Urology Urology is a specialty for a reason, and so is our EHR meridianEMR is the pioneer in Urology-specific EHR & Healthcare Analytics  meridianEMR was designed by Urologists for Urologists, and is packed with advantages that enhance the efficiency and profitability of urology practices.  With this technology, you can expect the best for your practice and your patients.  Unlike other EHR systems, which require clients to create their own content, meridianEMR has done all that work for you.  So you can start using our vast library of unsurpassed Urologu content almost immediately. meridianEMR is designed to provide physicians software tools to provide excellent care and maximize their practice's profitability.  Its benefits include: Hundreds of ready to use templates and treatment plans An intuiitive interface that reduces clicks and uses only 3 screens Automatic CPT coding (Painter Endorsed) that includes Medical Decision Making Accessibility to data from Mac, PC, Tablet, Netbook, iPhone, and iPad No more transcription and its related costs The meridianEMR application integrates brilliantly with our mXchange network technology to allow a physician to operate in an environment with secure access to a broad range of patient information and interoperability.  It features: Uniterrupted access to records thanks to our "Blended Model" technology Computerized, effortless updates to templates, CPT Codes and software Automatic backups to our master servers A range of discrete data capture and useful research via UROAnalytics Why you should add meridianEMR to your shortlist. The Urology EHR Market Leader Continually enhanced through interaction with our vast urology client base Templates you can start using immediately Uninterrupted access to data ensured by our "Blended Model" technology Proprietary analytics that are unparalleled in this industry via UROAnalytics Access data from a variety of cutting-edge and easy to use devices including iPad and iPhone Automatic updates and backups via mXchange Urology Specific  Now used by More Urologists than any other EMR !!! - "Best Clinical Content for Urology" meridianEMR has become the "Gold Standard" for Urology EMRs. Partners like the Painter Group endorse us because of our dedication to Urology and unsurpassed Clinical Urology Content. Our unique technology advantages, including our breakthough "mEMRxChange" make us the Urology EMR leaders. Our automatic E/M code calculator (includes MDM) is the best in the industry and provides an ROI that will quickly pay for your system. Hear what some of your colleagues are saying about meridianEMR... "...the best EMR I have ever seen for Urologists" - Neil Baum, M.D. "The average Urologist will lose $60,000 in 2005 and beyond due to changes in LHRH revenue. You can replace some or all of these dollars by increasing your practice revenue by more accurate coding." - Ray Painter, M.D. President of PRS Coding "meridianEMR is the practicing Urologist's best coding assistant" - Pablo Santamaria, M.D., Middle Georgia Urology "The support we have received after the excellent initial installation and training has been outstanding. We receive fast responses to any questions, software, or template enhancements. meridianEMR has surpassed our expectations." - Terry Ezell, M.D., Carolina Urology “In meridianEMR we have found a system compatible with the way Urologists practice medicine. Thorough templates that reflect the clinical and documentation needs included with the system have made the transition to electronic medical records much easier - saving time and frustration. Integration with the PRS practice management system provides increased office functionality, which allows Urologists to maintain profitability and refocus administrative waste back to true patient care.” - Mark Painter, President of PRS Urology Our EMR for Urology - Simply the BEST! There is no need to purchase an EMR and spend your valuable time developing Urological templates. We have already done this for you, and are years ahead of anyone else in the EMR industry. Here are a few of the Urological Templates meridianEMR has completed which are used for fast and complete documentation, proper coding and better patient care by your colleagues: Exams/Visits New Patient Established Patient Established Patient Pre-Op Consultations Post Op Nursing Home Intake Nursing Home Admissions Nursing Home Follow-up Nurse Visits Pediatric Urology Prostrate Screen, Post Op Procedures BCG, Intron A, Mitomycin BareTip Laser Bladder Cocktail Brachytherapy Circumcision, Pediatric Contigen Intraurethral, Periurethral Cryotheraphy Prostate Cysto Cautery Cysto Dilate Stricture Cysto Dilate VNC Cysto Laser Fulgration Cystoscopy Durasphere Intraurethral, Periurethral E-Stim EMG E-Stim Initial, Return Fulguration Condyloma Gold Marker Greenlight Laser IVP Indigo Bare Tip Indigo Laser Prostatectomy KCL Sensitivity KUB Loop-O-Gram Nephrostogram Pelvic Ultrasound Prostate Ultrasound Prostate Ultrasound and Biopsy Renal Ultrasound Scrotal