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Billing and claims management services and systems help healthcare providers manage rising costs of healthcare as well as increase overall administrative efficiency. The wider is the scope of solution the more benefit it delivers to the practice. The

According to USFDA, a combination product is one composed of any combination of a drug and device; biological product and device; drug and biological product

most important scope enhancement in the recent years is the addition of integrated electronic medical records (EMR) solutions, which is the heart of the medical practice IT value chain. The comprehensive nature of EMR consolidates patient's personal an

; or drug, device, and biological product and fixed dose combination would include two or more combinations of drug.

Examples of combination products may in

administrative information, health history, prescriptions, treatments, and conditions. Its ability to perform such data aggregation at the point of care elevates its benefit from plain recording of patient encounter to useful decision support system.

lude drug-coated devices, drugs packaged with delivery devices in medical kits, and drugs and devices packaged separately but intended to be used together.

The most critical part of any system is its interfaces to other systems, and especially, its human interface. Typically, EMR allows three kinds of input, namely, typing, dictation, and point-and-click templates. Most physicians choose dictation over

here is enormous increase in the number of combination products entering the market in the recent years. Combination products have proven advantages but fixe

typing and point-and-click templates for reasons of convenience and time efficiencies.

While preference of dictation over typing is obvious, recent technology progress and regulatory compliance pressures make point-and-click templates superior to dic

d dose combinations are still in the process of convincing regulatory authority on their advantages over the single ingredient formulations.

Combination pro

ation.

Dictation and Transcription

Medical transcription saves time in comparison to handwritten notes or typing. It intuitively matches the physician's working style, power of personal expression, and it is easy to dictate using a phone, P

ucts have become life saving products for the pharmaceutical companies who doesn’t have many innovative molecules in their product pipeline and have been inc

A, or Dictaphone. Human transcriber or Voice Recognition systems transcribe the dictation into medical notes.

But transcription has multiple disadvantages:

Incomplete. If notes are not captured immediately at the point of care,

easingly used in the product life cycle management. Even the companies having product patents are trying to extend their product life cycle through the combi

it is too easy to exclude important details.

Costly Processing. Report generation using unstructured data is much more time consuming and expensive.

Time delay for Accessibility. It typically takes 12 to

nation products and maximize the revenues. But the companies involved in this practice are overlooking that they are burdening the patients both economically

24 hours for chart turnaround.

Note incompleteness is the most important disadvantage of dictation and transcription because comprehensive medical notes are key to surviving a post-payment insurance audit.

Point-and-Click Templates

and physically. They need to rightly judge the benefits of the combination products and they have to even look at the risks involved when combining the produ

A point-and-click template presents a selection of data elements, a navigation mechanism, and a point-and-click process for capturing patient information. The doctor simply points and clicks selecting appropriate choices while the system fills ou

ts. Some of the combination products were well accepted by physicians while others suffered. Companies involved in development of combination products are fi

a complete record of selections, which makes up the resulting encounter notes. Such a structured approach offers multiple benefits:

Consistency. Structured data ensures note completeness and avoids missing important details. It

ding difficulty in defining their combination products and facing various challenges from selecting a combination to marketing it.

Following aspects would a

enhances the ability to generate clinically useful reports, such as appointment reminders or disease management.

Customization. The doctor specifies the template layout to match precisely the workflow of the practice.

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

Which markets to tap where the combination products can do fairly well?
Which combination prod

> Lower Error Rate. Standardization of input precludes errors of omission or spelling.

Faster decision-making. Similar observations have similar notes, resulting in consistent decisions.

Immediate Acces

cts are meaningful and rational?
Which therapeutic categories to select?
Which Combinations can address unmet needs of the patients?
Do combin

ibility for Processing. Since notes are created within the EMR system, they are available immediately upon completion.

However, point-and-click data entry also has several disadvantages, including

Complexity.
tions increase the patient compliance?
What would be the developing cost?
How to tackle the risks encountered during combination product developmen
b> It takes more effort to the notes using point-and-click templates than just writing or dictating.

Data Entry Time. It may take too long to walk through all the required templates in front of the patient.

Cos

t?

As combination products don't fit into the traditional categories of drugs, medical devices, or biological products, the USFDA is in the process of devel

. As each practice has different workflow, template customization may be costly.

The added complexity of point-and-click templates is clearly justifiable because of guaranteed completeness, which is key to regulatory compliance and

ping new procedures for reviewing their safety, efficacy and quality.

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

the ability to survive post-payment audit. The data entry time can be reduced too by allocating lion's time share on comprehensive documentation during initial examination and restricting documentation scope to note updates only during subsequent visi

y and representatives from various regulatory agencies are working out to design the regulatory requirements for manufacture and sale of combination products

ts. Structured nature of point-and-click templates are naturally conducive for such time prioritization.

Although some physicians prefer familiar to convenient, and convenient - to better functionality, transcription must be viewed as an inferior com

.

As there is an increasing trend of the combination products companies manufacturing such products should be able to tackle the problems involved in the de

onent of interface array to modern EMR system, complementary to click-and-point templates. Modern physician office automation technologies combine both billing and EMR features and provide both kinds of interfaces adding to both efficacy and efficienc

elopment. They need to be wiser in analyzing the market trends and the regulatory requirements.

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

of practice workflow. Powerful Vericle-like technologies also facilitate rapid customization of point-and-click templates, optimizing physician's interface to EMR system, providing added degree of regulatory compliance, and reducing post-payment audi

tion in industry events and feedback to regulatory authorities would be able to face the challenges and will be successful in developing combination products

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Advice You - Top 5 Keys To Physician Interface Dilemma In Electronic Medical Billing And EMR Software Systems

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