We don't have to send somebody back outside for the chart. If someone asks for test results for a family member, we have that also. The system also has an automatic drug allergy interaction text. He thinks that feature may have an effect on future malpractice insurance rates because of the safety factor. At the same time, doctors get both brand name and generic cost for a prescription-another important features, since some insurance plans don't pay for brand name drugs.
Physicians can load the formulary for each plan into their database.
The system checks a new prescription against that formulary for approved medications and can also check which medications are appropriate for a specific diagnosis. If you're in a managed care organization, the amount of money you can save just on the pharmacy part will eventually pay for the system. At that point, there was a six-dollar per member a month difference between our pharmacy costs and theirs. In ten minutes, Dr. Banka can search the database to find out how many women are deficient in mammograms. The results are loaded in to a mail merge file and letters sent out as reminders.