Physical Therapy EMR Software Development: Complete Guide

In today’s fast-paced environment, people want healthcare services to be rapid and efficient to provide better patient care. There is a huge need for online healthcare services as the globe goes online.

Patients seeking treatment for accidents, surgeries, and body problems find it inconvenient to visit the practice in this challenging situation. To do this, practices must have practice management EHR/EMR software. EMR software enables practices to manage their patients and allows the storage of electronic patient records, appointment scheduling, encounters, billing and claims, and other required features.

This article will discuss why and how to develop custom EMR software for the Physical Therapy specialty and its benefits.

Why develop Custom Physical Therapy EMR software instead of using existing EMR systems?

In the current market, numerous EMR software supports multiple specialty practices with their standard workflow. However, every EMR can only meet the distinct workflow needs of some practices. Makes it difficult for practices to manage their operations. Hence, it is more critical to have EMR software that fits all needs in practice. Here, custom EMR software is the best solution to manage all your practice needs as per your requirements.

For the physical therapy specialty, there is a need for different types of investigations and evaluations, which can be done effortlessly within a short time. To overcome this, we can include prebuilt templates and forms per client requirements to speed up the patient’s physical therapy evaluation documentation.

Also, existing software has multiple limitations to communicating with patients and conducting inpatient visits, causing more hurdles and increasing the risk of infection. This can be overcome by implementing teleconsultation supporting video calls and secure messaging.

Customized EMR software provides integration capabilities through which practices are integrated with imaging or radiology labs for MRI, X-ray, or CT scans. Customized software is always HIPAA compliant, ensuring the security of patients’ medical records. Also, it provides interoperability, allowing physical therapists to share patients’ medical records with other healthcare providers, laboratories, and hospitals.

Benefits of physical therapy software?

Physical therapy EMR benefits practices in various aspects. The telehealth feature benefits in remote patient encounters, saving time and providing quick treatment to the patient. It also provides a secure communication facility that helps patients connect with physical therapists and other healthcare providers or specialists—resulting in more patient care.

Moreover, it provides customizable templates for patient registration, appointment scheduling, and taking encounter notes efficiently with minimum manual entries, saving time.

As the software is HIPAA compliant, it stores patients’ medical records securely. Physical therapists can access patients’ complete medical information at a glance. This includes past diagnoses, symptoms, and body measures, which help assess disease and modify treatment plans. The software integrates with billing systems, enabling accurate billing and fewer claim denials.

It provides an electronic claim submission facility that saves time and paperwork.

Developing custom physical therapy software

Physical Therapy EMR development consists of

UX/UI design

UI/UX design is essential in developing custom physical therapy software. An informative and user-friendly software dashboard improves patient satisfaction and business management for practices.

The software should allow the practice staff and patients to navigate features easily. The dashboard should be informative, allowing patients to access their scheduled appointments, sessions, and treatment plans. The practice staff registers new patients and schedules appointments; the interface design should be clear and user-friendly.

Tech Stack

Many programming languages and frameworks can be used in developing custom physical therapy software. Java is an all-around, simple programming language. It allows cross-platform development of software.

Java language is mainly used as it allows software delivery in a shorter duration. It is popular in healthcare because it is utilized for mobile app development, the Internet of Things, etc. The software consists of a front end and a back end. The interface will be crafted using HTML scripting language for the front-end design. The backend supports storing data such as appointment schedules and patient registration details. SQL language is widely used in the backend of applications as it stores the gathered information in rows and columns.

Must have features for physical therapy software

There are several features the physical therapy software should consist of

Streamlined Tracking of Treatment and Medical Records

In physical therapy treatment, it is essential to understand the patient’s health condition. The physical therapist should be able to access the patient’s complete medical information. It helps to create more accurate treatment plans and health assessments. The patient’s medical record is stored and secured electronically within the software as it is HIPAA compliant. The physical therapist should be able to view the patient’s adherence to the treatment plan. Such as exercise schedule, diet recommendations, and sessions completed.

