How much does it cost to implement a new EHR system?

As we move ahead in a better digitally-inclined and technologically-dependent era, 38% of medical institutions and organizations have enrolled EHR optimization as their top focus of capital investment for the next three years.

It’s no wonder that EHR systems are now believed the driving point in moving forward in medical procedures because of their efficiency and improved productivity of employees.

We can never exaggerate the fact that EHR systems and their execution and optimization are part of the core strategic goal for future outcomes as well as the capital and budgeting techniques in healthcare organizations.

Despite the advantages and positive impact that EHR gets to the table as far as evolution is involved, there is always a growing fear and concern amongst investors as to how to correctly study the capital investment that the EHR system entails or the budgeting method which these medical institutions have to make around.

Budgeting EHR and Knowing Its Costs

With this in-depth article, we will drive down and address the problems linked to EHR capital investment and create a budget that’s wrapped around it, that contains:

• Explaining the cost of an EHR
• Positive Impact of an EHR system
• Assembling EHR costs
• Making a constructive and accurate EHR budget

We will also give you an example price of some EHR systems that are open in the market. With that said, let’s get things started:

Justifying the cost of an HER

Let’s just face it – while EHR is a responsible and advanced operating system moving along, there is always anxiety and uncertainty about whether the procedure is worth investing in, more particularly if the margins are too narrow.

To deliver you some useful tips, when you choose to get into an EHR investment, it must fit into the short-term budget planning of the practice.

However, it doesn’t indicate that setting all your priority on investing in an EHR needs the practice to complete it as a regulatory need.

Rather, when budget and finance are properly managed, one can anticipate great outcomes and important advantages in investing in an EHR system, like:

• Enhanced service delivery
• Deduction of operational costs
• Secured improved revenue

To gain the buy-in of the potential investors and decision-makers of the organization, one must have a strategic objective to give the favorable impact of investing in an EHR entails and why it is justifiable to have additional capital put into this for the budgeting.

For one, one may emphasize the cost-benefit accounting in a particular practice that has enhanced service, customer care, efficiency and productivity of employees, and quality outcomes.

One has to contain the short-term and long-term projections for the ROI.

Finally, to earn the nod of the decision-makers, one has to have an in-depth analysis that includes the total license for short-term and long-term timelines so that those financing the investment could project the EHR-related prices.

What is the fee of an EMR/EHR software execution?

Another generally asked question is the one noted above. As described, execution costs would vary and it would highly rely on the duration and execution plan of the practice. Other variables should also be considered in this. That’s why it’s not as easy to come up with an average cost of an EHR execution.

However, several case analyses and samples have shed some light on this and delivered more insight to get the right view of the execution costs. For instance, Health Affairs in its initial study has said that it would cost them a whopping $162,000 to execute a multi-physician practice for an EHR system.

For keeping alone, they would approximately spend $85,500 for the first year alone. The lowest line for this is, that the higher and the bigger scale it is for the course, the medical institutions should be prepared to pay a larger sum of money as well for EHR execution.

For larger community hospitals, initial costs would hit as high as $5 million, and others even have to pay a lot more than $20 million just to execute the EHR.

What are the invisible costs of an EHR optimization?

In every project, the price of breakdown is really necessary to have a more exact picture of the financial figures that the investment entails. For an EHR execution, the budgeting procedure should have costs such as:

• software licensing
• labor expenses including overtime fees
• maintenance costs
• consultation and training
• hardware (usually for the on-site method)

There are also indirect prices that should be taken note of such as:

• lowered revenue
• minimal patient visits
• loss of employee productivity

When all of these variables are factored in, these can make more complete budgeting and could affect the general execution of the EHR budget strategy.

Compiling EHR Costs

The budgeting procedure of an EHR execution is a lot varied compared to the normal operating costs of a practice. Several delays must be accounted for and if left out, it can result in budgeting errors along the way. However, when the budgeting is approached methodologically and an in-depth study is included such as the possible contingencies, the issue of having a flawed budget may be avoided immensely.

The budgeting should have at least these minimum features and not less than the following:

● Hardware –

these include all the technical parts such as printers, scanners, computers, and other equipment required for the execution.

● Software –

the plan and its optimization, additions, and possible upgrades needed in the future

● Assistance –

the people performing such as IT contractors, maintenance team, legal support, installation, and training, and team, project leaders, and so forth.

● Training –

the cost of service to train clinical and admin staff.

● Contingencies –

productivity of workers, short-term and long-term gains, and patient-related gains and losses.

Pricing of Popular EHR Systems

As promised, we like to wrap up this article with some pricing instances provided by service providers in the market. We have provided you with some topics to think about when coming up with a budget for an EHR system execution. Now, to give you a concept of how much this service providers charge and to which they cater, we’re giving you some examples to take a look into.

● Epic – EPIC EHR systems concentrate on larger community hospitals. Their starting price starts at $1,200 and that’s only for their self-hosted keys. For larger organizations and hospitals, their offering price is $500,000. One thing to take note of is that EPIC does not offer a free trial for their potential customer, but they can give a free demo which will be done by their sales representatives.

● Cerner – Cerner is the most extensive EHR system seller in the market and it delivers both the cloud-based approach and the office-based performance. It includes 50 thing products that clients can select from. For their cloud system, its service and keeping only cost the tiniest amount of $25 and will vary relying on the elements and advanced systems that the customer would request. Just like EPIC, they do not offer a free test for their potential customers.

● CareCloud – Carecloud specializes in a cloud-based system and has characteristics like Practice Management, Revenue Cycle Management, and Patient Knowledge Management. Their pricing begins at a fair price of $349 and extra fees will be added for add-on components.

● eClinicalWorks – eClinicalWorks is another software growth in the market, and can offer different elements such as practice management software, care coordination, patient engagement, and population health tools. For its execution, optimization, and supervision, it only costs $449 per month. Similar to others, they also do present a free trial for their customers.

● All scripts – All scripts is more targeted to small and medium healthcare establishments. They also have elements like revenue cycle solutions, people healthcare tools, and other necessary ones. For their pricing, one must get their company to inquire about the information or you can get in touch with us at PerfectionGeeks Technologies.