If you are looking for your first Practice Management system, you may find lots of options available to you when you Google ‘Best Private Practice Management System UK’ and often, many larger organisations who offer something similar in the marketplace, are not exactly what you need but have paid to be the top of Googles listings. Not always very helpful!
When new clients call or ask about MidexPRO we advise them to speak to fellow colleagues who may have an established business and use a system to support their clinical needs.
If it’s working for them and it’s in your field of expertise, its likely to be right for you too. Even with a recommendation though, it is a good idea to have a bit of background from experienced consultants and medical secretaries who use systems day in and day out. Their insight will help you to avoid simple errors that are not always obvious to consider at the start.
Why is it so important to get this bit right? Without doubt ensuring that you have the best system for your needs, will boost efficiency and automate workflow so points below will help highlight some of the key suggestions given by our very own MidexPRO clients to help you.
So, in our humble opinion, based on questions asked of clients who currently uses MidexPRO and their answers, the 5 most popular points raised are as follows:
1. Make sure your system that can automate workflow.
Having a system that has several integrations already built in to the one PPM system, will reduce extra external costs, duplication in tasks and allow for the medical professionals both secretarial and clinician, to focus on the patient experience and quality of care.
Patient Portal, Payment facility, having a Dictation option, reporting/analysing trends function showing patterns with patients’ activity, prescription ordering and Ebilling are by far the most popular ways to help reduce extra work and maintain efficiency.
2. Check for scalable integration.
You have your practice which may be just one clinic, but what if you expand, take on more patients and partners? Ensuring your PPM system can grow with you will make all the difference to any potential future income ability.
Knowing your provider has a ‘multi-practice’ option from the start helps to reduce the need to migrate your data to a larger system if you were to grow your business.
3. What are the server and security capabilities?
This is one many people don’t consider but it is something our clients raised as a big factor when buying a system. As obvious as this sounds, asking about the security elements of a system and server providers from the outset will give you piece of mind.
Why is the server provider important? if the PPM system grows and grows and grows with other medical specialities, how do they maintain good access, and ensure speed of tasks are not affected because of strain on the servers?
Server strain can affect productivity and really impact a clinic. Something you don’t need during a busy session. MidexPRO uses Microsoft Azure. Their servers allow for the MidexPRO system to scale according to usage. As you grow, as your data grows from hundreds to millions of pieces of data, so do our servers. We are scalable so therefore you are too and at no reduction in service.
Security, yes its important but what do I need to check? Multi-Factor Authentication or MFA as its widely known, allows for an extra layer of security when accessing your data. With the confidential elements of clinical data, all PPM systems all have robust security features, they follow guidelines from GDPR or Cyber Security or have even registered with the NHS DSPToolkit team, but do they offer the option for MFA with no added costs for VPN fobs? If not, it is something that will allow for home workers and those travelling to access your system safely from all over the world with that extra layer of protection.
4. What day to day Support do they have?
Having someone to answer the phone or an email when you need help, is something that was deemed extremely important.
A Support Team who are on the end of a phone to speak to when a payment won’t go through or if you have an Ebilling problem and need to submit invoices to be paid, was a point raised by everyone who took part in answering the question at the top of this blog.
It can be so frustrating if you must wait 24hours or long for someone to come back to you.
Ask what the Service Level Agreement is. MidexPRO has a 30minute response time so if you send an email, call or use the Chat facility, you will be responded to within 30 minutes. The same team are responsible for training all new Users and can demonstrate new functionality. A good foundation to understanding a system and what is capable of, is the key to ensuring your clinic runs smoothly.
5. What is the termination clause?
This one is from me. What is the exit clause and yes, you ask this before you join any provider. If for any reason you need to leave and move your data to a new provider, you could get a big shock if you ask to leave and need to move your data elsewhere, only to be told that you are on an annual contract and therefore exiting early, will result in paying the outstanding year before you get to take your data elsewhere.
MidexPRO offer a 30-day rolling contract so if you decide you wish to leave and take your data (which you own as The Controller) we as the Processer, work to a 30-day final payment and extraction of data.
There is a blog about this topic which will give you more information: https://midexpro.com/advice-to-consider-when-moving-medical-data-to-another-provider/
Over the past 8 years of working as a Director and predominantly, to step in when there are concerns or issues at MidexPRO, one of the most frustrating situations I have witnessed multiple times is when a clinician is trying to move away from one provider to us and they have been charged thousands of pounds to do so.
Having an extra cost to account for during a situation which might potentially be a stressful, can be headed off before it needs to be a problem if you ask this one question from the start: What is your termination clause?
Hopefully, these few pieces of advice will help when you take the steps to buy your first Private Practice System. It is a big investment and by taking a few simple steps you can reduce potential stressful situations later.
Caroline Corrigan.
Director, MidexPRO.