Computerized Medical Office Procedures

According to Open Clinical, medical offices are increasingly integrating computerized procedures into ordinary business practices to replace paper-driven systems. Computerized programs help streamline certain business administrative operations and allow medical staff to provide more efficient services to patients. Computerized systems also offer patients convenient features, such as billing payment programs.

Appointment Scheduling

• Appointment scheduling is a major function that medical office personnel must keep up with on a consistent basis. Managing patient appointments requires the evaluation of physicians' schedules and reworking existing appointments when patients or doctors need to cancel and reschedule. The process is ongoing, which is why computerized appointment scheduling programs are so heavily utilized by medical offices. Computerized appointment scheduling programs are software systems that offer a user-friendly approach to managing multiple physicians' schedules. Such programs let users look up doctor availability, make changes and offer organizational features, such as color-coding.

  Appointment scheduling systems have the ability to provide automated reminders to medical staff of upcoming patient appointments. With this feature, staff can send reminder notices or make reminder phone calls to patients to make sure they have not forgotten about their appointments.

Patient Records

• Electronic patient records are computerized programs that let medical offices store patient information in the computer. These programs alleviate a lot of administrative burden for medical clinic staff members, who normally have to file patient information manually. With computerized patient records, the shuffling and filing of papers is eliminated because medical professionals can add, change, delete and access patient information from their computers.

  According to the Advanced Data Systems Corporation, electronic patient records increase medical staff efficiency, help reduce documentation errors caused by poor penmanship and improve the quality and security of patient information. By having such programs available, medical office staff no longer have to perform manual procedures, such as writing lab slips, specialist referrals and prescriptions, because these functions can be taken care of electronically. For example, e-prescribing systems let doctors send virtual prescriptions to pharmacies, which reduces the need for handwritten scripts.

Billing and Account Management

• Medical office staff are charged with the task of sending out patient bills, forwarding claims to insurance providers and managing patient accounts. Computerized software programs are available to perform these functions, which offer a simplified solution for account management procedures. These programs keep track of outstanding patient bills and have features that let medical offices set up bill-pay programs that are comfortable for the patient.