How does your team feel about your EHR?

When you ask for feedback, do you hear buzzy praise or stifled groans?

If it’s the latter, you’re not alone. EHRs are tools. They’re supposed to work for your team, but many providers feel their EHR is the enemy.

It’s no wonder—EHRs can be clunky, inefficient, counter-intuitive, aggravating, and sometimes downright useless.

The fact is, too many treatment centers rely on extremely out-of-date systems, cobbling together paper-only files with spotty, disjointed database information only accessible through certain devices. Navigating these antiquated systems sucks staff time away from providing excellent care and ultimately contributes to provider burn-out.

Today, let’s look at the top 5 ways your behavioral health EHR is slowly driving your team crazy—and what we at BehaveHealth are doing to make these headaches a thing of the past.

Behavioral Health EHR Complaint #1: “I Hate Doing Group Notes!”

Do your clinicians avoid doing group notes like the plague?

Do they argue about whose turn it is to complete group notes?

Do they run out of time at the end of their day and send frantic group messages asking if any other team member is “caught up on notes” and has time to complete their group notes for them?

We see this a lot when clunky EHRs force clinicians to re-add names to each group and jump through other redundant, time-consuming hoops to create group notes.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

At BehaveHealth, we designed our EHR to create the group first and the notes second. When attendance varies—and it will—simply add or subtract names. No more re-creating the entire group list from scratch each time. BehaveHealth’s system eliminates tedious copy-and-paste jobs and facilitates easy, time-saving batching of group schedules, files, and follow-up tasks.

Behavioral Health EHR Complaint #2: “I Never Saw That Drug Test”

We hear this complaint when there’s processing hiccups and inefficiencies in how the medical and clinical teams communicate.

Sure, the paper test is in a box somewhere—along with all the other paper results waiting to be filed or re-routed—but your counselor didn’t see it until after their latest one-on-one with the patient.

In a perfect world, this would never happen because everyone is completely caught up on their paperwork.

In the real world, this happens all the time—especially in busy treatment centers.

At BehaveHealth, we believe access to test results should be effortless. That’s why point-of-service drug test results are built-in to our cloud-based EHR. Results are instantly viewable to clinicians and medical staff on any device.

No more lost or delayed results—you always know what’s going on with your patients.

Behavioral Health EHR Complaint #3: “My EHR is Just Paperwork—It Doesn’t Do Anything For My Patient”

We all know paperwork is important in the addiction treatment industry. It’s where we document care, establish insurance coverage, and track progress.

Great.

But what does your patient feel they get out of their EHR? Maybe a peek at their treatment plan every so often? A print-out of their latest failed drug test?

I’m sure they love that.

Here’s the thing: Most EHRs aren’t designed for patients. They’re designed for insurance companies, clinicians, and medical staff. They leave your patient—a critical member of the team—completely out of the loop.

At BehaveHealth, we believe EHRs can be powerful tools to keep patients involved and empowered throughout their recovery journey.

From maintaining accountability to celebrating milestones and tracking meeting attendance, our patient portal lets patients access the information from their EHR that’s important to them—right from their phone.

Ditch Your Aggravating EHR and Watch Your Productivity Soar

These are just a few of the simple, intuitive solutions we’ve designed to help address the common complaints about clunky EHRs we hear from addiction treatment providers around the country.

Your EHR doesn’t have to suck.

If you’re curious about how we can help boost team morale and improve your organization's productivity with our all-in-one cloud-based treatment center management solution, we invite you to start your free trial today.