I’m setting up OpenEMR in a small practice comprising of 2 doctors, X-Ray, theatre, lab, phramacy.
Client is currently facing issues of proceedures taking place and not being accounted for, and I’d like some views on how OpenEMR and the Inventory module in particular can help on this.
I enabled the Inventory, but see it’s more to do with adding and managing drugs (I’ve selected Inventory and sell both drugs and non-drug products
If the CPT codes had been set up (Administration->Services) with charges in Rupees (I presumed) and the Fee Sheet for that particular encounter was successfully populated; then if you run a report from Reports-> Visits->Encounters, it will tell you the patient’s name, CPT & ICD codes for that encounter and if the charge is open or closed (in regards to Insurance Billing). Additionally if the patient is self-paying, Fees
->Billing->EOBs->Due Pt will load a list of accounts receivable with quite a bit of details for tracking.
Where in the above sequence, do you think is the gap?
Well, let’s take it that all admin work like CPT codes with their charges is done well in OpenEMR, but the guy in the lab doesn’t actually record the encounter (maybe does an under-hand job like bringing in a blood-sample from outside).
Now, if administrators could record things like supplies for the proceedures in the inventory eg., maleria test kits, syringes, gloves, solutions, etc… and if the lab guy uses these without recording encounters; then when the inventory reports are matched with available stocks, results would not match.
This is like what we’re looking for.
For such a scenario, what’s the best way to use the inventory module in OpenEMR?
The confusion arose with the word “procedure”. American surgeons understand the word, procedure, to mean a surgical procedure. Coupled with the fact that your client has a theatre or OR in their office added to the confusion.
In the Demo, enabling Inventory and sale of pharmaceuticals and non-pharmaceuticals brought up the Inventory module, but there is only an Add Drug dialog box and nothing about non-pharmaceuticals. The dialog box does not seem to be set up for tracking and usage, only ordering.
Practices that dispense medications and medical supplies will have to join in to describe how they handle inventory control and tracking. If the Inventory module has just one dialog box, customized forms may be part of the solution.
The building blocks of what you are looking for are present in the current solution with some setup and some understanding of process each practice follows.
We have tied the inventory management to billing which probably will work universally. To take the example of Maleria Test Kits, we would do the following:
Define each purchased product in the inventory module - syringe, gloves, maleria shots etc. We decided to live with drug stuff showing in setup and just used units as unit of measure.
Identify / create Maleria Shot Administration procedure code. This is the service you are charging on fee sheet.
Create Maleria Test Kit as a group and include the components in ‘Relate To’ field as products - e.g 1 syringe, 2 gloves. Also include the Maleria Shot Administration procedure code. This is a 1 level deep list - we do not use kits using other kits.
At the end of encounter, create the fee sheet for patient showing Maleria Shot Administration procedure code.
In our case, we have changed fee sheet to look for the inventory item containing the procedure code and then ‘consume’ other related items in real time. Prior to the modification, the administrator used a weekly review to count procedures and used a spreadsheet see the items and the quantities to reduce inventory.
This procedure will result in quantity on hand based on expected consumption. Software provides way to adjust the inventory to match actuals. The office manager reviews the differences with the clinicians unless they have documented excess consumption in the notes.
Do some cost benefit analysis before choosing the details to track.