NEWTON FAMILY PHYSICIANS, P.A.

Newton, North Carolina – At Newton Family Physicians, Alan Story, M.D., is a family physician who’s been practicing in Catawba County, North Carolina since 1999. He treats a variety of adult and pediatric patients, and is fully Board Certified by the American Board of Family Physicians, and is also a full member in good standing with the American Academy of Family Physicians. With four other full-time physicians and three nurse practitioners in the practice, Newton Family Physicians has been taking advantage of TriMed Technologies’ fully-functional Electronic Health Records (EHR) and Practice Management solution.

Improving Patient Care and Reducing Risk in Practice with TriMed EHR

Dr. Story says that Newton Family Physicians has been working with TriMed for many years, initially for Practice Management software. “When the EHR solution became available from TriMed, we loved what we saw. We already had a good relationship with TriMed; we knew how good they were, so we added the EHR solution along with the associated support,” says Dr. Story.

TriMed’s EHR is ONC-certified for Meaningful Use and streamlines the management of the clinical side of practices like Newton Family Physicians. The “note-centric” system seamlessly incorporates labs, orders, e-prescriptions, patient history, and billing into one platform. This minimizes ‘clicks’ and allows the practice to see more patients than they would with a more cumbersome EHR.

On a day-to-day basis, Dr. Story notes that the EHR Health Watcher helps him and the other physicians keep track of what services patients have already had done, as well as what they’re due for. “We are better able to track our patients’ conditions. More importantly, it’s great to know that the EHR is also helping us manage drug interactions—not just drug-to-drug interactions, but also drug-to-disease interactions. We’re tracking data automatically, rather than flipping through multiple lab reports,” he says.

“That level of information adds a layer of safety to our practice that also helps us take better care of our patients,” Dr. Story continues. “Relying on TriMed also reduces the amount of data we have to manually report to insurance companies to maintain our quality provider status. And the data management has allowed us to gain the Patient-Centered Medical Home accreditation from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA).”

TriMed Helps Newton Family Physicians Manage Claims, Billing, and Payments Cost-Effectively

Since implementing the TriMed practice management solution, Dr. Story says the practice has seen a dramatic improvement to both operational process and to revenue management. Newton Family Physicians can easily verify patient eligibility and estimate patient responsibility up front, then manage and follow up on payer and patient payments. “With this solution, we’ve eliminated the need to pull paper charts and process claims manually. That means the entire process is simpler, less time-consuming, and more accurate. We’ve reduced the amount of work that typically needs to be done,” says Dr. Story.

He continues: “It’s easy to keep up to date now with payments, claims, and insurance company reporting; it’s much more cost-effective.”

Support from TriMed Keeps Newton Family Physicians Up and Running

According to Dr. Story, having TriMed manage the practice’s technologies with a service agreement means that the physicians never worry about the solutions that help them more effectively treat patients. “It’s hard to even open the office without complete access to our data. We rely on TriMed to train us in how to use the EHR/PM, and also to keep all of our hardware and software running smoothly,” says Dr. Story.

He goes on to say that TriMed keeps “our software updated, stable, and maintained. Our critical server is up-to-date and always accessible, and TriMed backs up our data securely and in multiple ways. If there were ever a physical problem with our building, we know that TriMed would have us covered. We would still have access to our data and all of our EHR/PM connections,” says Dr. Story.