Medicraft explains the purpose of Practice Management Software and Electronic Health Records. We will take you through their meaning, purpose, features, and key differences. In the end, you will be able to decide which of the software is best for your healthcare practice. 

What is Practice Management Software? 


Practice Management Software is developed to help healthcare providers handle all the administrative processes, keeping their practice running smoothly. With PMS, your administrative staff gets all the help they need in their day-to-day tasks. Practice Management Software focuses on managing the business of healthcare practices, giving providers more time to take on additional patients and increasing their revenue. 


This software does not focus on patient medical history but manages the healthcare business as a whole.  PMS bridges the gap between clinical duties such as documentation of patient diagnosis and registering procedure codes, and administrative work, such as scheduling patient appointments and processing medical billing tasks. 


Do you want to take a record of all your medical supplies or patient information to improve their customer experience? Then Practice Management Software will ensure your healthcare practice is functioning at its peak. 

What's the Purpose of Practice Management Software?  



Practice Management Software reduces time spent on boring manual administrative tasks and manages everything from patient records and scheduling to billing and claims processing. PMS is perfect for smaller healthcare providers with staff shortages, and for those who want to reduce administrative costs while focusing on patient care and satisfaction.  

Reduce Administrative Tasks 


Practice management software is great for improving the efficiency of your practice by streamlining administrative tasks including patient record-keeping, scheduling appointments, and processing insurance claims. 

Streamline Appointment Booking  


Appointment booking is important in any healthcare practice and PMS helps make the process faster by providing an online booking that combines with the healthcare provider's schedule. 

Enhance Patient Communication 


With Practice management software, healthcare providers are able to communicate with their patients seamlessly through email templates, two-way SMS messaging and telehealth. It's no surprise patients receive exceptional care and satisfaction when PMS is used. 

Make Invoice Creation & Billing Easy 


With practice management software, you can generate automatic patient invoices, making patient billing easy. This saves your staff valuable time to focus on other important tasks. 

Increase Growth 


Practice management software directly impacts the revenue and growth of your practice with features like telehealth, patient appointment reminders, and easy booking. This increases patient satisfaction and gives healthcare providers opportunities to provide care for many patients. 

Manage Patient Records 


Practice management software is a great tool for managing patient records. The software keeps a patient’s medical information in one central location, including their contact information, medical history and test results. This readily available information reduces human error and improves the quality of patient care. 

Efficient Reporting 


Practice management software offers real-time performance insights at your fingertips. It gives you in-depth knowledge of how your practice is functioning, helping you make informed decisions. 

The Key Features of a PMS 


 

Medical Billing and Payments  


PMS increases reimbursements and makes financial management easier by accurately generating patient invoices and processing claims and credit card payments. This reduces the likelihood of claim rejections and spending too much with patients' insurance companies.  

Insurance Verification  


Verifying patient insurance is often a tedious and long process that can create a burden for your administrative staff. Practice management software makes this process easy as it completes the process within seconds.  

Insurance Claims Management  


PMS manages your insurance claims throughout the entire process. With features that allow you to submit claims electronically and get a notification when the claim is accepted or rejected. This seamless process also lets healthcare providers quickly resolve issues with insurance companies to ensure timely reimbursements.  

Patient Scheduling  


The software allows the patient to book their appointment online quickly and also reschedule. It also reminds patients about their appointments by sending automatic reminders before the appointment day. This feature reduces no-shows and late arrivals thereby improving patient satisfaction and increasing revenue. 

Manage Patient Information  


Practice management software allows healthcare providers to store and organize all their patient data. This feature saves time during appointments by providing quick access to patient accurate and current information. 

EHR Integration  


PMS and EHR are very important software when managing patient information and billing. Integrating them seamlessly will provide unified communication and access to clinical data, such as physician notes, medications, and medical imaging results. 


What is EHR? 


Electronic Health Record is known widely as software developed to help healthcare facilities with their patients’ medical information such as medical history, diagnoses, medications, immunization dates, and allergies. EMRs are better organized and easily accessible, increasing the provider’s efficiency and automating workflows. 

The Key Features of EMR
 



Comprehensive Patient Records 


Electronic Health Records software keeps a comprehensive record of a patient’s health history across the entire healthcare system. This will include patient diagnoses, lab test results, medications, and allergies. All this information is streamlined conveniently into one electronic platform.  

Patient Portal 


Good EHR software includes patient portals, giving patients access to their own health records. The patient portals allow patients to view reports about their health history, summaries of recent visits, educational tools and other helpful information. This helps patients to take control of their own health.  

E-prescription Tool 


EHR software has an e-prescribing tool, which allows healthcare providers to order and manage prescriptions electronically. This stops patients from carrying around a paper prescription and allows healthcare providers to send a prescription to the patient’s pharmacy, and the patient no longer has to carry around a paper prescription script. 

Software Integrations 


It is great to know that EHR software can be integrated with other software used in the healthcare industry. In fact, many software has built-in EHR so healthcare providers can run their practices more efficiently. 

Key Differences EHR vs. Practice Management Software
 



An All-in-One Platform 


PMS is designed to handle the entire functions of a medical billing process and can also be integrated with EHR to handle administrative tasks. Although EMRs contain features, such as coding and billing, they are not as all-encompassing as a practice management system. 

Financial Reports 


Electronic Health Records are often used for running administrative tasks while practice management software helps you with a much more in-depth process of your medical billing and the profit of your practice. This will help you establish the important analytics to grow your practice.  

Practice Marketing 


For marketing, practice management software is designed to handle multiple channels of revenue and administrative tasks such as marketing while EMR cannot do that.

How Can EHR and Practice Management Software Work Together?  


EHR gives healthcare providers quick access to patient records, helping healthcare providers make more efficient diagnoses and treatment plans. With EHR, patients can enter their personal information electronically, allowing the administrative staff to use the medical data effectively.  


EHR software ensures the security and privacy of patient medical records and other critical data while PMS ensures compliance with regulations such as HIPAA, HITECH, and CCPA. 


Although Electronic Health Records and Practice Management Software have different functionalities, they can work together seamlessly to help healthcare providers run their practices and achieve success. 

The Pros and Cons of Electronic Medical Records 


The Advantages of EMR 


  • Reduce the frequency of medical errors 
  • Reduce duplicate testing and lower operational costs 
  • Promote patient participation  
  • Save time and space  
  • Track results and data over time  
  • Improve preventative care and support research 
  • Improve security and privacy of patient records 


The Disadvantages of EMR 


  • Implementation can be expensive  
  • Malfunctions can occur leading to system downtime or data loss. 
  • Data breaches can occur. 


Private Practice Management Pros & Cons 


Over the years, many healthcare professionals working for large hospitals are now moving towards running theirs. Private practice management happens when a healthcare provider decides to practice individually instead of working in the hospital system. While this is a great step, it comes with its advantages and disadvantages. 

The Advantages of Private Practice Management Software 


  • Authority and flexibility 
  • Make complete decision 
  • Personalized patient care 
  • Opportunity to choose the services you offer 
  • Potential for higher earnings 


The Disadvantages of Private Practice Management Software 


  • More administrative burden 
  • Startup and maintenance cost 
  • Insurance challenges and isolation 
  • Market competition 
  • Regulatory compliance 


In a Nutshell 


Deciding what’s best for your healthcare practice between EHR and Practice Management Software can sometimes be overwhelming. However, their pros, features, cons and differences as mentioned in the blog will help you make the right decision. 


It has been proven that each software has unique functionalities in the healthcare industry. So, which one should you choose? The answer is to choose the software that best works for your practice which can also be both electronic health records EHR and Practice Management Software.