Chiropractic EHR allows sharing of patient data among providers

Chiropractic EHR enables chiropractors to send patient data electronically instead of using fax or mail.

Chiropractic EHR enables chiropractors to send patient data electronically instead of using fax or mail.

Today, chiropractors are using many new systems of sharing patient information and recording data such as through chiropractic EHR software.

According to the American Chiropractic Association, in the past, doctors of chiropractic used mail, fax and telephone calls to share patient information with each other. This has changed as a new era of technological innovations has overtaken the healthcare community.

"DCs have to understand that healthcare in general is moving very quickly toward adopting digital information – it’s all about getting the info to other providers as quickly as possible – and it’s particularly important for smaller practices to have the capability to share information digitally so they aren’t left out of referral networks and managed care organizations," Dr. Leo Bronston, a chiropractor serving the Wisconsin area, told the news source.

The Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) provide high figures – 85 percent – for the numbers of medical practitioners that will be using EHR systems by 2015. Chiropractors who haven't started implementing EHR software yet will need to do so very soon, as the government mandates will reduce Medicare reimbursements by 1 percent in 2015.

Certified EHR software enables medical providers to send patient information to other healthcare facilities in need of this data, provided the other organizations also have certified electronic health records. Some providers worry that this data could be stolen and that security measures are not up to par. However, encryption keeps the data indecipherable until it is obtained by the receiving practitioner.

A new way that chiropractors could receive patient data immediately is through the use of web-based medical software. This will save a chiropractor money on installation costs and it also provides quick online access.

Leave a Reply