EHR pricing for independent practices

September 10, 2021

Leona Rajaee

As an independent physician, you are understandably concerned about expenses for your practice. However, if one of those expenses provides a significant return on investment (ROI), both financially and in terms of productivity, then it is worth a closer look. Electronic health records (EHRs) can help you and your staff work more efficiently while providing quality care. There are many aspects of EHR pricing for independent practices to consider.

Tangible benefits of implementing an EHR in your independent practice can include:

Increased efficiency
Increased quality of care
Reduction of waste
Fewer medical errors
Better organizational outcomes (e.g., financial, and operational benefits)
Better societal outcomes (e.g., improved ability to conduct research, improved population health, reduced costs)

When pricing an EHR, keep the benefits and the resulting ROI in mind. When determining exactly what an EHR solution will cost for your independent practice, you will need to fully examine variables that can affect the price of an EHR, including:

The exact features a practice requires
Add-ons such as practice management or patient portal
Cloud or on-premises deployment
Updating hardware to support the system
The scale of the installation.

Some estimates project that the five-year total cost of ownership for cloud-based systems could be $58,000 while the office-based option is estimated to cost $48,000. Estimates of some upfront costs were at approximately $26,000 while the office-based system upfront costs are estimated to be around $33,000.

Experts recommend that, when deciding whether to invest in an EHR your independent practice can rely on two tools:

ROI – a calculation of the most tangible financial gains or benefits that can be expected from a project versus the costs for implementing the EHR or suggested program or solution.
EHR Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) – more comprehensive than ROI and attempts to quantify both tangible and intangible costs and benefits.

Whichever method a practice chooses, it is important to include all the direct and indirect costs that can impact the EHR investment.

As for the ROI of the investment in an EHR, practices typically can expect to recoup the cost in approximately 2 ½ years. They then receive an average of about $23,000 per year per full-time employee in net benefits after that point.

One research study found that the average budget per user for EHR software is $6,000. The study also found that the most popular reason for implementing an EHR solution was to support growth, with almost half of the organizations participating in the survey citing this as their primary goal. Increasing efficiency followed as the second most popular reason for implementing,

The reasons for implementing EHR, by practice size, included:

For practices with 1 physician