Electronic Health Records For Dummies

Enjoying messaging benefits

Communicating with patients via e-mail has its advantages, and you should consider those during your decision-making process. You and your staff can use e-mail to correspond with patients to

Engage your patients more. They want to connect with you!

Reduce unnecessary visits to the office so that you can focus on the patients who need to visit.

Increase patient satisfaction. E-mail can be more convenient for the patient.

Provide immediate care for a patient who otherwise might not get in the office for a week or longer.

Handle administrative and scheduling questions through secure messaging.

Of course, there’s the ever-present topic of cost savings. Although you might spend extra cash up front, purchasing an EHR with e-mail functionality will save you money in the long term because you can reduce the number of office visits, ER visits, and hospitalizations by providing faster, more efficient care via the technology.

Secure messaging through the EHR, as cheap and efficient as it is, can never replace a patient’s face time with a physician. Use caution when you are setting up the parameters for what you will and will not discuss with a patient via e-mail. Save the in-depth discussions for an office visit and reserve your e-mail time for quick queries, reporting test results, setting appointment reminders, and other day-to-day office functions and concerns. ...