Physical Therapy EMR

HENO is entrenched in the Physical Therapy Industry not only because we designed a 2020 Top Rated PT EMR, but also because we own 2 Physical Therapy Clinics in Orlando, FL.  In fact, that’s how HENO came to be.  Since there are many PTs looking for information about PT EMR Software, we have decided to create an FAQ that we hope PTs find helpful and informative. On thing to note about the following list of Frequently Asked Questions:  Although we commonly use the terms PT and Physical Therapy, we understand that Physical Therapy often goes hand-in-hand with Occupational Therapy (OT), and Speech Language Pathology (SLP).  So, therefore, when you see the words PT or Physical Therapist below, please understand they are often interchangeable with PT and OT.

What is Physical Therapy EMR?

Physical Therapy EMR or Physical Therapy Electronic Medical Records is software designed for use predominantly in Outpatient Physical Therapy Clinics.  The core function of an EMR is to allow PTs and other clinical staff to document their interactions with patients and bill Medical Insurance Companies.  There are many names for Physical Therapy EMR including PT EMR, PT Software, Physical Therapy EHR, Physical Therapy Electronic Health Records, Physical Therapy Practice Management Software, PT Practice Management Software, Physical Therapy Office Software, and PT Office Software.  Though different people use different terminology to describe Physical Therapy Software, most systems provide the same essential functions and features with the chief responsibility being that of providing the necessary technology infrastructure to own, run and manage a PT Clinic.  The software empowers PT Clinics to accomplish many tasks including the following:

1. All In One Software

   Some Physical Therapy EMRs are considered All In One Solutions; whereas, others provide limited feature sets.  For example, many Physical Therapy EMRs contain only Appointment Scheduling and Documentation.  Those systems lack many of the most critical features that PT Clinics need from their EMRs because they have no Medical Billing Software, Credit Card Processing Software, Insurance Eligibility Verification Technology, Patient Intake Automation Software, or Cash Pay and Retail Software to allow Hybrid PT Clinics to manage their product sales, wellness, and PT Visits.  Often, when PTs select EMRs, they are forced to buy 6 or 7 other software programs to run their clinics.  This is incredibly challenging because it means the PTs have multiple invoices, multiple logins and passwords, and worse yet, they have to duplicate their data entry in multiple systems.  Busy PTs don’t have time to copy and paste information out of one system and into another.  So, Physical Therapists are trying to find All-In-One Solutions.  Generally speaking, What Is An All In One Solution?  It’s a Physical Therapy EMR that contains Scheduling, Billing Software, Clearinghouse Software, Documentation Templates, Patient Intake Automation Software, Appointment Text, Email, and Phone Reminders, Direct HIPAA Compliant Patient Texting, Custom Reporting, and Cash Pay & Retail POS Software.

2. What is Patient Intake Automation Software? 

   Patient Intake Automation Software allows Physical Therapists and other medical service providers automate the flow of patients into their clinics while reducing the number of paper forms patients must complete and front-desk staff must manually re-enter into their Physical Therapy EMR Systems.  Patient Intake Automation Software allows PT Clinics to do the following:

   1. Empower patients to create Patient Profiles, and enter patient demographics and Insurance Policy Information from Physical Therapy Clinic Websites into the Patient Portal
   2. Build Customized Intake Forms so patients can digitally complete questionnaires and waivers via email and text on their phones, tablets, and personal computers
   3. Send Physical Therapy Outcome Measures to patients for digital completion
   4. Allow Physical Therapists to see and even map patient answers from intake forms into the fields in the EMR Evaluation Document
   5. Allow Physical Therapists to see the complete Patient Outcome Measures from with the Evaluation
   6. Provide PT Clinics a way to differentiate themselves from less tech-savvy clinics who still require patients to fill out intake forms on paper
   7. Let Physical Therapy Clinics provide appointment scheduling links on their websites so patients can avoid hold times and front-desk staff can work on other important tasks
   8. Let PT Clinics closely track and monitor digital marketing campaigns that empower patients to schedule appointments and seamlessly complete all paperwork online with the added benefit of digitally tracking where the patients found the PT Clinic
   9. Reduce labor costs, increase patient word of mouth referrals, in improve staff morale

3. What is PT Appointment Scheduling Software?

   Appointment Scheduling Software is a must for any PT Clinic!  Without Appointment Scheduling Software it’s not possible for PT Offices to run their clinic efficiently without patient bottlenecks, scheduling inefficiencies, and general disorganization.  Typical Appointment Scheduling Software lets front-desk receptionists schedule patients, but great PT Appointment Scheduling Software lets Physical Therapists, PT Owners, and Office Managers control the flow of patients in their office.  Appointment Software is the tip of the spear because it’s the first part of a Physical Therapy EMR that interfaces or interacts with a patient who is seeking Physical Therapy. This means it’s a very important ingredient in a PT EMR.

