Wednesday, October 24, 2012

SOAP Charting on the iPad (for $2.99)


This week, we have posted a video on our recommended solution for SOAP charting on the iPad. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec43fsf9a44&feature=player_embedded

There are many services and products out there for medical documentation. While there are programs and online services for charting a massage session often, a massage practitioner has to use part of a system designed for other medical professionals. Pricing can be anywhere from $30.00 per month to thousands of dollars per year (most dedicated software is around ($100.00 - $150.00). Almost all of these options are poorly designed, feature-rich pieces of software. There may also be 'Legacy Issues' with software and services.

Administratively, most massage practitioners only need a way to keep a SOAP chart, do medical billing and intake paperwork. These should be HIPAA compliant (There is no such thing as 'HIPAA certified!'), easy to use and inexpensive. For medical billing, there are many medical clearinghouse services like OfficeAlly.com that will do the medical billing for little or no cost and are HIPAA compliant (OfficeAlly.com is free to use for medical billing). Intake forms are available from many different sources; I usually recommend the Sohnen-Moe resource  to my students. 

Our SOAP charting solution on the iPad will only cost you $3.00 - $6.00 (depending on the price of the Noteshelf program) and 15 minutes of your time. Your program will be HIPAA compliant as long as you use all the security measures available to you on the iPad and in the Noteshelf program itself. However, if you store the data, online you must have, a HIPAA business associates agreement with the service you use and your HIPAA office policy should have provisions related to proper use of an iPad. Once you set your system up, it is very easy to maintain and at its base it is just like handwriting a chart note. The chart can be 'tagged' to make it easy to find and can be emailed, printed or sent to online storage.

The problem of 'Legacy Issues' can happen when a piece of software become obsolete and is not replaced, a company goes out of business or you become unable to use the software or service due to a change in your internet access, hardware upgrade etc. Noteshelf has a safeguard against this because it can export your charts in standard image and/or PDF formats, which are long used, stable options for keeping documents. 

By using a combination of a services like OfficeAlly.com to do your billing, normal intake forms and electronic charting you can strike a happy medium with minimal expense or change to your routine with the added benefit of having access to and portability of your charts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec43fsf9a44&feature=player_embedded


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