With federal and state compliance laws, including HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996), and PHI (Protected Health Information) laws, in most medical practices, the clinical and administrative staff are being required to use both an EHR (Electronic Health Record) and an EPM (Electronic practice management ) application. The acronyms EHR and EPM are often confused by the end-user to be the same, however, there are some key differences that set the two apart.
An EHR is a medical documentation software that may include -provider notes, patient medical history, test results, ICD-10 and CPT codes, as well as essential information that is crucial for the practices throughout the enhanced clinical life cycle for patient treatment.
An EPM software, on the other hand, maintains all the business operations information such as the documentation of diagnosis and procedure codes, scheduling patient appointments, recording insurance authorizations and verifications, as well as tracking all necessary finances of the practice.
Electronic health records or EHR refers to software that is more patient-specific. It involves tracking medical history including lab tests and reports of the patients. Whereas electronic practice software (EPM) focuses on day-to-day business operations in medical practice.
An EHR is geared to house information from all healthcare sources, including hospital’s surgery centers, and patients.
5 KEY DIFFERENCES BETWEEN EPM AND EHR
| EPM | EHR |
| Patient Scheduling | Document Patient Medical Records |
| Practice Business Operations Management | HIPAA-compliant data workflow |
| Facilitate Patient Communication | Secure Clinical Information Exchange |
| Insurance Authorization and Verification | Built-in ICD-10 and CPT medical codes |
| Billing and Revenue Management | Host imaging data in a secure cloud |