While shopping, keep in mind that sometimes inexpensive purchases represent bad value, while breathtakingly expensive purchases prove to be great values. If that Geo Metro breaks down every Tuesday, forcing the owner to invest tens of thousands on repairs, it’s not so inexpensive and not such a good value.



One way to objectively measure value is return on investment (ROI). The news our survey delivers on this front isn’t particularly good. For every two respondents who say they have earned back in efficiency and revenue what they invested in an EMR, three say they have not. That’s despite the large number of survey participants who were able to reduce or reassign staff. However, by a two-to-one ratio, respondents expect to see a positive ROI.

That sort of optimism may be misplaced, says Stephen Hawk, a psychiatrist with Bay Area Behavioral Health Associates in Largo, Fla. The notion that “ROI will pay for your system is largely a myth,” he says. “The reason is that [vendors] overstate the potential increase in revenue. For some practices, this is negligible.”

Hawk’s reaction is relatively common among small-practice physicians, says Charles Anastos, senior vice president with the healthcare technology consulting firm Beacon Partners. For one, many physicians expect to see a return overnight, and that’s not realistic for smaller practices, he says. “It takes some time.” At the very least, most practices need two to six months to simply become proficient with the new technology.

Second, sometimes physicians fail to take a complete overview of finances following implementation. They focus exclusively on revenue, leaving savings, which should come with a new EMR (and which can be substantial), out of the equation, he says. Finally, physicians too often keep a paper-based work flow in place after going digital, leaving many of the potential benefits on the table.



“You get what you put into it. We see lots of organizations that assume they can take their current way of doing business and just automate it,” Anastos says. “You need to look at work flow, to create efficiencies with technology.”

Despite his doubts about the potential for financial return, Hawk is a strong advocate for EMR adoption. “The reward ultimately seems worth it, not in ROI but in intangible ways such as better documentation, much better risk management, patients’ perception that you are ‘keeping up’ with the times, and decreasing my labor of writing the same [prescription] over and over.”

Can you hear me now?

Enough about EMRs. What about all the other gadgets and gizmos purported to make your work lives easier?

Our survey revealed that few of you and your peers (19 percent) are using a voice recognition product. But abstainers might want to reconsider. Every respondent who is using such a product says it generates cost savings. What’s more, it’s easy. Eighty-four percent say they got the hang of voice recognition in less than six hours.

More practices are using some type of coding software, we found, but not yet a majority (43 percent are; 54 percent aren’t). Again, those on the outside looking in might want to find the door as 77 percent of users say it resulted in revenue growth.

As for practice management software, all respondents have it and use it. What’s interesting here is how long they’ve had the software they’re currently using. Thirty-eight percent have had it for a year or less, while 10 percent have had it for more than a decade.

The remainder falls in between. Of all users, regardless of when they bought their current software, 56 percent say their product doesn’t do all that they want it to do. The overwhelming majority of these respondents want better reporting (65 percent). Users are also looking for better integration (15 percent) and more intuitive interface (10 percent).