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Seeking Unbiased – Not Vendor Driven – Advice

By Shahid N. Shah, MS

www.BusinessofMedicalPractice.com

When you choose to implement your medical records technology, you’ll want to be sure that you get sound and unbiased advice. If you think the selections and decisions are too complicated to do by yourself so getting help is prudent. After you’ve learned more about RECs, which can give you free advice and help, look at some paid consultants as well because most RECs will simply choose a few local consultants that marketed themselves well to the RECs and not because the consultants are necessarily good at their jobs.

Consulting Types

The kinds of consultants you will need include:

• Meaningful Use (MU) Consultant. An MU consultant should only be needed if you’re going after government stimulus funds. This is a person that knows how a medical practice works, inside and out, and all the legal and regulatory details about Meaningful Use. This is not a typical IT contractor or technical consultant; it must be someone who is focused on MU. Because you will not get increased government reimbursements unless you meet MU, the MU Consultant is probably more important than your IT consultant. The MU consultant should help you figure out whether or not you qualify for incentives, how to take advantage of incentive program, how to use RECs, how to ensure that you can qualify for MU without disrupting your practice and losing money, and finally whether you should even care about MU.
• A good MU Consultant will tell you when to walk away from MU and not implement certain technologies just as readily as when to implement it.
• Another major thing to focus on when choosing an MU consultant is to be sure that they know your local area’s rules, regulations, and technology providers (not national).
• Try to make sure that your MU Consultants are paid very little upfront and will share the risk with you as you try to achieve success. They should get paid when you get paid and should not be paid full price unless you get incentive payments from the government. 
• EMR Consultant. If you’re ready to buy an EMR the MU Consultant can help you pick products but getting advice from an EMR Consultant who knows all the hundreds of packages (and doesn’t just know 1 or 2 that he’s seen before) and which one will be best for you may be worth investing in. Be careful if your EMR Consultant is coming from a REC or a vendor side – ask them to disclose any ties to the products they are helping you select. Some EMR consultants are business focused and others are technically focused; you should pick the one based on what your needs are: for example, if you’re great at technology, choose a business-focused consultant (and vice-versa). 
• IT Consultant. This is something that’s obvious but you need excellent advice on hardware, software, inter-office networking, Internet connectivity, bandwidth analysis, and a whole host of other technology needs. 
• Integration Consultant. Most people forget this consultant because it’s not obvious but in order to make sure that all the medical records data you’re collecting can be shared in between your systems, your hospital, and with the government you need an integration consultant. Their job is to know all the relevant standards like HL7, DICOM, CCR, CCD, XML, etc. along with things like HL7 routers and tools that can share medical data records between your EMR, practice management system, and health information exchanges (HIEs).

Assessment 

Front Matter BoMP – 3

Conclusion

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Filed under: Information Technology, Op-Editorials, Practice Management | Tagged: EHRs, EMRs, HIT consultants, meaningful use, RECs, Shahid Shah, www.BusinessofMedicalPractice.com | 4 Comments »