One of the things I value most about pMD is the ability for software engineers to work directly with our users. At every step of my interaction with a user, I gain a deeper exposure as to how our customers use pMD, as well as to how people use software in general. When a user doesn’t understand a feature, I ask myself, “How could we have designed a more intuitive experience for our users?” When a user asks about functionality that we don’t yet offer, I ask myself, “How can we build an experience that will help solve our users’ problems?”

Getting to speak with our customers allows me to escape the vacuum that software engineers often find themselves in. It’s been one of the best ways to broaden my understanding of user experience, design, and product development. Beyond that, speaking with customers often takes me on a deep dive into our domain -- the medical industry -- and hones my ability to identify how pMD can solve problems that providers and practices struggle with daily.

For example, a practice administrator I work with had lamented to me about the high number of claims from his practice that were being denied as duplicates by insurers. Upon further investigation, I saw that duplicate claim denials presented a more widespread problem than just at this one practice - other practices were seeing claims denied as duplicates, too. This realization led us to build the Duplicate Visit Checker, which helps identify and warn users about potential duplicate claims before they are billed.

As a software engineer, I saw this as a very valuable experience. We were able to identify a gap in the billing process and fill it for our customers. More than that, the experience of designing and building this feature, and of seeing the value it has generated for many of our users, has prepared me to keep looking for new ways that pMD can help practices avoid other types of denials, as well. From one customer interaction, I gained a new way of looking at how pMD can solve problems for our users, a perspective that benefited pMD, our customers, as well as my own personal development as a software engineer.

Find out more about pMD's suite of products, which includes our MIPS registry, charge capture, secure messaging, clinical communication, and care navigation software and services, please contact pMD.

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