Information technology is supposed to make work-life more efficient, accurate, and effective. The promise to eliminate duplication of effort and minimize fat-finger typographic errors is the core reason for adopting much of the IT used in the modern medical office. Nothing delivers on these promises more directly than establishing interfaces among the various computer systems in the health care delivery universe.

SHOULD YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR AN INTERFACE?

At pMD, our stated raison d'être is to save patient lives by reducing the risk of medical errors stemming from miscommunication and non-communication resulting in care gaps.  pMD was created to improve efficiency, accuracy, and information exchange among caregivers and patients.  Since interfacing is so integral and critical to achieving this goal, pMD has never charged our clients for an interface.  

When dining at a restaurant, you are paying for the food, but you are not charged extra for utensils or a plate.  When investing in a system to improve business efficiency and accuracy, getting quality data into and out of it should not cost extra.  This principle is at the core of the pMD approach to interfacing with other systems, including hospitals, practice management, answering services, and billing and revenue cycle management (RCM) services.  

Unfortunately, most other participants in the industry have a different view on the subject.  While pMD does not charge for interfaces, the reality is that most Practice Management (PM) System vendors do charge thousands of dollars for them.  Some hospitals and health systems also charge for data feeds to private practices as well, although can vary with the practice’s relationship with the hospital.

INTEROPERABILITY IS IN OUR DNA

Our commitment to core principles drove the way we designed our interfacing technology and continues to drive our methodology.  While many players in the industry are unwilling or unable to modify the format of the data they send or expect to receive, pMD has developed a system that allows us to be very flexible within the HL7 standard for interfacing.  Not only do we not charge providers, but we will flex to suit the needs of the systems we are exchanging data with.  

We have a huge existing and growing library of interfaces to a large number of systems that allow us to implement many interfaces with off-the-shelf modules quickly.  Our approach allows us to easily make adjustments to those existing interfaces for practices with unique requirements and workflows.  We’re also not limited to the systems we’re currently interfaced, we can adapt existing packages to quickly develop new interfaces with systems we have not previously encountered.  

pMD can process data for new and existing office and hospital patients, appointments scheduled in a practice management system, and can of course send charges in pMD back to the PM or RCM systems, customized to their unique requirements. The best part of it all, it is all included in the complete service that pMD prides itself on.If you are interested in learning more about our interfacing capabilities, please contact us here or give us a call at 800-587-4989 x2. We’d love to hear from you!