Hosted EHR model as a viable alternative to in-house EHRs

“As the application service provider (ASP) hosting model increasingly becomes popular amongst lone-standing and small clinical practices, EHRs hardware manufacturers have begun to offer EHRs platforms that are quite capable of hosting multiple clients at the same time without the apprehension about data overlaps or interchange. While they see an avenue for business augmentation, it also serves ample scope for innovation and redefining the EHR technology.”

Although there can be no denying as to the inevitability of adapting to Electronic Health Record System by medical practices – either conforming to the Federal Health Department’s mandate on clinical and operational norm or reaping EHRs’ intrinsic benefits – yet, when it comes to capital outlays on IT infrastructure associated with EHRs adoption and implementation, small or lone-standing physicians practices may find the in-house EHRs way beyond their budgetary reach. As small or lone-standing physicians practices continue to seek cost-effective yet revenue-maximizing EHR models, application service provider (ASP) hosting model has evolved into a viable alternative to in-house EHRs for many small to medium-size physician practices.

Contrary to fully-installed in-house EHRs, the application service provider (ASP) hosting model – hosted at the service provider’s facility, ASP solutions offer the convenience of managing the clinical and operational practices from a remotely hosted server. As the service provider can accommodate multiple clients in a single server, the economies of large scale operation are eventually passed on to physician practices. When you combine the economies of large scale operations with prompt customer support and service, the application service provider (ASP) hosting model can be as reliable as fully-installed internal EHRs. Physician offices, on their part, need only pay rental services for availing hosted EHR services. But, as the threat to data security looms large, physician practices are well advised to make sure of credibility and integrity of their service providers.

Conversely, physicians themselves can pool in the requisite resources that renders a dedicated ASP hosting server possible. As this form of hosting arrangement lends greater reliability in terms of data security and collaboration amongst the group of physician practices concerned, there seems to be a greater inclination towards such an arrangement. Further, as physician practice would inevitably move towards Accountable Care Organization (ACO) model of healthcare, forming such pools for EHRs may well prove to be a prudent decision. run the threat of data differ from traditional EHR software in that an ASP-hosted EHR is not housed at a physician practice, but is hosted by another organization, which also provides customer support and service. The physician practice makes monthly payments to the host in order to “rent” the application.

As the application service provider (ASP) hosting model increasingly becomes popular amongst lone-standing and small clinical practices, EHRs hardware manufacturers have begun to offer EHRs platforms that are quite capable of hosting multiple clients at the same time without the apprehension about data overlaps or interchange. While they see an avenue for business augmentation, it also serves ample scope for innovation and redefining the EHR technology.

And, at a time when there seems to be an exodus to EHR – a rough estimate projecting it have crossed the 50% of the threshold – Medical Billing Companies’ role in right EHR implementation becomes crucial for optimizing clinical and operational management.

Medicalbillersandcoders.com, who’s advisory on EHRs forms integral part of its comprehensive medical billing Revenue Cycle Management, may well be the answer to perfect EHRs implementation. Incidentally, its strategic arrangement with leading EHRs providers – comprising ChartLogic, ClearPractice, Clinicient, Aprima, OptumSight, MedPlus, Geonetric, and the rest – should be quite convincing of its credibility as an EHRs advisor.