2012 finds Fort Lauderdale and Broward County medical and health care offices in varying stages of transition between traditional paper-based records and the federally mandated electronic medical records (EMRs).  As anyone currently working within the health care industry is probably aware, Congress and President Barack Obama have established a 2014 deadline for this conversion – which applies to all current records going forward.  To this end, they have offered incentive funds as bonuses in order to motivate offices to make the switch – approximately $44,000 per physician, which can add up to a substantial amount for local practices that include several doctors as well as for hospitals and healthcare facilities with many practicing physicians on staff.

EMR Back Scanning in Fort Lauderdale

div>The main problem observed within south Florida medical offices concerns how to approach EMR back scanning of the older medical records, those which are not necessarily provided for by the federal mandate – but which may be considered no less important.  In addition, as local facilities make this transition, many have not planned for the so-called “in-between” stage, when they may be compelled to run dual systems – both paper-based and EMR.  Nationwide statistics also seem to support this trend.  According to a survey conducted in 2011 by records storage giant Iron Mountain, although 70% of the health care organizations that participated in the survey expected to have achieved meaningful use of their EMR systems by the end of the year, only 14% actually expected to be “paperless” by that time.  IN other words, most expect to have a fairly long dual system period – in which certain decisions must be made.

This is where the EMR back scanning dilemma comes into the picture, in most cases.  Only 33% of these surveyed organizations have decided to scan all of their paper medical records – even the old and outdated files that may never be used again.  In most instances, these facilities were larger, with 150 beds or more, according to the online journal Information Week Healthcare.  Cost is thought to be a factor regarding this decision, as this same article reports that more than half of these facilities had no idea what their scanning budget might be, and an even larger percentage did not know the cost per scanned image or document.  The average letter sized file box contains approximately 2,500 pieces of paper, and even the smallest medical practice will have hundreds of file boxes and cabinets full of documents, so price is definitely a consideration – although EMR back scanning is an ideal use for the aforementioned $44,000 incentive bonus.

Fort Lauderdale and Broward County medical offices who wish to explore EMR back scanning alternatives are strongly encouraged to contact the professionals at CopyScan.  CopyScan has been serving the EMR back scanning needs of south Florida since the technology became available, and the highly trained professional staff is well-versed in the most cost effective ways to incorporate medical records scanning into an existing EMR system.  CopyScan is also a distributor of Practice Fusion, a free EMR software system for EMRs that can be combined with EMR back scanning to provide the most up-to-date EMR solution for medical offices of any size.  For more information on EMR back scanning, please call (954)463-9394 or visit http://www.copyscan.com/medical_record_services/emr_back_scanning/.