Many optometrists today are running practices with significantly reduced profits. Switching to EHRs (Electronic Health Records) requires an added budget line that includes monthly maintenance fees, IT (Information Technology) company support, licensing software, and many other costly items. If margins are continually eroded, where can the owner of an optometry practice cut costs?
One of the budget lines that is continually increasing is in IT support. This is the hardware support not covered by your EHR software company. Companies that specialize in IT can cost upwards of $120-$150/hr. When choosing which IT company to use, consider these 4 things.
- Hidden Costs – You must ask the right questions when hiring IT professionals. Do they charge different hourly rates during usual and customary business hours compared to evenings and weekends? Do they charge by the hour or by the project? Do they have a monthly retainer fee to help curb costs? Will they charge for hours required to learn how your optometry practice software works?
- Knowledgable – How many other optometry offices have they worked for? Are they familiar with “meaningful use” guidelines to ensure compliance with IT regulations? Will one individual be assigned to the account to avoid unnecessary costs of someone new relearning problems?
- Transparent – Many times software companies retain your need for them by not sharing administrative passwords, database passwords, and security passwords. The company that you choose should offer to give you all passwords and access to any part of the software that is yours, which is all of it.
- Advocate – Being efficient with time and resources is extremely important in being successful in today’s optometric business. An IT company should be willing to share ideas on how you can cut costs without sacrificing patient care. If the company you are working with does not keep you up-to-date on technology developments that can save time and money, then it is probably time to look for someone else or do it yourself.
Recently our practice has upgraded our software to Revolution EHR. With this move we increased our monthly software expense, but at the same time we decreased our need for an IT company and network specialist. Revolution EHR allows our staff to be equipped with Chromebooks at $199 and $299. We no longer have the expense of replacing Windows 7 Professional operating systems and the robust hardware needed to run them. The change in software has allowed us to significantly reduce our hardware costs and IT support dependence. I still believe that having the right team member in the IT department of your practice is important, I just don’t believe that person needs to be paid as well as the doctor.