4. What Features are Common in Physical Therapy Appointment Scheduling Software? 

   Physical Therapists need Appointment Scheduling Software that allows them to:

   1. View availability of many staff members side-by-side
   2. View availability of staff in a daily, weekly, and monthly format
   3. Build Appointment based time-blocks to allow and disallow front-desk staff from scheduling the right appointments with the right patients at the right times
   4.  Send email, phone, and text appointment reminders to patients
   5. Schedule Patient Appointments
   6. Collect Patient Copays with Integrated Credit Card Processing
   7. Check Patients In
   8. Review a Patient’s Co-Pay, Co-Insurance, and Deductible
   9. Track Patient No-Shows and Cancellations
   10. Create time-blocks that display in different colors depending upon key factors such as the Physical Therapist treating the patient, the Patient’s Insurance, and the type of treatment the Physical Therapist is administering to the patient
   11. View past appointments and future appointments

5. What is Physical Therapy Documentation Software? 

   When PTs think about the essentials of a Physical Therapy EMR, make no mistake about it the top of their list of concerns is most definitely the patient documentation section where they document what the patient was seen for, what exercises the patient did, and how the patient is progressing toward long and short term goals.  The key thing most PTs care about in a PT EMR is documentation efficiency.  Whether or not documentation efficiency should be the most important thing on their lists is irrelevant because busy PTs want fast documentation software that will make their lives easier and more simple.  Physical Therapy Electronic Medical Records usually contain the following core documentation features:

   1. Customizable Templates that allow PTs to add and remove fields, questions, and information
   2. The ability to document visits on all devices including laptop computers, PCs, Macs, iPads, and Android tablets
   3. The ability to Copy previous daily notes, codes, and exercises into the current patient documentation
   4. The ability to use quick click hyperlinks that populate long sentences and paragraphs of text so Physical Therapists don’t need to manually type everything they did with patients
   5. The ability for Physical Therapists to use voice dictation to talk into their EMR in order to track everything that happened during the patient encounter
   6. The ability to Approve and Fax completed Evaluations, Daily Notes, and Progress Notes to Referring Physicians
   7. The ability to track pending documents awaiting signature by Referring Physicians
   8. The ability to track incomplete and unfinished Physical Therapy Documentation
   9. The ability to enter Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) Codes, International Classification of Diseases 10 (ICD10) Codes, Modifiers, and other Physical Therapy Medical Billing Information inside the patient Documentation
   10. Track Patient Exercises
   11. The ability to complete Patient Outcome Measures Including but not limited to the following:
       1. Amputee Mobility Predictor Assessment Tool (AMP)
       2. Back Index
       3. Berg Balance Scale
       4. DASH
       5. Dizziness Handicap Inventory
       6. Fear-Avoidance Beliefs Questionnaire (FABQpa) – Physical Activity
       7. Foot and Ankle Ability Measure (FAAM)
       8. Foot and Ankle Ability Measure (FAAM) – Sports Subscale
       9. LEFS | Lower Extremity Functional Scale
       10. Lymphedema Life Impact Scale
       11. Mini-BESTest: Balance Evaluation Systems Test
       12. Modified Oswestry Index
       13. Modified Oswestry Low Back Pain Disability Questionnaire
       14. Neck Disability Index (NDI)
       15. Pain Disability Index
       16. QuickDASH
       17. QuickDASH – work/sport
       18. Short Sensory Profile
       19. Shoulder Pain and Disability Index (SPADI)
       20. The Patient-Specific Functional Scale
       21. Tinetti Assessment Tool: Balance
       22. UEFI | Upper Extremity Functional Scale

6. What is Physical Therapy Medical Billing Software? 

   There are thousands of medical billing software companies that have designed multi-specialty billing software to support all types of medical practices, but there are few, if any, Physical Therapy Billing Software platforms designed by PTs for PTs.  That’s a problem because many large Physical Therapy EMR companies have designed only EMR, and not billing software for physical therapists.  That’s bad for Physical Therapists because it means they are not using true All-In-One solutions, so they’re re-entering data in two systems, overpaying for software, and not getting the most office efficiency possible.  Rather than using true All-In-One Physical Therapy EMRs, they’re using separate EMR and Billing software designed by two different companies.  One leading Physical Therapy EMR company interfaces with a separate billing software vendor, and the billing software vendor designed an 18-page-guide to tell clients how to turn on the Sync between the EMR and billing software.  If a Physical Therapist or their staff has to follow an 18-page guide just to turn on a Sync between two systems, doesn’t that defeat the purpose of digitized health records?  Isn’t the point of digitized health records to make Physical Therapy Clinics more efficient?   We’ve written extensively in the FAQ section at the bottom of this page about Physical Therapy Billing Software, but here’s a short list of things a Physical Therapist should know about what Physical Therapy Billing Software really is: 

