13 Nov ROI Advantages of Using a Cloud-Based EHR at Your Practice
Every day your eye care practice faces challenges. Billing issues, patient communication problems, and server crashes all add up to one thing—wasted time. Inefficiencies create chaos in the office, negatively affect patients, and directly impact your bottom line. You need ophthalmology and optometry EHR software to solve these problems and save you money.
When it comes to optometric EHR software adoption habits, Software Advice reports that “99% prefer cloud-based deployment over on-premise deployment for their practice management software.”
Everyone is moving to the cloud, but is it right for you? It’s a big investment in your success, and you’re wondering about the advantages of using a cloud-based EHR. No need to wonder anymore. Here are the solutions and savings you’ll experience with a cloud-based EHR system.
Decreasing Data Liabilities with a Cloud-Based EHR System
Data protection is probably your number one concern when you think about migrating your EHR system to the cloud. As an eye care professional, you know the critical importance of data protection better than anyone.
According to a recent report in the HIPAA Journal, a healthcare data breach in the U.S. now costs an average of $15 million. The question is: what is the best way to avoid this massive liability?
Using a cloud-based optometry EHR system that is fully HIPAA compliant is certainly a step in the right direction. When you’re deciding on a solution, ask the EHR vendor some pointed questions about certifications and security to make sure all of your data protection bases are covered.
- Does it encrypt protected data while at rest?
- Is multi-factor authentication used?
- What authentication tools are used to get into the system?
- What measures protect data from theft, loss, and hacking?
Related: The Top Five Benefits Your Optometry Software Should Provide
“Scalability, security, and privacy was a deciding factor of moving to the cloud as one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to optometric practices. As our practice expands and we add more patient data or more users, we can easily increase our capacity for data storage and users.” – Christopher Weber, OD
Secure Backup, Disaster Recovery, and Energy Efficiency
Like many eye care professionals, you probably worry that patient data could be stolen or compromised and privacy is breached more easily in the cloud. In fact, the opposite is true. In the cloud, patient data is stored centrally in a private and secure, encrypted data center. Your data is not shared in a common database with any other practices.
If we take a closer look at the ROI advantages of using a cloud-based EHR system, a significant area of savings lies in the cost of data backup.
A data backup service might charge a practice like yours about $4,800 per year to back up your data nightly. This cost vanishes when you migrate your EHR software to the cloud.
Cloud-based eye care software saves all of your information and data regardless of any unforeseen or natural disasters. EHR software updates and patches happen automatically in the cloud, eliminating time-consuming manual processes and daily practices that put your system and data at risk. As a result, you have stronger security, automatic backup, and easier recovery.
Lastly, servers use energy, an additional cost for your optometry practice. There are no additional energy costs to you with cloud-based EHR software. You’ll also lessen your environmental footprint because larger data centers are more energy efficient.
“The cloud decomposes the traditional hard-wired relationships between application, server, hardware, network, and storage, freeing these resources from their traditional constraints…Because of this, moving to the cloud will generally increase the return of your technology investment.” – Understanding Cloud ROI Factors, CTIO Research
The cost savings listed above are average costs based on sample case studies.
Optimize Your Local Cloud Hosted Network Resources
Our client, Justin Sparks, Director of Operations with Klamath Eye Center, shares three conveniences this five-location, seven-doctor eye care practice (three ophthalmologists and four optometrists) experiences with a cloud-based EHR system.
- “We can do far more from an organization standpoint since moving to the cloud. Having all of our offices on the same cloud system and sharing the same database has greatly lightened and optimized our local hosted network resources.”
- “The time savings are incredible with the increased ability for our providers to access data remotely from outside of our local network. Data in the cloud improves access to patient data without having to come into the office or have staff translate patient information to the provider over the telephone.”
- “We have greater peace of mind that our data is being securely stored, maintained, and backed up by the developers of our software.”
Save Thousands in IT and Hardware Costs with a Cloud-Based EHR
In the cloud, there are no servers to install, maintain, or back up your EHR data. A server typically needs to be replaced every few years.
Cloud-based ophthalmology and optometry EHR is easy to use and maintain no matter your level of technical expertise. Everything is handled automatically, so you no longer need to spend your valuable time on IT roadblocks.
You may currently have an IT person on retainer for around $1,000 a month. Or, maybe you pay someone internally to manage everything. Another big advantage of moving your EHR system to the cloud is eliminating or reducing these IT resource costs.
“MaximEyes Cloud cut $1,500 a month in IT service costs at just one of my three offices.” – Mark Rosanova, MD
Greater Accessibility and Improved Connectivity
With cloud-based ophthalmology and optometry EHR software, you have better remote access from most mobile devices, PCs, and Macs. Your practice is a well-oiled machine when you can access anything you need to provide top-notch patient care anytime, anywhere.
“We love the speed of MaximEyes Cloud and no longer worry about IT expenses, backups and lost data.” – William Tullo, OD
Remote access is included with a cloud-based EHR system, so you don’t need to subscribe to a separate remote access solution (such as LogMeIn). If you have multiple locations in your practice, you probably have to pay for dedicated T1 lines between them—which is completely unnecessary with a cloud-based EHR system.
When you use a cloud-based optometric EHR system, everything is at your fingertips: scheduling, billing, medical history forms and records, and patient communication. Time is money, and these efficiencies will save you both.
Technology is always a huge investment, and you need to know that investment is worth it. Cloud-based eye care EHR is the right decision. Not only will you improve efficiencies in your practice and provide even better patient care, but you’ll also save long-term.
Ready to migrate your optometric EHR and practice management system to the cloud? We’re ready to share the many advantages your practice will experience.
