by Rachna Bagdi on October 25, 2024
Choosing among behavioral health EHR vendors and their solutions can be challenging. Determining which systems are the most intelligently tailored to your needs, what features are nice-to-haves versus must-haves, and where the vendor’s and their technology’s strengths lie can sometimes feel overwhelming.
Identify technology competencies that will best serve your behavioral health organization with our guide, The Ultimate Guide to Behavioral Health EHR Selection.
Yet the decision of which vendor and solution to choose is one of the most important that behavioral health leaders can make. Whether you’re upgrading outdated systems, moving away from paper-based operations, or consolidating applications, your choice of technology will determine whether you have the right functionality to maximize operational efficiency, improve care quality and outcomes, and strengthen financial performance.
It's therefore critical to ask vendors the right questions when researching your options. Here are five you will want to pose to those companies under consideration.
1. How does your platform reduce operational burdens in a user-friendly way?
A report from the federal government found that only 6% of mental health facilities and 29% of substance use treatment centers were using an EHR, compared to more than 80 percent of hospitals. Many experts blame this disparity in part on the current lack of financial incentives for behavioral health facilities and organizations, but another monetary barrier contributing to low EHR adoption in the field is the cost and resources required to adequately train staff on how to use an EHR.
The best EHR for mental health, substance use disorders, and intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) is one that doesn’t require high upfront investment in onboarding because it was created with the end user firmly in its sights. This means it’s designed to be intuitive, easy to learn, and built around how staff work (and not how the EHR vendor wants them to). The EHR should also integrate seamlessly into staff routines.
You should therefore expect behavioral health EHR vendors to highlight:
Clinical and administrative workflow management
Pre-built workflows should interface with other practice management or hospital systems and help users easily navigate through a complete episode of care. Workflows should also be easy to change and update to reflect factors like shifts in clinical guidance or billing procedures.
Flexible platform and care access options
The ability for a provider to quickly access information in their EHR via mobile devices or send a client a simple, one-click invite to an in-platform telehealth appointment is crucial as demands on providers’ time increase.
Risk stratification
The best EHR for mental health must help triage individuals in crisis with client risk scores. Risk scoring enables you to define and measure risk factors appropriate to your population, like past suicide attempts and suicide risk, hospitalizations in the past 30 days, and comorbidities, better ensuring clients with the most urgent need for care receive it quickly.
2. In what ways does your EHR support care coordination and client engagement?
As the broader healthcare industry increases its focus on care models that integrate behavioral and physical health, the number and diversity of providers and caregivers on an individual’s care team can be a challenge to manage. For clients, navigating through their experience can likewise be confusing or frustrating without open lines of communication that allow them to understand the role each provider plays and to be active participants in decision-making. That’s why behavioral health EHR vendors should outline how their solutions help providers and clients improve collaboration. Key functionality to look and listen for includes:
Streamlined scheduling
A simple scheduling tool should make it easy to plan, sequence, and rearrange client appointments. This is particularly helpful for booking telehealth visits when participants are in different time zones.
Information sharing
Your search for the best EHR for mental health>, substance use disorder, and IDD services must take a hard look at how easy the system makes it for providers to view and share accurate and up-to-date client information, from clinician notes to assessments and progress reports. The platform should also have role-based access to protect client privacy and prevent providers from being overwhelmed by inapplicable information.
Direct provider-patient communications
Caring for people with behavioral health concerns must be a partnership, particularly because success often depends heavily on those individuals changing or adapting to new routines. Behavioral health EHR vendors should therefore make it simpler for providers to interact with clients and share educational materials with them. For example, a clinician might send screenings or assessments to patients before an appointment or as part of determining the progress of treatment plans. The use of a variety of communication methods — like messages sent through a patient portal, text, and email — can further enhance client engagement and adherence with instructions.
3. Does your system enhance clinical decision-making and care delivery?
EHRs have historically been known to save time and money by giving staff and providers tools to more quickly complete monotonous tasks that get in the way of meaningful work. But recent AI innovations have changed the game, offering EHRs an opportunity to support providers in the provision of better-quality care with more accurate diagnoses and increasingly targeted treatment and support plans.
Behavioral health EHR vendors that haven’t utilized artificial intelligence to this extent put provider organizations at a competitive disadvantage. Ask vendors about their solutions’ abilities to use AI to:
- guide providers through evidence-based practices, leading to better clinical decision-making;
- leverage natural language processing (NLP) to uncover hard-to-find symptoms in session notes, informing potentially stronger diagnoses;
- flag problems or alarming outliers in care management that could negatively impact outcomes; and
- gather information on health-related social needs (HRSNs).
4. How do you demonstrate your commitment to compliance and data security?
With hacking-related incidents accounting for 77% of all healthcare data breaches in 2023, it’s far too risky to take a chance on health technology that’s lacking fortified safeguards against cybersecurity and data privacy threats. You must ensure that, at a minimum, the vendor you choose:
- has documentation to back up security claims, including HITRUST, ONC Health IT, and SOC 2 certifications — and, of course, HIPAA compliance attestation;
- uses standard security practices, such as role-based access controls, end-to-end encryption, security audits and penetration testing, data backup and disaster recovery, and incident response plans;
- practices security hygiene, like applying patches, monitoring threats, and exchanging cybersecurity insights with peers; and
- secures client-facing applications, like portals and communication channels.
5. What features do you offer to improve profitability and guard against revenue loss?
A modern EHR should manage business performance and support financial operations. Be sure that behavioral health EHR vendors’ toolsets include:
Revenue cycle optimization
Detailed billing support with codes tailored to your practice and specialty, and rules-based claims generation, are essential for effective revenue cycle management. Dashboards should make it easy for users to track denials, missing pre-authorizations, and collections performance.
Robust reporting capabilities
Practice managers need access to real-time business intelligence and data analytics for reporting and improvements. The best EHR for behavioral health and IDD services will allow users to define and customize reports and restrict viewing to relevant staff.
Target costing analytics
Identifying and evaluating actual costs is vital for determining potential risks under various contract scenarios and ensuring profitability. The platform you select should have the capability to share data with your general ledger, so you can begin to identify the total cost of care for your services.
Consolidated payer records
Look for solutions that can maintain and track third-party financial agreements, including contact information, contracted rates, and copays. With funding sources and insurance information on hand, practice managers can improve the efficiency of billing, claim generation, and validation.
Choose an EHR Vendor That Shares Your Priorities
It all comes down to this: Can your EHR help you deliver better client care and run your practice efficiently and effectively?
To guarantee the best return on your investment, you need a smart solution that can remove the complexity of delivering behavioral health without compromising on care. That’s why you should consider the Cx360 EHR from Core Solutions.
To learn about Cx360 and what it can do for your organization, schedule a demo
