Dermatology offices offer a unique set of challenges for the implementation of electronic medical records. This is because many dermatology offices offer cosmetic, cash only, procedures. For offices that do a lot of cash only procedures, EMRs are not especially useful for tracking health and medical history. That doesn’t mean an EMR system shouldn’t be implemented though. Physicians in the cash pay industry generally have to think more like businessmen than their counterparts in the insurance pay side of medicine. This is due to the fact that when the consumer is paying cash, there are more options available for them to seek out the services they are looking for. How will the average person off the street know that a dermatologist is offering services like laser hair removal? The medispa down the street gets the word out through advertising so to be competitive a doctor will have to do the same.
The necessity to create an advertising budget will inevitably require budget cuts in other areas of a practice. This is where the addition of EMRs can help save money. Even though there can be a substantial up-front cost for switching over to an EMR system, the efficiencies create long-term savings making the investment well worth it. This savings can then be rolled over into a marketing budget to stir up more cosmetic patients and more money in physician’s pocket.