Enterprise Physical Therapy Software: What You Need

If you’re looking for enterprise physical therapy software, it’s likely that your PT practice has outgrown its current way of working. For example:

• You’ve been using a range of tools to manage your practice, but things are now getting too complex. Perhaps your revenue cycle management software doesn’t speak to your clinical documentation or patient engagement tools—and that’s slowing you down. 

• You’re using an EMR software that isn’t right for PTs. Maybe your system is built for generic healthcare or large hospitals, instead of outpatient PT clinics. Maybe it doesn’t give you full visibility over all the different practices in your group.

• Your software’s dated and no longer performs as it should. What was once state-of-the-art may be slow or outdated—and with more users demanding more of the program at scale, any glitches or problems become a bigger nuisance. 

If you’re already working with multiple practices and therapists in one state or across different states, the wrong tools will be more of a hindrance than a help. 

Instead, you’ll need a robust enterprise physical therapy software; a platform you can trust to handle everything your large practice can throw at it (from managing complex workflows to credentialing your diverse practices and getting paid). 

In this post, we’ll show you all the key features larger physical therapy practices need from their enterprise software provider. Throughout, we’ll use StrataEMR as an example and show you how different large practices have used our platform to thrive.

Why bigger clinics need software built for enterprises

As your PT clinic grows, the struggles you had when you were smaller will grow with you. Without the right support, the risks of poor management will increase, too.

• Billing issues compound at scale. Backlogs of unpaid reimbursement claims are a common problem for PTs. But when you’re a larger practice dealing with more patients, the amount in your accounts receivable will be even higher. 
  
  Many clinics we talk to see at least 20% of their revenues go uncollected. In one case, a PT was only being reimbursed for half of what they were owed. If you’re a $250,000 clinic missing out on $125,000 a year, that’s bad enough. But if your revenues are higher, you’re probably leaving much more money on the table.

• Auditing poses a bigger challenge. As your practice or group of clinics grows, the greater the chance you’ll be audited. Of course, all clinics need to make sure they’re following best practices in clinical documentation, finance, and security. But when you’re a larger clinic, the risks are higher—with greater penalties proportional to your clinic’s income.  

• Information gets siloed in different departments. In smaller clinics, operations, billing teams, and therapists may share the same building. But at scale, these different teams are often spread across the state or country. 
  
  To run an effective business, they all need access to key information on patient records and evaluations, appointments, billing, and workflows. Your software should make that easy.

• Clinics face different regional requirements. If you’re working across states, you’ll know how insurers and billing processes can differ. And when those rules and CPT codes are ever-changing, there’s so much more for enterprise clinics to keep track of.
  
  Just as importantly, the credentialing and state licensing status of every physical therapist needs to be correctly verified and managed. Enterprise PT software should make this easier to handle.

• Directors need visibility over your whole company’s performance. If you’re managing a large group with many different clinics, you’ll want to see how they’re all performing—in terms of reimbursement claims, cancellations, patient satisfaction, and other key metrics. There’s more to keep track of as a practice grows.

• Clinics underestimate the true cost of hiring. There are no economies of scale when it comes to hiring staff. The costs of recruitment, wages, and staff management are proportionally just as high for bigger companies, if not higher. 
  
  When a new employee costs 20% more than just their wages—in insurance, pension contributions, and training—your payroll bill quickly adds up. But with the right software, you can ensure you’re not paying more than you need to. 

4 ways StrataPT’s enterprise physical therapy software supports your PT business

The right enterprise PT software can help you overcome all of these challenges while improving the profitability of your business. In this section, you’ll discover how. 

We built StrataEMR after experiencing the challenges of a growing PT clinic first-hand. Below, we’ll show you how our enterprise software can support you in managing your practice, getting paid, and keeping track of how you’re performing. 

1. Automated practice management across your group of clinics

When clinics come to StrataPT, they’re often looking for a tool that will help them manage complex tasks and workflows within (and sometimes between) their different practices. 

Admin staff and therapists have a lot to juggle; ensuring patients are scheduled, eligibility and benefit verifications are being performed, copays are being collected, and plans of care are getting signed and returned. You need a single place where you can keep track of everything that needs to be done.

Here are 4 ways StrataEMR’s practice management features make that happen: 

(1) Real-time workflows for a live image of your clinic. 

The first thing you’ll see when you open StrataEMR is the workflow dashboard. It gives everyone a live overview of what’s happening across all of your clinics and lets you deep dive into specific locations. 

Alongside therapy sessions in progress, you’ll see administrative and clinical tasks that need to be addressed and a HIPAA secure messaging platform that allows you to communicate with your team. For example, if a patient has a copay or coinsurance, a task will automatically show up on your dashboard when the patient checks in for each visit. If an authorization is nearing expiration, a task will automatically show up to remind you to obtain an extended authorization approval or to discharge the patient. 

(2) Automation to speed up processes. 

StrataEMR reduces tasks like data entry by using templates to automatically populate documentation from patient intake assessments and referrals. 

What’s more, you can automate appointment reminders for clinicians and patients too—to keep everyone on the same page and reduce missed appointments.

(3) Task notifications.

In the ‘Tasks’ section of your dashboard, you’ll see all the workflows that need your attention. When one task is completed, the software alerts the right people of the next task to be addressed. For example, if a clinician has uploaded a plan of care, your admin team will be notified that it needs to be submitted to the referrer for signature. Plus, all these workflows are customizable. 

It’s a single place where clinicians and administrators can collaborate, which prevents siloes and makes sure no tasks slip through the cracks.

