Electronic Health Records For Dummies

Patient arrival and check-in

At the beginning or end of the day in the paper-chart world, your front office staff refiles patient charts from recent visits and checks the schedule to pull charts for the next day’s visits. This file room back-and-forth will no longer be required soon after the go-live!

When the patient arrives to check-in for his or her appointment, you enter the patient arrival time and change the patient’s status to indicate the patient has arrived. In most EHRs, arriving the patient within the system can generate notifications or triggers for clinical staff (medical assistant, nurse, and physician) that the patient has arrived and is in the waiting room.

Front office staff can verify address and insurance information, collect new information if necessary, and initiate electronic medical eligibility checking to verify eligibility and determine co-pay amounts. This means no more long phone calls for verification of coverage.

Because your front office staff can quickly determine the co-pay, have them collect payment when the patient checks in. Prior to EHRs with electronic eligibility determination, practices often had extended accounts receivable periods because of patients forgetting to stop by the check-out desk to pay after their visit.

Most practices provide patients with a printout of demographic and past medical history information, as well as consent and ...