Desert Orthopaedic Center streamlines practice operations and improves revenue collection with ModMed

Background

At Desert Orthopaedic Center (DOC) in Las Vegas, we operate one of the region’s largest orthopedic practices. We have 64 clinicians and 32 physical therapists across five locations and two surgery centers. I’m the EMR educator, which means it’s my job to empower our teams to leverage our systems and align with practice objectives. We had been struggling to work efficiently, so when our former electronic health record (EHR) system stopped providing licensing and technical support, I knew it was the right time to modernize our entire practice.

Our leadership team performed a comprehensive evaluation of EHRs before deciding on ModMed®. We researched features, reviewed documentation and visited other sites to see how competing systems worked in real time. Ultimately, we chose ModMed for its centralized workflows, adaptability and automatic updates. I love how it serves every role at all our locations. ModMed offers an all-in-one platform for our schedulers and other front desk staff, clinicians and assistants, billing teams and others. It’s the solution to every challenge we’ve experienced with our prior EHR.

A centralized platform helps manage subspecialties

ModMed immediately simplified our operations. Our providers practice orthopedic subspecialties, including spine, foot and ankle, and large joints. We also have a pain management team that works cross-functionally with joint subspecialists. A unified platform helps us manage operations across multiple practices and provider needs.

Teammates collaborate on workflows directly, letting everyone see patient histories and related practice management information. We no longer have to pass information back and forth manually or check data across multiple systems. Standardizing our operations lets everyone work more efficiently, which was a major goal for us.

Automated workflows improve billing cycles

Connecting data across the practice has also helped improve our billing cycles. There are two features we really like — automated coding prompts and billing integration.

With our former EHR, some of our providers had hundreds of unsigned or unapproved visit notes. They didn’t have the time to complete everything. Unfinalized notes constrained our ability to bill accurately, leading to uneven productivity and too many touchpoints per visit across providers and billing specialists.

ModMed suggests how and at what level to code. Our providers can review prompts for accuracy as the system adapts to each provider based on their documentation. With multiple subspecialties, this helps us streamline the process while giving each provider exactly what they need. They retain control over medical decision-making while ModMed facilitates finalizing the notes.

Our billing team doesn’t receive the information until the provider finalizes the note in the system, but the process is automatic. Compared to other systems, this is so much faster and easier. We used to assign medical assistants to help get the information into a disconnected billing system. We’ve reallocated that time to let them spend more time with patients, building rapport in support of patient satisfaction.

Our bottlenecks are better, our providers are at lower risk of burnout and our patients have the opportunity for more personalized attention. The fact that an EHR does that for us? I consider that a big win.

ModMed Pay improves revenue collection

With billing streamlined, we’ve been able to upscale our revenue collection. We use ModMed Pay to streamline payment collection while improving our patients’ experiences.

Now we can provide quotes to patients before visits, allowing them to financially prepare before appointments. This information lets them plan their healthcare in a way that works for them, helping to decrease the risk of no-shows or surprise bills.

When it’s time for them to pay, we have an efficient, integrated payment system with several options. We offer payments through our patient portal and text-to-pay. Checkout is simple and has nearly eliminated the need to print bills and invoices, because digital payment channels have proven more effective at capturing timely payments.

Transforming Desert Orthopaedic Center for the future

With ModMed, we’ve successfully transformed a complex operational environment into a more streamlined, efficient practice that can scale as we set new growth goals. An all-in-one solution positions us to adapt quickly to evolving patient and practice needs and keeps us competitive in the busy Las Vegas area.

Integrating clinical workflows with billing and payment processes is good for business, but it’s also good for us as a team. We’ve virtually eliminated redundancies and manual processes and can focus more on collaboration and patient satisfaction. My primary responsibility at DOC is to keep everyone using our EHR to its highest potential, and ModMed makes it easy for me to continually show how the right system can improve a practice’s operations.

To learn more about the products Cassie Stoltenberg discussed, please request a demo at modmed.com/ortho or call 561.235.7503

The statements and conclusions contained herein reflect the opinions of Cassie Stoltenberg and not those of ModMed. ModMed makes no representations or warranties as to the accuracy of any such information. Results may vary depending on medical practice size, product usage and other variables.