   1. Physical Therapy Billing Software must do a great job helping staff manage, submit, and track Prior Authorizations.  It would be best if the PT Prior Authorization Tracking Software allows Clinical, Billing, and Front-Desk staff to collaborate, send messages, and track progress on Prior Authorizations.  Remember, most commercial payers are going to require a Prior Authorization for a PT to treat patients; therefore, it’s really important that a Physical Therapy BIlling Software have strong features for tracking Prior Authorizations
   2. Physical Therapy Billing Software must also provide billing staff the ability to build automation rules that update claims to help Physical Therapists remember to add modifiers in certain circumstances.  Billing Software that lets billing teams build rules will help them be considerably more efficient, and it will also help them automate some of the mundane billing tasks typically required to be done by billing staff
   3. As stated above, Physical Therapy Billing Software should be designed by the same company that build the Physical Therapy EMR. This may be the most important factor to selecting a Billing Software.  Be sure to know the risks of using interfaced EMR and Billing Software programs before you make a purchase
   4. Work Lists are very important in billing software.  The ability for a medical billing specialist to, for example, build work lists by payer, by overdue claim date, by claim status, and by dollar amount are equally important.  In fact, ideal systems will allow medical billers to build customized work lists with custom filters, custom column headers, and any pertinent information they need to process Physical Therapy Claims
   5. Since Physical Therapy Clinics typically submit a lot of worker’s compensation claims, it’s important to find a Physical Therapy Billing Software that allows you to submit electronic worker’s compensation claims
7. What Physical Therapy Reports Are Important to a PT Clinic?  Reporting is one of the most important parts of Physical Therapy EMR systems.  It’s common sense that you can’t improve something that you’re not tracking.  Some of the most important reports you should have in your EMR are listed as follows
   1. Custom Reporting is a Must! Before we actually talk about some of the specific reports you need to effectively run your Physical Therapy Clinic, let’s first address the critical need for custom reporting.  In a nutshell, custom reporting allows you to filter your data and information in a way that allows you to see only what you need to see in a format that allows you to understand clinic performance and make quick decisions. The purpose of all business reports is to let a Physical Therapy Clinic make better business decisions, be more strategic, and improve practice performance.  Therefore, the most essential aspect of reporting is the ability for you to do the following:
      1. Create filters such as “show me all patients without a follow-up appointment”, or “show me all patients with insurance = blue cross.  Such filters will allow you to build reports that contain the information you need to make intelligent business decisions
      2. Create colorful charts and graphs.  Reporting software should allow you to view both list views, and charts and graphs. Charts and graphs are helpful for quick depictions of performance; whereas, list views are helpful when you want to understand further aspects of the data
      3. Adding and removing column headers in leads is very helpful.  If your custom reporting software will allow you to add and remove column headers, this will make it easy for you to view the information required for you to make smart, strategic decisions about your clinic performance
      4. Saving custom reports is critical. Once you build the custom report you need, then your system should allow you to save it such that you can retrieve each day or week when you need to review it
      5. Exporting Reports is an essential function because you may need to view the information in a Microsoft Excel or PDF file format, so you will want to make sure you can export your reports
      6. Computational Columns are important.  What are computational columns?  Computational columns can be used by Physical Therapy EMR systems in order to allow the end user of the EMR to build calculations.  For example, let’s say a Physical Therapist wants to use their EMR to multiply their daily visits * $75 so they can have a general projection of how much cashflow the clinic should generate during a given day, week, or month.  If your report doesn’t let you build a computational column, you will not be able to add $75 to that report, and then Create a sum of all rows in the report to see what your projected revenue would be.  However, the best reporting engines will provide you with custom calculation fields like that described above.  This will only serve to improve your clinic performance by giving you the most critical data you need about your clinic
   2. How Many Visits Did you Have? Reports that display the number of visits last week, this week, and next week are valuable for Physical Therapists to understand their practice volume week over week, and also how they are growing or shrinking.  It’s also beneficial for PTs to be able to see total visits split apart from total evaluations since evaluations are a leading indicator for new patient volume
   3. How many Patients Registered in the Patient Portal?  Good Physical Therapy EMR Software lets you automate the patient intake process by allowing your patients to register their demographic and insurance information on your website, book appointments with you, and complete patient intake forms.  Therefore, your Physical Therapy EMR should contain a report that tells you how many of new patients registered in your patient portal daily, weekly, and monthly.  This will not only tell you which percentage of your patients found you online, which is an important PT Marketing Metric, it will also tell you what percentage of your patients registered in your portal versus registering the old fashioned way by calling your front desk
