An important concept of EMR Pricing is Service Level Pricing (SLP). This concept is based on the assumption that different services offered by various providers will provide different prices. For example, if a medical laboratory uses four other servers to back up its digital health records, it will charge differently from a lab that uses only one server. Therefore, when determining EMR Pricing, the Service Level Pricing Percent, Service Level Bonus, and Service Release Percentage should all be considered. Each of these percentages is derived by dividing the total number of service hours by the number of hours per month.
Most EMR Pricing models are based on the hourly pay for use model. Still, some uncommonly used models only bill a per-minute licensing fee to cover a set number of hours per month for the use and maintenance of electronic medical records. These pricing models can be very useful for laboratories that do not have an onsite medical specimen collection centre or are not billed on an hourly basis. Typically these laboratories would be forced to obtain reimbursement from the health care facility that provided the specimen. These rare EMR Pricing models are still under investigation, but they are becoming more common.
It is sometimes difficult to determine the appropriate EMR Pricing Information. Guidelines for pricing the electronic medical records are currently being developed and tested by health information exchange companies and other healthcare industry stakeholders. Procedures will continue to evolve until the final version is released for public review. In the interim, various price ranges and structures are being used to develop EMR Pricing Information. In general, these price structures include a Per Instance Pricing Strategy (PPPS), a Service Level Pricing Strategy (SLPS), and a Service Release Policy (SRP).
The Service Level Pricing Strategy and the Service Release Policy both establish prices for a certain number of charges, usually based on the number of pages of medical records that have been provided to the EMR system. The Service Level Pricing Strategy prices are generally higher than the EMR Pricing Strategy. Also, when using free emr software price quotes, it is not uncommon for a laboratory to charge for the actual medical records associated with the medical code assigned to a patient or to retrieve data directly from the electronic health records. When this happens, the free emr software price quotes become a means of indirect EMR pricing.
The Service Release Policy can be used to avoid some of the hidden costs associated with EMRs. This policy dictates how long a health information exchange system should be maintained. Some procedures allow a system to be kept active for as long as necessary without being changed. Other systems have a mandated maximum amount of time to be operational before being removed from the patient database. Changing or eliminating an EMR system during this time can potentially save money because it would allow the practice to remove the old EMR software and install the new one at no additional cost.
The price that is advertised is not necessarily the actual cost of maintaining the system. Therefore, when an EMR Pricing Calculator is used to compute the price of a new system, it should be compared to the cost of the previous generation. In most cases, the price per record in the last age was far lower than that in the current generation due to improved coding of health information.
Many EMR vendors offer price guarantees, which allow them to collect an additional amount for up-front pricing if they meet a certain number of predetermined benchmark requirements. However, it is important to note that many of these guarantee prices are negotiable. It is not uncommon for practices to ask for higher guarantees if health information exchanges increase. Rules that want to save more money on this front can often request that their current EMR Pricing Calculator be reset to a lower number without requesting a guarantee. This does require the knowledge of the practice’s current EMR vendor. Still, when necessary, several methods can change their previous reservation prices by simply contacting their current vendor and requesting that a reservation be reordered.
The value of EMR pricing information is easily seen in the practice accounts created when an EMR pricing page is initially requested. These practice accounts can reveal information that can make it easier for practices to track and measure their EMR costs. A good practice account will be easy to access, allow for detailed and comprehensive analysis, and provide the necessary information to determine the best way to optimize their practices for cost reduction. When an EMR pricing page is requested, methods can then access a detailed page that provides information on reservation prices, reserve times, exchange rates, and exchange fees that must be paid.