The World Health Organization (WHO) defines mental health as a state of well-being in which every individual realizes his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully and is able to make a contribution to her or his community. And about 20 percent of the world’s population, children and adolescents are afflicted with mental disorders or problems. This is why, in the healthcare industry, mental health is considered as one of the most diverse specialties, as it covers a broad range of services to a diverse type of clients or patients. However, while mental health facilities and institutions cater to numerous patients, the industry has been adopting traditional methods of manually documenting patient records for the longest time.
Managing a clinic or mental institution or facility that houses mentally unhealthy patients is a rather tedious job. This means that facility administrators have to innovate various methods in which they solve institutional challenges. And as patients engage more in their medical care, mental health software (MHS) would be a very significant tool when it comes to providing and accepting services from other institutions and maintaining comprehensive and accurate patients’ medical records. This will also streamline and simplify numerous and rather complex tasks as well as facilitate collaboration among the medical staff. With this, psychologists, counselors, administrators, and mental health support staff will somehow be alleviated of the numerous tasks that face them every single day, as this software will make it easy to perform screenings, assessments, treatment plans, clinical notes, and evaluations faster and more efficient.
Benefits of Mental Health Software
With this technology, facility administrators and their staff will extremely benefit from it because of the following factors:
1.Thorough documentation of patient records. With MHS, it features patient portals where patients and their family members can physically and conveniently document their own medical information. This means that patient history will be more detailed and accurate as this information is directly submitted by the patient themselves. This makes less room for inaccuracies and discrepancies, which gives the institution or facility a clear bird’s eye view of the patient’s overall health, allowing them to provide excellent patient care.
2.Enhanced interoperability. Interoperability is a process where different institutions are able to operate together in order to achieve a common goal. In this case, using MHS enhances interoperability as it provides the ability of different specialties to communicate regarding a patient’s condition.
Not only does MHS improve communication among patients, mental health care providers and other health care providers of different specialties, but it likewise aids in creating a more appropriate and comprehensive objective as regards to a patient’s general condition. Having enhanced interoperability also prevents any instances where providers rely entirely on the information that is given by the patients or their family members, as they can easily obtain information from other providers by sharing vital information regarding a patient’s diagnosis and treatment plans, which results in significant improvements in the efficiency and delivery of quality service.
3.Improved medication management. In providing health care services, it is important to be extra cautious in monitoring, ordering, and dispensing of prescription drugs. With MHS, health care providers will be able to monitor and track medications in real time, which avoids patients’ doctor shopping as well as limiting the chances of prescribing wrong medicines.
4.Health records security. This refers to the confidentiality, privacy, and security of a patient’s health information. Using MHS, unlike the traditional manual paper-based documentation, electronic health records are provided with stringent measures to keep them protected from theft, loss, destruction from fire, and disasters using advanced-level digital security.
5.Easy accessibility. Using any device via the internet in accessing patients’ medical records during life-threatening situations like suicide attempts has been proven to be effective in helping enhance the way mental health care specialists respond to different crises.
Key Features to Look Out For in Mental Health Software
In order to fully achieve the foregoing benefits, an effective and efficient MHS should have the following features:
1.Patient scheduling. According to Medical Economics, patient scheduling is one of the essential aspects of the delivery of quality care, for the physician, patient, and staff satisfaction and for practice profitability. Some of the more popular software allows users to automate appointment reminders that are set to send through phone calls, text messages, and emails. This also allows users to schedule appointments, track referrals and insurance, as well as submit intake forms.
2.Billing, claims management/coding. This streamlines your facility’s billing process and helps increase reimbursement rates and cash flow, wherein health care providers submit and follow up on claims with health insurance companies to receive payment for services rendered. Medical coding reports what the diagnosis and treatment were, and prices are applied accordingly.
3.Patient registration. This feature provides new patients the ability to enter their insurance, medical, and personal information online prior to their appointment that they find convenient, which essentially saves them more time and money, as they don’t have to come early to the doctor’s office to manually fill out patient information. One of its benefits as compared to in-person registration is that it avoids any errors and inaccuracies and patients don’t have to feel like they’re being rushed in completing all the vital information needed.
This feature benefits, health care providers as it includes reports on patient registration that allows you to look at a number of retained patients as against the number of patients who left, which is important in making sure that patients come back until such time that they already achieve a positive outcome.
Technology and Deployment
The type of software and its installment plays a vital role in the efficiency and effectiveness of a solution. You may either choose to have your software installed within the premises of your facility or utilize a cloud-based solution, which can help you run your facility easily and efficiently. Below are some of the advantages that a cloud-based solution can contribute to the success of your facility:
1.Using a cloud-based MHS enables you to go on the paperless track and lets you access all your patients’ and the facility’s data anytime, anywhere as wells as seamlessly monitor every movement from therapist’s productivity to referrals and reimbursements.
2.Also, an effective cloud-based EMR has fully integrated management solution that allows effortless flow of information like documentation, scheduling, and billing, which suggests there will be much less time spent in doing administrative tasks
3.The most popular MHS vendors feature an interface that is intuitive and specifically designed for therapists making it easier to implement as they can clearly get the grasp of how the system works.
4.Most cloud-based MHS are HIPAA compliant where standards for protecting sensitive patient data and information are protected and in place. It includes covered entities, which is defined as the health plans, health care clearinghouses, and health care providers who electronically transmit health information as well as business associates that work in association with or provides services to a covered entity who handles or discloses personal health information or personal health records. An effective MHS should be able to automatically update regulatory changes without any additional charges for any upgrades.
5.It should also help enhance effectiveness and efficiency by eliminating inaccuracies and discrepancies by providing a robust reporting system. With this, you will be able to run records for clinical and financial aspects of your facility. It will also let you monitor your team’s productivity level, authorizations, care plans, evaluations, charges, and reimbursements. It even lets you run comprehensive reports regarding referrals from other healthcare providers, which allows administrators to have more knowledge on how they can maintain a healthy relationship with them.
6.A cloud-based MHS also allows you to accurately determine who can access vital data or information through a user permission customization, which lets you set up every user according to their role. As a result, this allows you to have a thoroughly perfected control over accessibility because this automatically documents when and who can access certain data or information and monitor any adjustments and modifications made.
7.Finally, a cloud-based software should be able to let you manage the size of the facility or institution and their location by effectively streamlining your operation and improving workflow as well as saving time.
Managing a mental health facility is certainly not a walk in the park as administrators and staff not only attends to the maintenance of the whole facility like the infrastructure itself and how to effectively run the institution, but the whole essence of a mental health facility is about dealing with people’s minds who have varying types of temperaments, characters, and different points of views. That is why having a tool or an instrument like mental health software will help you make administrative tasks easier to perform, which essentially gives you an opportunity to deliver a higher-quality standard of health care.
For the best mental health software that is available in the market, you may check out CrowdReviews.com, so that you are more guided on what to choose and what is the best according to your facility’s needs.
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