eTherapyDocs: Making Practices Thrive

The EMR-EHR industry’s focus is quickly moving toward the ability to interconnect different systems together in order to share data. With new meaningful use requirements, healthcare practices will be forced to participate in the health information exchange in order to receive payment for services. Today, there is very little sharing of data among hospitals, clinicians, and other healthcare providers. The HITECH act begun to change that in 2009 and many hospital systems adopted basic EHR systems, but true data sharing is still limited.

Two years before the HITECH act began to change, Dr. Denise Hoell DPT expressed her frustration with practice management systems in the market to her husband, Eric Hoell. Denise found the existing systems to be extremely complicated, not pediatric focused, and didn’t allow for the full narrative documentation that she and many other members of the NDT community commonly utilize. Together, they brainstormed combining Denise’s years of pediatric experience, with Eric’s background of software development and regulatory/HIPAA experience. And the cornerstone of eTherapyDocs was laid as they worked closely with many small to medium sized practices, speaking with physical, occupational, and speech language pathology therapists to ensure their product met the needs of pediatric practices. Today physical, occupational, music, mental health, and speech language pathology practices across the country use eTherapyDocs.

A simple to use pediatric focused system

Focused on adding features and functionality to resolve real problems that small to medium sized pediatric therapy practices experience, eTherapyDocs has continued to create ‘a simple to use’ pediatric focused system since its foundation. Treatments are easily and efficiently documented within the system using any internet enabled device, pulling information from discipline specific patient goals. Complete treatment notes, plan of care, progress notes, and other uploaded patient documentation can be exchanged in a secure HIPAA compliant way via integrated messaging and secure faxing. eTherapyDocs’ integrated calendar provides visual feedback to help remind therapists of appointments that still require treatment notes, and provides appointment reminders to patients via both email and text messaging. The company combines its functionality with outstanding client services, to ensure the best service possible.

Committed to remain focused on pediatric practices

The biggest challenge in the market according to eTherapyDocs is to remain pediatric focused. The large practice management systems disregard the fact that the goals and approaches to therapy are different for pediatric clients; the tools the therapists need must match their treatment approach and documentation preferences. The majority of adult orthopedic & rehabilitation practices are much larger than independent pediatric practices, therefore big practice management systems focus their efforts of their product development on the larger, and often more profitable, market of adult rehabilitation.

Be that as it may, eTherapyDocs’ commitment to remain focused on pediatric practices combined with its constant involvement in the pediatric and NDT community allow the company to remain connected to its practices. eTherapyDocs continues to work closely with its practices in developing new features, and focuses on providing excellent customer service. It receives feedback from its practices regarding how easy eTherapyDocs is to use; Therapists want to focus their time and effort on treating patients, not trying to figure out technology.

Making passion, a profession

What makes Eric, founder and CEO of eTherapyDocs, different from other CEO in the industry, is that Eric personally has over 30 years of experience in software development, focused on user experience, customer service, and the regulatory aspects of healthcare. His technical and customer skills, combined with his passion for his wife’s pediatric therapy field of practice, makes Eric passionate about eTherapyDocs every day.

Eric started his career in customer service and software development in the 80’s with a large Fortune 500 company, where he learned the customer and process skills he leverages today. He has helped to lead a number of healthcare startup and holds several hardware and software patents. Eric was invited and participated in a healthcare roundtable at the White House, and has worked closely with the FDA to deploy thousands of healthcare kiosk across the nation. Today Eric is focused on his true passion, eTherapyDocs.

Continuing to improve the product ease of use

Going ahead, eTherapyDocs is committed to invest and provide enhancements to the eTherapyDocs product. Annually, they conduct a survey to all of their practices presenting new ideas for product improvements, and working together with the practices they, prioritize new functionality. eTherapyDocs will be also continue to improve product ease of use by leveraging the latest technologies and enhancing data integration with other products.

Cherry on cake

TherapyDocs has, over the years, worked with numerous clients and has provided them with the best practices in the industry. Let’s take a look at what the clients have to say about eTherapyDocs’s service.

“eTherapyDocs is so easy to use. I am the biller and have to pull charges every week to enter into Medisoft. This is the easiest program I have ever seen. It takes me about 60 seconds to pull the charges and print them out. How much easier can you get?”

“User friendly program, the calendar with patient text reminders have significantly cut down our number of “noshows.” The view today’s schedule gives a quick easy to see overview of the day’s schedule. The ability to upload scanned documents and to print notes to a PDF file simplifies the prior authorization process for insurance companies.”

“e-Docs has provided a system for scheduling and documentation that facilitates treatment planning for individual sessions as well as across time. The staff has been extremely supportive and assisted us to transition us from individual documentation to more electronically documented and tracked notes. There are many aspects of the notes that are completed automatically that allow the therapist to focus on the critical aspects of treatment planning and noting changes across time. We have clearly saved time and money by using this system. I would highly recommend e Therapy Docs.”

“We have been using E-therapy docs in our practice for several years now, and it has been fabulous! The therapists love the flexibility of accessing their patient notes and contact information on the web. Our billing manager is off-site, and can retrieve notes and evaluations for insurance companies in an electronic format which saves time and money. Our in-house costs for printing have also significantly decreased since we transitioned to electronic data.”

“Using e-Therapy Docs has made my job as an assistant billing specialist simple and efficient. When filing for Medicaid PA’s, I can quickly and easily select the patient, all of their clinicals and most recent notes, and have the PA filed in mere minutes.”

“eTherapyDocs allows me to focus on what is really important, the rehabilitation of these children. It’s easy to learn, allows me to expand on my note documentation, keep up with quarterly reports and improves communication between therapists. I really appreciate the text reminders to help remind patients of their appointments.”