Ultrasound TUMT ACMI TUMT PROLIEVE TUMT THERMATRX TUMT Uologix TUNA TUR Bladder Biopsy TUR Bladder Neck Trans Urethral Microwave Therapy Ureteroscopy Calculus Urethral Dilation Urethrogram Urine Culture Sensitivity Urodynamics Uroflo VCU Vasectomy, No Scalpel Volume Study Besides the Best Evaluation and Management Coding System in the industry, meridianEMR's Urology System includes the following highlights: Prostate cancer new diagnosis discussion is extensive. One mouse click covers all indications for patient, including side effects of treatments, prognosis, and complications. All dates and diagnoses of previous bladder, prostate, and renal biopsies are always on the chart. No longer do you need to look back to see or wonder when the last biopsy was done and worry about what it showed. PIN, Atypia, Gleason grade - all remembered and displayed. Viagra, Levitra, Cialis - our program displays on the patient's chart the complications, contraindications, and instructions. It's something you always tell your patient, but we automatically document it for you in great detail. Urology office procedures are automatic. We have templates for all office procedures, including IVP, Prostate Ultrasound with Biopsy, TUMT, Indigo, Cytoscopy, Retrograde, Renal Ultrasound, Scrotal Ultrasound, etc. In Search of the "Holy Grail" - An EMR That Really Works By Dr. Neil Baum Monthly contributing writer to the Urology Times I have had the opportunity to review and test dozens of electronic medical record systems over the years. All of them had some of the features that would make it possible to go paperless, some of them features that made it easy to document each visit with your patients, and some had the ability to allow your EMR to communicate with your practice management or billing program. However, almost all of them had deficiencies that either burden the physician and slow him\her down and reduce the efficiency of the practice, or were so sensitive that they frequently crashed and become inoperable, forcing the doctor to return to the paper chart just like he\she did in the good ol' days. Now an EMR program is available that has all of the bells and whistles as well as the core functionality that allows you to practice medicine with enhanced efficiency. The system also results in an increase in reimbursements by accurate coding that can survive the microscope of the most intense audit from Medicare or any other payer. In this article I will review the best EMR I have ever seen for Urologists, meridianEMR™, using XML generated clinical templates developed by one of our own colleagues, Dr. H.S. Jackson, a urologist in Murray, Kentucky. A History Lesson Dr. Jackson began his quest for the Holy Grail in 1998. Shortly after the Balanced Budget Act in 1997 he read that doctors had to document the normal findings in their history and physical examination in order to receive E & M credit for their codes. With a minimum of research he discovered that nearly 85% of all E & M records contain normal values. With that fact and stimulus, he wrote a program to digitize and document normal values in both the history and physical exam. This was the beginning of a 5-year journey that has taken him from “macros to money” in the doctors’ pocket. Dr. Jackson, a urologist like you and me, is not an engineer, nor does he have a degree in computer science. However, he does think like a physician and has learned computer programming by hard work and with lots of advice from computer experts. He began working with Hamilton Scientific, a company started in 1998 by physicians and computer software experts in New Jersey. The idea was to develop clinical templates that built in the thought process of practicing physicians while they were practicing medicine. As a physician conducted their normal exams, they would simply tap on a touch screen or tablet, or point and click a mouse, and their visit would be documented. The resulting note would be built on “synthetic dictation” automatically generated from the template and choices made during the exam. As Dr. Jackson is an urologist, he put most of his efforts into building urology templates for himself and his colleagues. The Bottom Line Normally I include the summary of my article at the end. But I would like to get your attention by giving you the bottom line on meridianEMR from a pure “dollars and sense” standpoint. As a result of implementing the EMR in his own practice, Dr. Jackson and other physicians have done very well. As an example, a solo Urologist has put an extra $6600\month into his profit column by moving his coding curve to the right, i.e., increasing the Level 4 and 5 E&M codes and decreasing the Level 1 & 2 codes. He has also decreased his expenses by $2800\month by eliminating his transcriptionist. So what was the real net effect for this typical urologist? He has increased his profit approximately $9400\month since he instituted the meridianEMR in his practice. That computes to $112,800 annually without seeing one