Secure HIPAA communication

Physical therapy software should enable communication between the physical therapist, patient, and healthcare providers. Secured communication facilities help patients connect/interact with physical therapists in real time for their health issues, improving patient confidence and patient care. Physical therapists can also connect with patients for suggestions on treatment and goals. Real-time chat facility reduces patient transportation costs and time compared to in-person visits.

Patient engagements – Instructional and Interactive module

Patient engagement and health education play a vital role in the quicker recovery of the patient. This software should show the physical therapist’s suggestions for regular exercise, diet plan, and goal completion. Also, the software should educate patients about different exercises to be done. It should provide a percentage of completed tasks and goals set by the physical therapist.

Integrated Telehealth

It is beneficial for patients who have difficulty in movement and physical activities. This feature allows physical therapists to encounter patients remotely, take notes, and assign treatment plans. It reduces time and enhances patient care. It also expedites the treatment procedure. Since the overall physical therapy EMR software is HIPAA compliant, the communication between patients and healthcare providers will always be secure.

Easy Scheduling

Patients inevitably require physical therapy urgently because of grueling body pains. It is essential to schedule an appointment with a physical therapist as quickly as possible.

The scheduling appointment feature allows practice staff to navigate the fields easily; only relevant fields will be displayed. This minimizes the manual entries for appointment scheduling, making it more accessible for practice staff and reducing time and paperwork. The appointment scheduling feature should display the availability of physical therapists and import patient demographics. That helps in the quicker scheduling of appointments.

Billing – Integrated with clearing house and payment gateway

Accurate billing of physiotherapy services is necessary for every physical care practice, as revenue generation mainly depends on the billing of claims. For this, software must provide accurate diagnosis and procedural codes for accurate billing. It can be integrated with other billing software as required. Moreover, it can track the claim status for payments from insurance companies. The software can also provide various payment options to collect co-pays and deductibles from the patient before the appointment.

Financial analysis

Providing physical therapies to patients and earning more revenue is the prime motto of physical therapy practices. For this, we should analyze financial data for the given time. The physical therapy software provides informative analytical dashboards for revenue generation. It includes the number of patients taking physical therapy treatment, cost per patient, number of claims submitted, and unpaid claims.

Customer Relationship Management

Implementing customer management features in physical therapy software improves the efficiency of practice and the satisfaction of patients. Customer management features include patient registration, such as entering patient demographics in the software, scheduling appointments, and encountering patients. It also includes taking encounter notes, billing, and claim submission.

Ongoing support and maintenance

For every successful practice, it is essential to receive feedback from patients. This feature helps patients provide feedback on health progress and treatment satisfaction. Also, a patient can share their feedback about the therapist. It also provides access to therapists to give feedback about patient’s assessments and progress.

Why choose Thinkitive for Custom Physical Therapy Software Development

As a thought time, we provide a best-in-class software solution to the digital healthcare space that streamlines all operations and workflows of healthcare practices. We have over 9+ years of experience developing custom healthcare software solutions.

Our team of healthcare professionals and subject matter experts understand the healthcare domain deeply. In addition, we have a technology experts team with healthcare understanding who are ready to work on any healthcare project.

We have developed many healthcare software solutions, including custom EMR and telehealth. We deliver many features that make healthcare organizations’ operations smoother and more efficient. Let’s have a look at some of the below features that we delivered successfully:

As the best healthcare company, we have a component-based approach to developing software. We have a ready-to-use framework and components that can be customized per client requirements and delivered quickly. It takes comparatively less time to develop any EHR software using existing components.

As the timeline minimizes, the development cost will be reduced; hence, we can develop a custom EHR within a timeline and at an affordable cost. We provide HIPAA-compliant software that ensures patient data security. Also, we provide telehealth features in the software for remote patient consultation.

Frequently Asked Questions