Paperless Chiropractic Software: How to Make the Switch | ChiroTouch
December 28, 2017 by ChiroTouch Article EHR, Business Management, Compliance
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The government and many medical agencies are strongly urging the movement to a paperless office environment for chiropractic and other medical and healthcare offices.  Does your current chiropractic management software have everything you need for the transition to a paperless chiropractic system?

The Importance of Going Paperless

There are countless ways chiropractic doctors and their employees can make minor mistakes completing paperwork when manually writing in HIPAA compliance forms, the HITECH Act, or patient data regulations.  Once those mistakes are made, they can’t be undone.  But ChiroTouch has a solid paperless chiropractic software platform specifically designed to properly complete forms effortlessly. Think of the time this can free up in regards to your concerns about patient confidentiality?

The Right Training Eases the Transition

We could tell you that all you have to do is load the ChiroTouch system on your computer network and start using it, but we offer much more than just a software application.  Although our system is extremely intuitive and can be learned quickly, we give you complete customer service and technical support during the transition.  It also includes the right training so that your employees will be comfortable and confident every step of the way.

Data Conversion Solutions

A professional installation representative will work with you and your staff to transfer all your current demographic data into the ChiroTouch system.  Now you won’t have to start at square one, alone.

Ongoing Support

We won’t install ChiroTouch, train your employees, then walk away, never to be heard from again.  That’s not how we do business.  Our online technical support is available whenever you have questions or concerns.  We’re also proud of MyChiroTouch, our community of doctors and healthcare staff who offer best practices and guidance.  You’ll also find video tutorials, news, webinars, and fascinating articles that will make the transition to a paperless office, a snap!

Getting bogged down in paperwork is a genuine concern for chiropractic offices, especially when patient files or billing records can be misplaced, misfiled, or lost.  Endlessly filling out forms and patient notes by hand is tedious and inefficient.  The solution is a paperless chiropractic office software management package that lets you rest easy, knowing every file is in the right place, properly secured.

Reduce the Need for Clerical Support While Improving Efficiency

Intuitive forms make it easy for every practitioner to fill out detailed progress notes and stay in compliance with industry standard practices while reducing the need for extraneous clerical staff.  It’s never been this easy for chiropractors to fill out preloaded forms or customize your own.  You’ll never again have to ask if you’re caught up on your patient records data entry.

No More Indecipherable Progress Notes or Memos

There seems to be on health care professional in every office with illegible handwriting.  It’s so common that it’s become a cliche, but it can have serious consequences.  With ChiroTouch’s paperless office, you’ll never have to guess at what patient instructions or progress notes say.  All patient records are easy to read and organized for effortless retrieval, saving your patients and insurance providers from trying to figure out hand-written notes that could be interpreted incorrectly.

ChiroTouch’s Paperless Office Solution Save You Money and Time

The cost of office supplies is skyrocketing, but you can minimize the pinch when you switch to a paperless office.  You’ll never have to re-order forms or do without them when your order doesn’t arrive in time.  Software updates with ChiroTouch eliminate the need to create new forms every time there is a policy change or new regulatory guidelines.  The forms you need are available at the click of a mouse.

Patient Records Can’t Get Into the Wrong Hands

When you have manila file folders with patient records bursting at the seams, it’s easy to misplace a few documents or misfile vital information.  The specter of a file being left out where anybody could get access to it is always in the back of your mind when you’re managing a chiropractic office with multiple employees and a heavy patient load.  With ChiroTouch’s practice management software, you’ll never have to worry whether unauthorized individuals saw patient records.

Chiropractic Software is the Key to as Successful Paperless Practice

The paperless chiropractic office haws many benefits, but for many this goal has been elusive.  Instead, the computer age has often generated more paper than ever before.  But with the right approach, it is possible to build a successful paperless chiropractic office.  Why switch to a paperless office?  Here are a few of the benefits reaped from eliminating paper and switching to an entirely electronic office:

  • Greater efficiency in retrieving and sharing information – The old paper office required painstaking sorting through paper folders and files.  The paperless chiropractic office allows workers to quickly query and retrieve multiple documents.  These documents can be shared instantly with multiple users.
  • Cost Reduction – The paperless chiropractic software system saves space since you will not need whole rooms dedicated to file storage.  Fewer file cabinets, folders, printers, toner, etc.
  • Greater security – Electronic files are easy to secure using modern encryption and authentication systems.  Files can be protected at different levels with password systems.  Yet one can still easily share medicare records with medical facilities located anywhere in the world
  • Ease of access – Paperless files can be accessed from any location through an internet connection or a direct communication line.
  • Ease of editing documents – Older printed documents are often difficult to edit, but with electronic documents there is no problem in changing text and images.
  • Scalability – One of the great things about electronic systems lies in the ease they can be scaled up to handle growth in a chiropractic office.  Scaling up electronic resources takes up much less space compared to the older paper office.

How to Build a Paperless Chiropractic Office

Converting Your Documents

The first thing that needs to be done is to convert all existing paper documents into electronic format.  There are a variety of chiropractic software programs that can help you with this conversion.  All documents are scanned into digital files for us in record-keeping electronic health systems (EHRs).  Optical character recognition (OCR) software can recognize characters in scanned documents so that they can be converted into editable chiropractic EMR documents.  Once in electronic form, it is easy to convert such documents to highly portable formats like PDF files.  To successfully convert your paper documents, you will need both good scanning hardware and the right OCR software.  Fortunately, many chiropractic software solutions come with the software applications in the same package.  Thus, all you will need is a suitable scanner with an automatic document feeder to help speed up the process.

Organizing Your Files

Electronic files can be organized in the same way paper files were organized.  They can be set up in folders and directories.  By using tags to describe each document, folder, and directory.  You can easily pull up files that you will need in the future.  Also, it is much easier to rearrange electronic file systems compared to reorganizing bulky file cabinet systems.  With most software, you simply drag and drop the icons from one location to another.  Make sure to scan all documents at sufficient resolution for your needs.  Check to make sure medical records, x-rays, tax documents, etc. have sufficient quality for them to be read and studied just as the paper documents would have been.  Usually, a scanning resolution of about 300 dpi is sufficient for most documents.  It also produces reasonably fast scanning speeds.  For documents of poor quality or or for images that require higher resolution, you may need a higher scanning resolution.  Note that OCR software generally will not be able to read handwritten documents.  These documents will be a bit more difficult to edit as the handwriting will probably be converted into images.

Data Redundancy

All chiropractic documentation should be backed up to protect against data loss or breach.  In the old days, it was usually recommended to make at least one hard copy or paper copy of all documents.  Today’s easy electronic storage options make this unnecessary.  The safe and easy choice for practice’s today is remote data storage that allows you to easily and economically store your data in locations outside of your office.  Thus, unlike the old days, when a fire could cause catastrophic record damage, it is relatively easy to protect against such dangers today.

Chiropractic paperless office software will also take care of insurance and medical billing.  All forms and documentation for insurance claims are handled automatically and can be filed remotely.  Office can save much time and energy in this area that would otherwise be spent handling mountains of paperwork.  The most important element in creating a successful paperless office is to make sure that you have the right software solution to handle the job. With well-designed, paperless chiropractic software, many offices can make the full switch with little or no outside help.  Once you’ve converted to the paperless office, you will immediately being reaping the benefits.

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