Mental Health EHR Software > Do Your Research! (Part 1)

PUBLISHED ON: 01.27.2018

Go Back To EHR (Electronic Health Records)

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Behavioral Health is Unique – Mental Health EHR Software Should Be Too

All EHRs are not equal. This is especially true of mental health EHR software. With the advent of Meaningful Use, many mental health EHRs have been slapped together in the past decade to try to capture federal incentive funds.

Many of these systems don’t support the daily reality of the clinicians using them. They’re cumbersome, and behavioral health functionality is often an afterthought, if considered.

The need for efficiency, easy integration among departments, data security, and especially mental-health-specific features were often sacrificed in the rush to create many programs.

How can you be a smart shopper? How can you filter through the programs available and find those that might truly serve your agency? Here are the mental health EHR software items that matter most to our clients and leads.

Mental Health EHR Software Checklist

1. Robust Authorization Management

For any provider whose client base isn’t entirely self-pay, authorizations are the lynchpin of your business. You often don’t get paid without authorization or “preauth” to perform the service!

A mental health EHR with a solid utilization management tool is crucial; one that allows multiple decrement actions is invaluable.

2. Integrated Treatment Plan

In some EHRs, the treatment plan is seamlessly integrated with the progress notes. You can easily pop your goals or interventions into the body of your note with a click. Look for a mental health EHR that includes this functionality for easy charting.

3. Powerful Reporting Functionality

An EHR should eliminate duplicate data processing. You should be able to run a report that pulls this data from the calendar.

It’s precisely this usability of data that makes using an EHR more efficient than paper. The information you put into any part of the program can be collated & measured easily and effectively.

Any program you’re considering should pull information from every field across the system, turning agency data into usable information.

4. Secure Profile Management

To help eliminate HIPAA breaches, limiting staff to only the areas they need access to can be critical. Some programs offer profile security, which lets you control exactly what your employees can see and do in the system.

For example, if you don’t want to allow your biller access to the client notes, you can set the software not to enable it! Or, if you don’t want a clinician to have access to a chart for a patient that hasn’t been assigned to them, you control that with a few clicks. Ideally, your mental health EHR software empowers you to set whatever security parameters you choose.

Some programs even provide tracking for every action in the software. The program can tell you who performed a particular action, and if a question arises. This can be invaluable during audits and helps maintain HIPAA compliance.

5. Audit Management

Similar to profile management, audit management provides real-time data about actions performed in the program. Audit complications can take down an agency, so having clear and reliable audit management tools is incredibly important.