Practice Management Software is a genre of software used by medical practices to aid with day-day operations. The PMS software allows practices to capture patient demographics, schedule appointments, maintain lists of insurance payers, perform billing tasks, and generate reports.
Most PMS software (in the USA) is meant for small/medium sized medical offices. PMS is often times divided into desktop-only software, client-server software, or Internet-based software.
•Desktop-only software is intended for use by a handful of users sharing access.
•Client-server software requires that offices own server equipment to run the software; so that individuals users’ workstations contain client software that accesses the server. The advantage of client-server software is that it allows multiple users to share the data and the workload.
•Internet-based software is the newer breed of PMS. IB PMS decreases the need for a practice to run its own server [and having concerns over security and reliability]. The prominent security risk of IB PMS is that patient data is removed from the practice itself.
PMS and EMR are many times linked together; much of their information overlaps (patient and provider data). The major difference between PMS and EMR lies in their main purposes. While EMR is more geared towards clinical matters, PMS is more for administrative and financial matters.
