What is practice management?
Practice management broadly refers to the administrative and business tasks needed to operate a healthcare and medical practice. This usually includes record-keeping, billing and invoicing, client notes or records, accounting and more. In the past, this was traditionally done manually or by hand. However, today there are several modern solutions to simplify your practice management activities and resourcing.
What is practice management software (PMS)?
Practice management software (PMS) refers to software programs used to operate, manage, and run medical or healthcare practices. Their purpose is to streamline and organise administrative tasks, billing and invoices, appointment scheduling, consultation notes, letter writing, medical records and more.
Software solutions like these enable practices to deliver better health outcomes for patients by providing a macro-level overview of business growth and taking care of tedious practice administration tasks. It also houses all records and important files in the one secure location so staff can access them easily.
What are the benefits of a practice management software (PMS)?
Too often clinics become overwhelmed with record keeping and manually storing information. This takes your staff, specialists, and clinicians’ attention off the most important thing – helping your patients. A PMS enables greater efficiency and resource allocation amongst your staff and clinic.
Practice management software also streamlines your billing processes, removing the hassles of quoting, billing calculations, claiming and debt management so your clinic can get paid on time. It can also minimise turnaround times with Medicare, DVA and health fund integration.
Key benefits of practice management software:
- Improve business efficiency
- Enhance patient experiences and service satisfaction
- Help organise clinical staff and scheduling
- Easily access and store medical and patient records securely
- Simplify billing processes and administration work
What is the difference between practice management software and online practice management software? And what hosting options are available for ‘PMS’?
When looking for the perfect practice management software solution, you will often come across two types of PMS’s: on-premises (desktop) and cloud based. On-premises practice management software is a desktop application installed onto your practice computer. Cloud-based software is a more agile, innovative, and modern approach to practice management.
Read more about all your practice management software options here.
So, how does the practice management software work?
PMS programs can help you stay on top of, and in control of your day. With calendar functionality, you can easily access your clinical, demographic and account records online, as well as customise appointment durations, and availability to reflect your opening hours and work schedules.
Practice management software may also include features specifically designed for your specialty, such as specialty modules in Genie and Gentu.
Clinical workflows to help streamline patient care
Your PMS should have a clinical window or screen to help you manage and improve patient care. This will help you document consultations, add patient notes, attach medical records, x-rays, surgery records and more. Using this in your workflow can help you decrease the paper used at your practice and make collaboration between admin and clinical teams more efficient. This level of digital documentation also enables you to understand a patient’s medical history quickly, for more timely and informed treatment.
Additional tools to run your business
Some practice management software, such as Genie, also includes business tools to help you grow your practice or clinic. Using cutting-edge intelligence tools, the software can run referral reports, provide practice management reports to give an overview of business progress, and track patient visits.
Does your clinic or practice need practice management software?
Every modern clinic should adopt practice management software to stay efficient, agile, and streamlined in their day-to-day operation. It not only simplifies administrative and business tasks but also houses patient medical records and consultation notes while improving invoicing and billing processes.
About Magentus
Most specialists in Australia choose to use Magentus practice management software (Genie and Gentu). We also work directly with specialists, by involving them in our co-design process when developing new solutions to enhance practice productivity.
Read more about Gentu and Genie or contact us if you’re looking for software advice for your specialist practice.
