Best physical therapy EMR

Best physical therapy EMRs are part of a move toward the wide adoption of technology and innovation over the past few decades in the physical therapy industry. Thousands of tools are available to help physical therapists deliver even higher quality care to patients and generate revenue in their private practices.

One of the most popular tools used by providers are physical therapy EMRs.

A physical therapy EMR is used by various people across the continuum of client care to capture, transmit, store, display and use data.

• Providers, for example, use physical therapy EMRs to help document care, inform treatment decisions, provide service delivery, communicate with clients and manage their practices.

• Administrators for larger practices use physical therapy EMRs to manage operational tasks such as scheduling, billing and admin around insurance claims.

• Clients use physical therapy EMRs to complete intake forms, review policies, schedule appointments, access mobile monitoring tools or view therapeutic exercises as part of homework for their physical therapy treatment.

If you’re a physical therapist in private practice or an administrator for a practice researching the best physical therapy EMRs, understanding how features will help you best accomplish your goals and how your customers will interact with a physical therapy EMR are key given its diversity of uses.

In addition to identifying and maximizing features, you’ll also want to get a full vision of the costs associated with the best physical therapy EMRs. For example, in addition to monthly subscription costs, you’ll need to understand whether there are additional fees for additional users and whether add-on features are beneficial to you and your practice.

Ideally, you want to strike a balance between getting full use out of features that are most important to your practice without paying for features that you don’t need.

So much to think about, right?! To help make your search and decision easier, we examine some of the best physical therapy EMRs with an eye toward common and unique features, varying price points and whether companies offer the ability to test physical therapy EMRs, a critical component in understanding whether the software solution is best for you.

Standard features for the best physical therapy EMRs

Many of the best physical therapy EMRs come with a list of ‘standard’ features that typically include:

• Scheduling
• Notes and documentation
• Insurance management
• Practice management
• Billing and invoicing
• Claims management
• HIPAA compliance

Best best physical therapy EMRs

We’ll be looking at four of the best physical therapy EMRs including TheraPlatform, Dr Chrono, Nethealth and WebPT.

TheraPlatform

What is it? TheraPlatform is an all-in-one EHR, practice management and teletherapy solution built specifically for therapists in private practice. TheraPlatform, a Los-Angeles-based software company was founded by a therapist and product features are informed by customer feedback as well as emerging technology (such as AI).

Who’s it for? TheraPlatform offers functionality for physical therapists working as sole practitioners as well as for larger group practices in need of powerful advanced features such as reporting and multi-location scheduling and filtering.

Highlights

• AI empowered intake process: Through innovative optical character recognition (OCR) and Natural Language Processing (NLP), physical therapists can automatically extract information from client documents like driver's licenses and insurance cards. Clients simply upload a picture of their driver’s license and health insurance cards and data is automatically extracted from the cards and securely saved in the client’s chart.

• Efax options: HIPAA-compliant efax is a secure, convenient, low-cost solution to traditional faxing. Incoming and outgoing documents like progress notes, treatment plans and discharge notes and other documents are sent via efax and stored digitally.

• Automated billing and claim validation: Automated billing features save time and speed up payments. Creating and submitting claims in batches and using real-time validation minimizes rejected claims.

• Client portal. Clients can schedule, complete and sign forms, and view invoices all on the secure client portal. Educational resources are also available for clients.

• Speech-to-text technology: Upload video, audio or record telehealth sessions and transcribe them with a few clicks of a button.

• Customer feedback response: Ability to request features and excellent customer service response.

• Teaching tools: A TheraPlatform exclusive, physical therapists can use features such as a built-in whiteboard, interactive screen sharing with live annotations and document upload and storage (including audio and video files such as YouTube videos) that can be shared and used during live sessions (Advanced plans.)

WebPT

WebPT: WebPT is a Phoenix–based software company founded by a physical therapist in 2008 and was built specifically with physical therapists in mind.

Who it’s for: While originally conceived for physical therapy practices, WebPT’s offerings have expanded into other rehabilitation industries and is built for small and large practices alike with a robust list of features.

Highlights:

• Home exercise programs: Professionally produced audio and video exercises in multiple languages with the ability to build branded exercise plans in minutes.

• Remote therapeutic monitoring: Remote therapeutic monitoring is a way of collecting and monitoring high-quality, non-physiological data from patients through a connected medical device.

• Scheduling: Easy-to-use scheduling features with color coding and the ability to view multiple therapists schedules at the same time.

Dr. Chrono

What is it? DrChrono EHR was founded in New York City with specific features optimized for physical therapy including the ability to annotate images or X-rays. Clients are also able to view their take-home exercises or education material through a patient portal.

Who it’s for: DrChrono serves small single-provider practices and large medical group practices with multiple specialty customizations including medical and non-medical practices including physical therapy businesses.

Highlights:

• Revenue cycle management (Plus version): Dedicated billing experts and in-house coding compliance officers, and certified medical coders handle the complete lifecycle of medical claims. Offers a free custom ROI analysis.

• Business Intelligence Tools: Tools can be used to identify claim denial trends and root causes to avoid denials in the future. Another tool allows practitioners to analyze payments including income sources and the amount.

• Unlimited staff accounts: Allows for practice growth without additional fees

NetHealth

What is it? Net Health was founded in 1992 and provides powerful software solutions for a wide spectrum of physical therapy care settings although occupational therapists may find the features useful as well.

Who is it for: Net Health was initially designed for wound care, but Net Health's EHR solutions are also used in physical therapy practices as well as other rehab practices.

Highlights:

• Diagnostic and predictive analytics: Predicts outcomes of particular clinical scenarios. An example would be the ability to predict the likelihood that a client will self-discharge vs. missing an upcoming appointment. Such analytics can help therapists understand revenue better and mitigate any loss opportunities.

• Patient engagement site and communication management: Ability for a private practice to automate online review capture, promotion and moderation.

• Clinical performance analysis: Allows practices to benchmark how they are performing against national averages, ability to track therapist strengths and processes and better understand client satisfaction through Net Promoter Scores.

Choosing the best physical therapy EMR for your practice

When it comes to finding the best physical therapy EMR for your practice, it’s clear that there’s plenty of options. So, how do you decide on the best physical therapy EMR for your practice?

To recap:

• Understand pricing. Taking a holistic approach to examining prices (vs. focusing on a monthly subscription rate) will minimize surprises in the future and help you manage revenue and expenditures better. A high monthly subscription price doesn’t necessarily mean that you are getting all of the features you need. Think about what add-ons are worth paying for. If a feature can save you time, it may be worth the additional fees. Consider whether you’ll need to add staff in the future and whether fees are associated with growth. Are there fees for canceling your subscription?

• Features: Most therapists are looking to increase efficiency around administrative tasks like notes, scheduling and billing. Also consider other administrative tasks specific to you. For example, do you spend a lot of time faxing documents manually? Do you want to offer telehealth as an option to clients? If so, how interactive would you like that experience to be?

• Free trials: One clear way to understand whether a physical therapy EMR is right for you is through a free trial. Many, but not all EHRs, will allow you to test their features and determine which features are most important to you during a trial period that typically lasts 14 to 30 days. Trying out a product before committing will help you save time and money in the long run. (You’re seeing a theme here, right?)

Now that you know how some best physical therapy EMRs can help you manage everything from documentation to billing and scheduling, you may want to consider choosing the best physical therapy EMR that can help streamline your business.

If you’re just starting a PT practice, the best physical therapy EMR can help you evolve your business by providing the tools you need to do more in less time.