Elevating your Retail Practice with EMR

October 25, 2017
TrendsCommunications

By Tyler Kim, RDBA Dietetic Intern, Wellness Workdays

As more and more retail dietitians are providing one-on-one counseling as part of their services, adopting an EMR system can present some potential benefits for retail dietitians that far outweigh its learning curve.  These include maintaining patient confidentiality, ensuring reliable backup documentation, charting and quickly accessing data from anywhere, streamlining multiple functions such as scheduling/booking with reminders, documentation, secure messaging, billing through insurance, saving time and resources, and reaching more clients via telehealth and virtual support groups.

Some factors to consider when selecting include your clientele, services offered, operations, and budgeting.  One approach is to utilize a platform created for all health professionals, many of which include options for templates for dietitians.  These often include many advanced features, ideal for large operations, but less tailored specifically to dietetics.  Examples include:

• ChARM Health: Features include telehealth, extensive mobile health apps, revenue cycle management, a medical billing platform with credit card and prepaid appointment capabilities, and as well as cloud-based HIPAA compliant communication between health professionals and clinics. 
  • Pricing: free for <50 encounters/month, $0.50 per encounter/month for <2000 encounters, and $0.30 per encounter/month for >2000 encounters.
• Practice Fusion: Features include smart charting that adapts to individual workflow, streamlined tasks between professionals, cloud-based data, thousands of charting templates including nutrition-specific options, automatic insurance eligibility checks, and streamlined electronic superbill. 
  • Pricing: No charge for this platform.

Below are some popular MNT-specific platforms, many designed by registered dietitians themselves:

• Healthie: Unique features include photo-based food journals, workout logs, screen-sharing capability, ADIME charting, aggregate patient dashboards, and integration with fitbit, iCal, Outlook calendars and Google. Pricing: Contact Healthie
• NutriAdmin: Features include fully customizable client profiles, separate pricing by service, individualized meal plan generation, easy recipe creator, and extensive nutrition and recipe databases. Pricing: $29.99/month for 10 clients/month, $59.99/month for 40 new clients/month, option for businesses that will have multiple administrative users.
• Kalix: Features include easy claim upload to Clearinghouses, ADIME templates, intelligent appointment, billing and payment reminders, and multiple templates. Pricing: Calculated on the website based upon planned use.
• KaiZen RD EMR Features include insurance billing system, multiple nutrition-specific templates and forms, meal plans and outcomes reports, and telehealth.  Pricing: $50/month up to 10 patients/month, $85/month 10-60 patients/month, and tiered pricing for >60 patients/month ranging from $1-$1.50 per patient/month.
• PHRQL: Features include Nutrition Care Process-based EHR, unlimited patients/sessions/month, and Telenutrition messaging app.  Pricing: $29/user/month for most basic features to $99/user/month for small enterprises, as well as an option for large enterprises upon contact.

Keep in mind that different platforms vary in complexity and function, and above are only some of the features of each.  The websites are usually great sources of specific information that may fit your retail location and services provided.  The good news is that most all of these options include demos, free trials, and tech support to get started so you can find the one that best suits your clients and your practice.  What they all have in common is the potential to elevate your practice through leverage of technology to expand practice scope, increase billable hours, and provide overall higher quality of care.

Sources:
https://eattolivehappy.com/2017/07/17/finding-the-best-emr-for-dietitians/
https://www.charmhealth.com/
https://www.practicefusion.com/ehr/nutritionist/
https://www.gethealthie.com/dietitians.html
https://nutriadmin.com/
https://www.kalixhealth.com/emr
http://phrql.com/connect-coach-2/
http://kaizenhealthcare.com/