(4) Fine-grained user permissions.

With StrataEMR, you can set access permissions that best suit your team. For example, everyone in a clinic can see the tasks that need to be completed, but directors can access all information across the different practices. 

2. Compliant billing, to prevent reimbursement claims accumulating

Billing is one of the biggest challenges for PT clinics, large and small. Many practices are not being reimbursed for more than 20% of what they’re owed—even those practices that have dedicated medical billing software or outsourced teams. 

This struggle is exactly why we put PT billing at the core of everything StrataEMR does. And as a result, we’re helping PT practices across the country reach a >99% reimbursement rate. 

Here’s how:

• The Billing Plan of Care. StrataEMR helps clinics establish a proactive approach to billing by making sure that all treatment will be reimbursed. 
  
  Often, through a lack of training in the commercial side of their profession, therapists issue treatments that aren’t cleared for reimbursement by insurers. StrataEMR flips the whole billing process on its head, so therapists are notified in advance if their treatment plan doesn’t comply with payer regulations.
  
  The Billing Plan of Care is a set of guardrails to ensure that all claims are complete, clean, and 100% compliant. 

• Up-to-date insurance information, irrespective of state. Insurers’ processes differ from state-to-state, meaning that how you make reimbursement claims—and what patient care can be reimbursed—are virtually impossible to keep track of. 
  
  Our team ensures that all codes, processes, and rules are always up-to-date—no matter where your clinics are operating. This way, you can be sure that all of your claims are accurate before they get submitted to the payer. 

• Billing service. At StrataPT, we don’t just provide full-fledged enterprise software—a complete billing and RCM service is also part of the deal. Did a reimbursement claim get denied? We’ll follow it up personally to make sure you get paid. With a >99% success rate, you won’t need a large billing team to handle it for you. 
  
  One clinic had 65% of their accounts receivable (AR) older than 90 days before getting in touch with us—adding up to over $200,000. Now, after starting to use StrataEMR, less than 4% of their AR is older than 90 days.

• Detailed data on each clinic’s billing and financial performance. Quickly and clearly see how every clinic in your group is performing, with metrics including average units per visit, reimbursement averages by payer, and much more. 

3. Better staff management and reduced costs of hiring

As an enterprise practice, you’re likely managing a large, ever-changing group of staff. To run an effective clinic, you’ll need an easy way to manage—and manage the costs of—your therapists and administrative/operational staff. 

At StrataPT, we make this more convenient and affordable for enterprise clinics with:

• Licencing notifications to easily manage staff credentials. Reimbursement from insurers depends on staff being credentialed with payers correctly in different states, and their licenses being updated. Without that, you’ll be looking at denied claims. StrataEMR includes a number of safeguards that validate the status of all organization and therapist credentialing before claims are submitted. Automated messages are also sent to your practice administrators when payer revalidation and/or state licenses are due to expire. 

• One simple cost to beat the costs of hiring. Enterprise clinics are increasingly turning to outsourced administrators (such as external billing teams) to reduce the high costs of staff. But this is often costly, too—and doesn’t always help you get paid for everything you’re owed. You can read more about why in our guide to PT billing. 

With StrataPT, you save on the costs of hiring while getting paid consistently by all insurers. We don’t charge per-user fees—and you won’t even pay for the software itself ). Instead, you’ll only pay a small fixed rate on billings while we work round the clock to drive your reimbursement rate to over 99%. 

4. In-depth data on all parts of your business

While individual clinic managers need to keep track of how they’re performing, practice directors need oversight over the performance of their entire organization. With StrataEMR, you can get a broad view of your performance or deep-dive into all the key metrics—so you always know how each clinic or therapist is performing. 

• StrataClarity. StrataEMR’s Clarity Panel allows you to see everything that relates to each patient account, including how much each visit is worth to your business and whether their claims are being processed properly. This data can all be broken down so that you can see individual metrics for each insurer and clinician, too.
  
  Dr. Jonathan Mullis, Owner and CEO of Physical Therapy Doctors of Florida, has owned multiple clinics in different states over more than a decade of working in PT. In that time, he has used several EMR systems including WebPT and Clinicient. In his words, “Strata has been by far the best experience. The customer service is far superior, and the system is clean, easy to use, and intuitive. Also, I have more insight into my billing with Strata’s Clarity Panel than I have ever had, including when I was doing my billing in-house. I would highly recommend Strata.” 

• Marketing data to help you grow your business. StrataEMR puts all of your marketing metrics in one place. See where your patients are coming from, how many referrals have converted into billable visits, which marketing campaigns are doing well, or which referral sources are your highest performers.

• Patient satisfaction and scheduling. Gather patient feedback through automated review requests and use a single dashboard to track how your patients feel about your PTs and their practices. You can also get more insight on how to improve your results by seeing which clinicians are most affected by no-shows and cancellations.

An enterprise physical therapy software that handles all your needs

No clinic should be struggling with outdated or inadequate tools, especially large ones. 

Instead, find a practice management software solution that can support you, your therapists, and your patients—and help you continue to grow at the same time. StrataPT provides exactly that.

• A customizable, all-in-one product. Streamline billing, practice management, patient satisfaction, and marketing tools under the same roof. As every business is different, all workflows and data dashboards are completely customizable to suit your needs.

• Great customer service. If you’re worried about a denied billing claim or you need technical support, we won’t keep you waiting. Our average time to respond to client queries is just 22 minutes. 

• Security standards you can trust. StrataEMR is HIPAA compliant and we follow all security best practices.

Book a free demo today to see how it works for yourself.