additional patient and without working one minute longer than he did BE....Before EMR. Using the meridianEMR with urology- specific templates truly allows us to work smarter and not harder. The Unique Features of meridianEMR The meridianEMR software is user friendly and uses the same intuitive process that urologists use when they see patients. The program may be run on any Windows PC which is properly configured, and is normally used by doctors with a tablet PC (Dr. Jackson uses a Motion Computing tablet) or a touch-screen notebook, (usually a Fujitsu). Both systems use touch screen technology where the stylus functions as a mouse. As a result, little or no typing is required. Most of the data can be inserted by using drop down menus and tapping through special Urology templates of the most common urologic conditions such as hematuria, BPH, prostate cancer, UTI, incontinence and erectile dysfunction. The tablets or notebooks usually weigh less than 3 pounds and use wireless technology so the doctor is not tethered to the computer or is required to lug a heavy laptop from room to room. The tablets are also capable of handwriting recognition and Dr. Jackson says it can read his "chicken scratch" with 98% accuracy. The computer also has voice recognition software that can capture your dictation with 85% accuracy. Probably one of the most unique features of the program is its ability to compute the E&M of your patient encounter. Your days of under coding and your days of increased reimbursement have arrived! And best of all, you can go to sleep knowing that you can survive any audit because you have legally documented what you have done for your patients. As a matter of fact, Dr. Jackson told me of an urologist who had successfully survived a Medicare audit and the auditor commented that the charts were the best electronic medical records she had ever seen. A new version of the program has just been released which contains a pharmacy FAX module that will FAX your prescriptions to the patient's pharmacy, a drug interaction and allergy alert reminder system, and a Health Maintenance module that allows the system to track your patients each day and alerts you of any need to recall them (it runs in the background of the computer without your staff having to do anything). Dr. Jackson and meridianEMR are also working on a computer interface with Meditech, (which is used by hundreds of hospitals according to Dr. Jackson) so it can electronically retrieve the hospital's lab, x-ray and pathology department information and automatically include it in a patient’s electronic chart. Interfaces with Laboratory systems are also available. As a result there is no need to scan records and reports from the hospital into your EMR. The system does include an “Image and Fax Navigator” which allows documents to be scanned into your system and be properly sent to the correct chart or physician for review by a staff member. Faxes are also handled in a similar manner. meridianEMR will easily interface with your practice management software if the software has an HL7 interface. This allows for patient demographic data, appointments scheduled, and charges generated by the EMR to be integrated so that this data from the practice management system will populate the EMR thereby reducing the need for duplicate entry into the two systems. One of the outstanding technologies this system includes is their “blended model” – where a small but powerful LINUX server is installed in your office, which the physicians and staff work. This provides a very fast and reliable system and “peace of mind” for you and your colleagues. At the same time data is being stored on your server, the system sends the exact data to the company’s web server as a backup and place for you to get patient information any time, anyplace, via an Internet connection in a HIPAA complaint manner. This is truly the “best of both worlds.” In probably all other systems, if their server goes down, you are paralyzed. If they are using an ASP model where your records and software operate only through the Internet, and the Internet is down, you are non functional. In meridianEMR’s model, if your server goes down, you automatically connect and work off the Internet. After the server is repaired, the system automatically “synchs up” any new data entered via the Internet onto your server so both systems have exact duplicate data again. The company also saves your staff time (and you money) by providing backup CDs of your data at your requested intervals. The system includes a Toll-Free Customer Support “Hot Line”, monthly software and template updates, and remote data hosting and backup of your data. The software and template updates are sent from the Internet onto your network and tablet PC in the evenings, thereby reducing staff time in this area. As you can tell, I was extremely impressed with this product, and believe any urologist seriously considering an EMR for their office should include meridianEMR in their search.