Philadelphia Area Cardiology Practice Sees Increased Efficiency, Higher Reimbursement with MobileMD Health Information Access

McCurdy & Tremblay is a four physician cardiology group treating over 60 patients a day in their office, with a staff of 22. The physicians admit to Riddle Memorial Hospital, which is part of the Main Line Health system in suburban Philadelphia.

The practice had an EMR system in place when it began working with MobileMD to establish connectivity with Riddle.

"We chose NextGen's combined practice management and EMR systems. We knew the transition to EMR would be the more challenging effort, since it would involve the participation and training of our medical staff," says Denny McCurdy, the Practice Administrator. "One of our goals was to get as much information as possible flowing into our EMR system electronically, so that we could eliminate scanning, faxing and all of that manual work."

The practice set up an interface with a major lab system, but the process took much longer than they had expected. In the fall of 2008 the practice contacted Riddle's IT department to initiate the process of establishing an interface with Riddle's lab. They learned that Riddle was setting up a health information exchange (HIE) with the help of MobileMD. This HIE would allow for the automatic transfer of labs, transcriptions, radiology and e-prescribing, to name a few.

"We were relieved when Riddle and MobileMD came in to describe the process," remembers Denny. "Once they aligned hospital data with our EMR system, they simply had to review some screen shots from our system and asked us to ensure the data was coming in as the physicians wanted it. There was no disruption to our practice."

MobileMD can work with any and all EMR systems. "We were very impressed with the leadership they demonstrated in working with our EMR vendor. We held weekly conference calls to make sure our practice, the EMR vendor and MobileMD were all on the same page," adds Denny.

One of the highlights of their new connectivity, according to Denny, is that data sent by MobileMD automatically populates NextGen's Provider Approval Queue (PAQ). The practice receives lab results and documents continuously, which feed into each provider's queue, as well as each patient's electronic chart. "A physician can check his PAQ, forward information automatically to the nurse, such as instructions on a change to medication, and the whole process is done electronically and noted in the chart."

The medical assistants, who originally were somewhat resistant to a move away from paper, also see benefits with EMR. For example, with e-prescribing, they take the prescription information, send it to the physician for electronic signature and then send it off to the pharmacy. No more hours wasted looking in the paper chart, faxing or calling in prescriptions.

As the practice administrator, Denny witnessed another significant benefit from EMR: the physicians had been conservative in billing for appropriate levels of care. There was a fear of audits and whether the office notes would have all the needed documentation, the "bullets" dictated in the CPT manual. Now they are armed with detailed, electronic information flowing in not only from their practice, but from work performed at outside labs and Riddle Hospital. "We now bill for the correct level of care, resulting in higher reimbursement, since we can show them the detail on what work was performed and why," says Denny.

From being the bookkeeper in 1975 to office manager and now practice administrator, Denny has seen what it takes to keep a practice running — and has done much of the manual work needed to keep her husband's practice growing and prospering. "We're all happy to see the positive results from an EMR and the ability to coordinate and improve patient care in concert with the Main Line Health system. The EMR was challenging, but MobileMD and Riddle helped us really get the most out of our system by connecting us into the wider information network."