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1. Poor Practice Management Capabilities

Patients notice when the doctor/clinic they are visiting is unorganized. For example, if a patient is waiting for an unreasonable amount of time in the waiting room, it can give a bad impression or make the patient consider leaving (if they are not in need of urgent care). Poor EHR practice management capabilities can lead to customer dissatisfaction, which is a complaint heard more often than those about quality of care. Don’t let these affect your healthcare agency.

2. Not integrated with other programs

If your EHR system is not built to work seamlessly with all the portals, billing systems, or other forms of important software concerning patients, it is hindering your ability to be more efficient in taking care of patients. Having multiple pieces of software results in double data entry, more room for errors, and more work for staff members. Make sure your EHR is interoperable with the systems you need and use or it may be time for a new EHR.

3. It isn’t minimizing administrative burden 

The point of an Electronic Health Record is to speed up processes when caring for a patient, and offer doctors the opportunity to focus more on caring for their patients instead of having to do more administrative work. A good EHR syncs with your workflow and does not add additional work on your clinicians, resulting in clinician burnout.

4. Lacking Vendor Support

If the EHR you’re using has poor support and you’re kept waiting for days on end for help or an answer when you have system issues, it’s time to find a new EHR. Electronic Health Record vendors need to make sure that whoever is using their software can receive consistent, quick, user-friendly service. 

5. Still using paper

We are in an era where so many tasks can be done digitally. If you are still using paper charts, that is fine, but you are missing opportunities to have an Electronic Health Record system speed up your data processing, scheduling, billing, health records exchange and other tasks that take much longer to do by hand. 

6. Glitchy software

Glitches in an EHR software can be very annoying to doctors and physicians. But they can be seriously detrimental to a patient’s health if the glitch(es) prevents them from receiving proper care. Glitches can lead to lost data which can have serious consequences. If you are having constant tech issues with your system, it is time for a new EHR.

7. Missing features

A strong EHR should be capable of incorporating features into its software that can take care of menial tasks, such as compliance issues and common workflow. If you feel like your EHR is missing some important features or not working with the way you like to work, you need to start looking for one that fits your needs better. 

8. Mobile Accessibility Not Provided

It is nice for patients to be able to access their medical information electronically via a computer or laptop. But these days, where almost everyone has a smartphone, EHRs need to provide patients with mobile access patient portals, in case they need to access their information when not near a computer. Patients should also be able to receive updates and patient communications via text, which is becoming the preferred method amongst most patients.

9. Hidden fees

If your EHR vendor is adding little fees here and there to your bill every cycle, you may want to consider switching. Switching to an EHR that doesn’t have surprise fees for new features or upgrades is probably cheaper than paying those small fees that really add up over time. 

10. It is not growing

If you are opening up more locations to practice medicine, your EHR should be able to grow along with it, to keep everything stabilized. If not, consider looking for a replacement that can scale as you do.