There are currently 1.1 million medical doctors located throughout the United States. Around half of these doctors’ work in one of the 230,187 physician practices, while others work in hospitals. Doctors that work in private medical businesses have challenges that other doctors don’t have to face.
Shutterstock Licensed Photo – By George Rudy
One of the issues that you need to deal with is consent forms. You need to make sure that they are managed effectively.
Understanding the Nuances of Handling Patient Consent Forms with Your Medical Businesses
There are a number of challenges that you face as a medical practice operator. You need to make sure that you take the right steps to ensure your patients get the quality care that they deserve and expect. Patient consent form management is one of the processes that many healthcare businesses struggle with. The NIH has shared some of the templates and discussed the practices that you should follow with them.
Are you still using old paper-based consent forms? Every patient that walks through your door needs to fill out a consent for treatment form. Paper files pile up fast, take up room, and are inefficient to manage. They are particularly costly, which is a problem for many businesses, since the operating margin is only about 13%. You need to manage them in the most cost-effective way to maintain a decent profit margin.
Enabling a system to manage electronic consent forms means you can keep better track of all your patient records online. When a new patient schedules an appointment, it’s crucial that they sign up for your online system. This can be best for your healthcare business’s bottom line.
An integrated online system allows them to receive consent forms and fill out new patient paperwork at their convenience. They don’t have to arrive to their appointment 20 minutes early, or worse, forget to arrive early at all, causing delays for them and for other patients.
Also Read
Instead, allow them to fill out consent forms online so that they can do it from the comfort of their own home, or even on their smartphone. Those consent forms automatically get stored in their chart for easy access later.
Chances are, many of your records are digitized already. Why waste your staff’s time entering information into your system from a paper form – and struggle to read patients’ handwriting – when your patients can do the work themselves? It saves time and effort, and reduces the risk of incorrect entries.
All of your patient data is in one spot, and it’s not taking up room in a filing cabinet. You can search for it and pull it up instantly for reference anytime. You don’t run the risk of losing it and having to inconvenience patients with filling out another form.
This doesn’t just apply to consent forms, either. Your patients deserve this convenience for everything they fill out or sign. Take medical background information, give them screenings and assessments, and ensure that every form that needs to be filled out has been digitized.
It’s the easiest way for them to read, sign, and save the forms. If just one thing changes, they can fix it in seconds rather than having to rewrite the full form. They can even save electronic copies for themselves and they’ll have complete access to their medical records, visit analyses, and lab results online.
Collect all the sign-offs you need with no paperwork. It’s seamless and easy. Now your electronic health records are the ultimate source of truth for your team, your patient, and any referrals you send or any medical records you transfer.
In addition to taking electronic forms, you can also implement communication systems so you can stay in touch with your patients and establish effective communication workflows with your team.
Understand the Importance of Managing Consent Forms for Your Healthcare Business
Everyone in your office will always be on the same page with a patient’s care so they experience a seamless transition from the waiting room to your exam room to the lab for testing.
Getting patients in the door is already a struggle. Keep them there once they arrive with processes that work for everyone. You won’t waste their time, and you’ll improve efficiency so much that you can continue to take new patients and increase profits without overwhelming your staff.
