Content for this blog post was provided by Susan Maxsween, Director of RMS Healthcare – Practice Transformation, and her team – Karen Joncas, Healthcare Transformation Coordinator, and Al Tripodi, Healthcare Administrative Assistant.

If you are looking for a practice transformation consultant, RMS Healthcare has compiled some frequently asked questions (FAQs) that our clients ask to potential partners. Answers to these FAQs should help your practice, physician organization or hospital owned/managed physician practice choose the right consultant for your NCQA PCMH™ Recognition Process. Here are FAQs number three and four.

3) Does RMS Healthcare have expertise with Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems?

RMS Healthcare brings proven experience and expertise in working with multiple Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems, practice management systems and disease management registries. It is this proven experience that has allowed us to master and teach practices how to build their knowledge and use/functionality of their respective EMR systems. We have worked with multiple clients that have had eCW version 8 in place with a fully functional patient portal and e-messaging system. One such practice we are currently preparing for submission to achieve level 3 recognition under the 2008 standards, after having had successfully achieved a level 1 recognition last year. (This practice chose to take a two-step approach to achieve the level 3 recognition). Our strong foundation of understanding and applicability of eCW version 8 will best position us to maximize functionality of the capabilities with the reporting and system upgrades that are now available.

We have proven experience with a multitude of other EMRs including Medent, Allscripts, CareTracker, Meditech, Medinotes, Phytel, Next Gen, Inforia and reporting systems outside the EMR. This positions us well to be able to understand the capabilities of this version and to train others in the use of this updated system. We have extensive experience in pulling patient records and associated documents within the EMR. We have also had experience in identifying reports that are managed within the system such as for tracking patient demographics, dates or services and diagnostic codes, as well as ePrescribing reports. Our experience and proven versatility in working with numerous other management systems will enable us to work strategically to generate reports, which will meet the reporting expectations of NCQA.

4) What is the track record of RMS Healthcare in PCMH transformation?

RMS Healthcare is a premier healthcare consulting firm that has assisted more than 75 primary care practices across the country to become NCQA PCMH Recognized. We have a proven track record in assisting these practices to achieve the highest level of PCMH Recognition with NCQA. All of our clients have achieved the highest attainable level of recognition 100 percent of the time indicating that practices desiring to achieve a level 3 do so, and so on. We have also assisted practices to initially achieve a level 1 recognition, and with the implementation of an EMR, we have been engaged with the practice to successfully achieve a level 3 recognition status, many of which achieved a score of greater than 92 points overall.

We fully engage with our practices the moment the practice transformation journey commences through NCQA award notification and beyond. We also have select clients that have retained us for additional consulting work beyond the scope of the PCMH Recognition to focus on other practice transformation activities once the PCMH Recognition is achieved to provide further staff training and development and to prepare the practice for re-recognition under the PCMH 2011 standards.

We are also pleased to share that we have a proven and sound relationship with NCQA and have worked very closely with their team in regards to the overall recognition process since early 2010. We are well-known by managers of NCQA for providing a quality product and have a good rapport with them should they ever have any questions during the review process. NCQA managers have worked with us considerably and are familiar with our “call out box approach” to highlight practice activities.

In a recent client satisfaction survey that we did with our PCMH transformation clients, 100 percent of the respondents said they would recommend our service to others and our mean score for client satisfaction was 9.7/10. Qualitative comments used to describe RMS healthcare team were “Motivational,” ”Educational,” “Directing” and “Comprehensive.” Practices have further stated, “We could not have done it without them” (The RMS Healthcare Team).

For other common NCQA PCMH™ Recognition Process FAQs – click here for Part 1. Click here for Part 3.

If you are looking for an NCQA PCMH practice transformation consultant or would like more information about the NCQA recognition, please contact our Director of Healthcare – Practice Transformation, Susan Maxsween at SusanM@RMSresults.com or by calling (315) 635-9802. Susan would be happy to answer any additional questions you may have about the NCQA PCMH™ Recognition Process.