Medical practice management system

A medical practice management system (also practice management system or PMS) is a software-based information and enterprise management tool for physician offices that offers a set of key features that support an individual or group medical practice's operations. Those key features include — but are not limited to — appointment scheduling, patient registration, procedure posting, insurance billing, patient billing, payment posting, data and file maintenance, and reporting.

History of the PMS

While computing was advancing in the early 1970s, for many physicians with their own practices the hardware and software of the time wasn't adequate. Aside from the sheer expense, common complaints included the hardware was too complicated, noisy, and wasteful while the software had insufficient language compatibility, lacked flexibility, and wasn't user-friendly. But by the end of the 1970s computers were shrinking in size and becoming relatively more viable, and software companies were beginning to develop and sell their own practice management systems to physicians.

Technology

In some practices, a PMS is often connected to an electronic health record (EHR) system. While some information in these systems may overlap — patient and provider data, for example — in general the EHR system is used to track patients' clinical outcomes, while the PMS is used for administrative and financial matters. The decision to interface the two systems together or acquire an integrated software package is one of the more challenging considerations for modern medical practices. In June 2015, customer satisfaction surveyor Black Book found that 86 percent of providers sought to acquire or upgrade to an integrated PMS-EHR, citing the need to ensure "clinical data and revenue cycle management are aligned in order to support improved operational efficiencies and broad initiatives like population health management and quality reporting."