One of the most cumbersome tasks in a medical office is the maintenance and storage of paper medical records. This statement rings true in all medical practices rather it be dental, family medicine, specialty practices, or a chiropractic office. But what most practice managers and physicians may not realize is that maintaining a paper medical record is also one of the most costly administrative and clerical tasks in the office.
 
For years, medical offices have struggled with medical record documentation, as well as filing and retention of literally volumes of paper records. They have been stored in costly medical record storage cabinets and when the volumes of records outgrow the office space, they are purged and sent to off-site storage.
 
A major benefit of an electronic health record is that record maintenance and storage problems go away. All medical histories, medication lists, chart notes, labs, x-rays, reports, letters, and any other form held in a paper record is either documented directly into the EMR or scanned. 
 
Having patient records available at a few clicks of a mouse or touch screen, can be invaluable. Once a medical practice is trained and comfortable using their EMR, physicians and other care-providers save time, and record documentation is greatly improved. Templates can be setup to mimic individual practice standards, or standard templates can be utilized for the entire practice. For example, a template is setup for sore throat, fever, and congestion. At intake when patient complaints are “ticked” in the EMR, a template pops-up requiring only the fields to be completed that pertain to the specific illness. Obviously, if the complaint is a fall or bee sting, the template would be quite different, but only protocol pertaining to the complaint would be visible. 
 
Perhaps the most attractive benefit of adopting an EMR is the overall cost savings it generates. The EMR virtually eliminates the cost of reams and reams of paper, the off-site printing of forms such as encounters or super bills, in-house printing of schedules, and the zillion copies of insurance cards and scripts. Some practices even decrease their payroll costs by implementing an EMR. Without the paper record there is no backend record maintenance, no finding, filing, or re-filing charts, which equates to less labor requirements.  
 
There are many advantages of the EMR over paper medical records, although currently it is estimated that 70% of medical offices have not yet converted to an EMR. With the financial incentives being offered by the Medicare Program and the addition of the Stimulus Package signed into law by President Obama, the percentage of medical offices adopting an electronic record will rapidly increase in the near future.
 
Any medical office that has not yet begun thinking about electronic implementation should very seriously start researching EMRs to best fit their practice. Eventually penalties will be assessed to offices not in compliance with electronic health record technology.