   4. How is the Clinic Performing Versus Our Goals?  Physical Therapy EMRs that provide dashboards to their users with utilization goals are providing a very helpful reporting insight to PTs.  Why?  Because if you want to grow your clinic, it’s very helpful to see a snapshot of your number of visits month-to-date versus your monthly goal.  This information will help you understand your growth trends, and let you know if you need to take more marketing initiatives to meet your growth goals
   5. What Physical Therapy reports can protect a clinic from falling behind on their workload? One of the best ways to make sure your Physical Therapy Clinic doesn’t get backed up on critical tasks is to have data points that allow you to manage by exception.  Here are a few things you may want to track to ensure you don’t get behind:
      1. Patients Not checked in.  A report that shows you all patients with a past appointment date who have not been checked in will be very beneficial because your staff can use such a report to check the patients in, collect co-pays, and make sure the front-end check-in process is completed
      2. Patients Not Checked Out.  A report that shows all of your patients who have not been checked out will remind you to ensure every patient visit becomes a claim.  Physical Therapy reimbursement is often much lower than reimbursement rates for other medical specialties; therefore, PT clinics cannot afford to forget to bill their insurance claims.  A list of all patients who have not been checked out is the first sign that those claims may not have been billed yet
      3. Missing Appointments.  Things happen in patient’s lives which cause them to cancel their Physical Therapy appointments with your clinic.  Consequently, it’s critical that you have a short-list of patients who fell off the schedule.  Ideally, a missing appointments report will contain all of the patients who cancelled appointments with you and didn’t reschedule. This report will empower you to deliver better care to patients, but just as importantly, it will improve practice revenues.  After all, it’s hard to treat patients if you can’t pay your rent
      4. Follow-up Reminders.  The best Physical Therapy EMR systems let you create follow-up reminders on patient records, claims, Prior Authorizations, and other record types.  A follow-up reminder should display on your dashboard so you have a sense of how behind your staff is on making their follow-up calls.  This report will allow your clinic to get rid of sticky notes, and better stay on task with required phone calls and to-do items
      5. Reports Containing Overdue Progress Notes and Evaluations.  Physical Therapy EMRs should remind Physical Therapists when they need to do a Progress Note or Evaluation with a patient to assess their progress against goals. Medicare guidelines are constantly changing, but most recent Medicare guildes require Physical Therapists to complete a plan of care every 10th visit or every 30 days.  Even beyond the Medicare Compliance items, no PT Clinic wants to see a patient 30-40 times without benefiting the patient.  The objective is, of course, to always fix the patients and help them heal in a quick, timely fashion.  If your PT EMR reminds you to do Progress Notes and/or Evaluations every 30 days, you will be better equipped to deliver excellent patient care in a timely fashion.  Without such a report or report, it’s really easy to lose track of patients when you’re already busy
      6. No Response Claims.  One important requirement for a Physical Therapy EMR is to provide insight into overdue medical claims.  If your Physical Therapy Billing Software tells you when there are claims that are considered overdue with the insurance company, then it will be easier for your billing staff to follow-up with the insurance companies to find out why they are late to reimburse you.  If you’re not getting paid for the PT Service you render, it’s going to be difficult to continue to keep your business open, so financial alerts such as overdue claims are truly critical for PT Clinics
      7. Prior Authorizations Close to Expiration.  As stated above, Prior Authorization Tracking is something Physical Therapists cannot live without.  The best Physical Therapy EMR systems will actually display Prior Authorizations close to expiration on the dashboard so the entire staff knows they need to renew the patient Prior Authorizations. Additionally, it’s helpful it the EMR system reminds staff during the appointment scheduling process that a Patient’s Prior Authorization is overdue.  That would allow the front-desk staff to actually tell the patient they need to first get the visit authorized, then call the patient back and schedule the appointment.  These types of operational reminders will make sure that your clinic runs in a financially viable manner
      8. Incomplete Documentation Reports.  Is the Physical Therapy Clinical Staff falling behind on their documentation?  Physical Therapy Practice Owners and Office Managers need to be able to run reports to determine how many patients do not have completed documentation.  In the best case scenario, it would be helpful for Physical Therapy EMR Software to show reports containing all patients with an appointment date that is past, and no documentation.  It would also be good if systems provided reports of all incomplete documentation that was started but not yet finished.  If the report can breakdown these started, but incomplete documentation by Evaluations, Daily Notes, Progress Notes, and Discharges, that will help PT Owners see where their clinicians are falling behind on charting
8. What Type of Staff Communication Should a Physical Therapy EMR System allow? Internal Staff Communication is a tricky thing to optimize in a busy PT Clinic.