An external requirement of this magnitude may drive all other decisions. It may help to check with colleagues, insurance carriers, and medical organizations for any foreseeable changes or regulations. Look for equipment that's already paid for Serviceable equipment and software may already be available in your office but is perhaps being used for other purposes than what you have in mind. For example, a database that is being used to track billing often can be used to track clinical information as well. Billing data consist of patient identification information, dates of visits, procedures performed, diagnoses, and much more.
Information is filled in and stored before forms are sent to the payer.
That means that a wealth of material has been recorded and can be organized for your use in clinical decision making. Think about the information you need and how to organize it Organization of patient information for clinical use is easy and inexpensive. When you have decided what information you want to track, you can begin gathering it from charts, data entry forms, or other sources for entry into the computer database. For example, my clinic gathers demographic, office visit, diagnosis, and procedure data. Trend analysis is another important use of clinical information.