EMR for small one-man-show optical

[Augenoptikerin]

I am in the planning stages of opening my own shop - optical only with telehealth exams. I am wondering if it's worth to invest in an EMR or keeping start up cost low and go old school paper files. What systems do you use in your small shop?

[KrystleClear]

We HAD to get EMR to avoid the "fines" from the government for still being paper only. Last I heard it was like $10K a year in fines. That will differ depending on where you are, though. That I think mostly applies to the exam side of things, but we went ahead and got FlexSys software for the optical that communicates with our EMR software (EyeMD). I still write out orders on paper and keep the cards in a card catalogue type system, because if the computers go down, which they do occasionally, I'm not completely screwed. I know there were some other eye doctors in the area who chose to keep paying the fines to avoid having to get EMR software. I has taken us around 3 years to get all the old paper charts scanned into the EMR system - it was VERY tediuous and laborious, but our doc also wanted EVERYTHING in there, including records and visual fields from the 1970s & 1980s.