Tag Archives: what’s new

It’s no secret that the DPC movement has made huge strides in its goals of forever changing American healthcare. Healthcare services that would have put patients out of pocket thousands of dollars – and that’s even before taking into consideration hefty insurance premiums and copays – are now obtainable for less than $100 per month. 

This revolution in direct care – and revolution is the correct word here – has been nothing short of astonishing – and now it’s spreading to other forms of previously inaccessible healthcare too.

The problem with dental

Dentistry has long been a major, often prohibitive, expense for many people in the US. The prices even for basic checkups are out of reach for so many Americans. Many put off going to the dentist for months or even years, often until they’re in so much pain from an existing problem that they make compromises in other areas of their life to afford an appointment.

Let’s take a look at the cost of average dental treatments in the US:

• Cleaning, check-up and x-rays – $200-$400
• Implant and crown – $3000-$6000
• Root canal – $700-$1300
• Whitening – $300-$500
• Bridge – $2000-$6000

These prices are without insurance, but even with insurance, the out-of-pocket contribution that patients have to pay is astronomical. Since traditional dental insurance caps at an annual maximum of between $1,000 to $2,000, plus copayments for all major services, patients will almost always be facing lofty bills.

This is bad for patients, but it’s bad for dentists too, as it discourages patients from booking appointments until absolutely necessary, ultimately resulting in fewer visits.

Direct Care for dentists

Because of the costs involved in dental care, and the disadvantages it presents for both patients and healthcare practitioners, many are starting to see how the benefits of Direct Care and in-office patient membership plans can be applied to the industry.

Like DCP clinics, they offer a number of plans for individuals, small businesses, and larger organizations. 

Membership fees start at $20/month, including up to two oral exams, teeth cleaning and x-rays, as well as a 30%-45% discount on other procedures such as crowns, fillings, implants, etc.

For dentists, this opens access to a whole new panel of patients, those who previously had no dental insurance, such as retirees or the self-employed. It also offers a chance to build loyalty with patients of all ages and, more importantly, retain those patients for years to come.

The DPC model is the future of healthcare

As more healthcare professionals realize the benefits that the Direct Care model affords their businesses and patients, it’s likely that in addition to primary care and dentistry, other fields such as psychiatry and psychotherapy could adopt similar models. 

The secret lies in not only spreading the word about the inherent advantages of the DPC model but by letting the increased savings and quality healthcare that patients receive speak for themselves. 

Last year we released the Import Lab Results feature that made it possible to move test results from labs directly into Atlas.md as discrete data. The feature allowed you to view test results as tabular data instead of just a static PDF, but it only worked with lab results from Quest Diagnostics.

Today, we’re happy to announce that we’ve extended the capabilities of the feature to work with results from LabCorp. This means you can now effortlessly import lab results into Atlas.md from two of the country’s largest labs providers.

For a more detailed explanation of how the feature works, please check out our help article on the subject, and if you’re unsure about how to request labs, you can find out more here. 

Finally, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to drop us a line at support@atlas.md.

Scheduling patient appointments is a time-consuming affair, often requiring nurses, secretaries, or other administrative staff to coordinate and manage. Our newest feature, self-scheduling, gives you the option to allow patients to schedule their own appointments ahead of time, drastically reducing the administrative burden required to schedule consultations.

Self-scheduling doesn’t have to replace your preferred booking process. You can still schedule appointments as you normally would while also providing patients with the possibility to book their own consultations. Atlas.md will automatically make sure that there are no schedule conflicts so that you can spend more time worrying about what matters most – providing quality care.

The rollout of self-scheduling doesn’t mean that you’re going to be suddenly swamped with appointments without your knowledge. Users have full control over whether they want to enable self-scheduling, how far in advance they would like bookings, the length of appointments, and how many daily time slots they want to open up. This isn’t limited to doctors either; any user, including administrative staff and nurses, can enable self-scheduling so that patients can book procedures such as labs, tests, or vaccinations directly with the relevant member of staff.

We’re constantly working on ways to give users more options to manage their clinics in a way that makes sense to them, and self-scheduling is another tool to do that while enabling even more flexibility and customization.

If you have any questions about self-scheduling, please don’t hesitate to drop us a line at support@atlas.md.

Last year we made a lot of improvements to our shipping processes in order to make it easier to dispense refills and ship packages to patients. Today, we’re rolling out similar enhancements to shipping functionalities for companies.

Now, you can quickly and easily order shipping and print shipping labels to have packages sent to companies, while Atlas.md takes care of all the administrative heavy lifting. It’s just another way we’re broadening our scope of services while simultaneously lessening the amount of paperwork you have to pay attention to.

To learn more about shipping packages and medication, check out this support article. And if you have any questions regarding shipping labels, please don’t hesitate to drop us a line at support@atlas.md.

Prescribing the correct medication can sometimes be a tricky business, especially if a patient suffers from one or more allergies. With our latest update to Atlas.md’s drug allergy search engine, we’ve made it easier than ever to quickly and efficiently find out what allergies your patients might have, as well as what allergenic ingredients might be in the medications you want to prescribe.

Now, with a simple search query, you can comb through your patient’s chart and pull up a list of any allergies they suffer from or see if the medicine you want to prescribe contains any allergens. If your account is integrated with DrFirst and Rcopia, this allergy data will also sync up to their system and can be used for drug allergy checks and alerts on their side.

Day-to-day dispensing just got even simpler. If you have any questions regarding the drug allergy search engine, please don’t hesitate to drop us a line at support@atlas.md.

While it’s been getting a bit colder, we’ve been huddled up inside hard at work on a few features that will improve your Atlas.md experience and make running your DPC clinic even more efficient – and we’re excited to announce a few of them today.

Multi-Day Events

Everyone needs a break from time to time, but sometimes it can be difficult to keep track of everyone’s days off. Multi-day events lets you schedule and track your and your team members’ extended time off on your calendar. This feature is great for booking vacations and any out-of-office days, and also lets you manage any schedule conflicts that might pop up. 

Duplicating Forms

We know that creating forms from scratch over and over can be a bit of a drag, so we developed a way of duplicating entire forms with one click. Now you can simply tweak and copy a master template as many times as you need, freeing up more time to spend with your patients or for other important clinic duties. 

We hope these features enhance your Atlas.md experience, and we’d love to hear any feedback or suggestions you might have. Just drop us a line at support@atlas.md.

Atlas.md has always allowed you to consult specialists through third-party app integration. But now, we’ve developed Atlas Consult to give you more consulting options, and allow you to build your own preferred lists of specialists and contact them directly through the EMR interface.

What is Atlas Consult?

Atlas Consult connects primary care providers to specialists for remote medical opinions. It allows you to reach out to specialists, add them into a central database, and contact them whenever you have a query. It’s designed to save time by eliminating the need for in-person consultations and the costs associated with it. All cases are handled remotely, directly in Atlas.md – even the billing.

The point of Atlas Consult is not only to provide patients with even better care but also to give you peace of mind knowing that your diagnosis is propped up by a second opinion. It’s just another way that we’re helping you move forward with confidence to give the best care possible.

You can read more about requesting feedback from a specialist in this help article. For any other questions regarding Atlas Consult, please don’t hesitate to contact us at support@atlas.md.

We’re excited to announce an update we’ve been working on to help streamline prescription workflows and improve your EMR experience. Shipping Prescriptions is a feature that lets you more easily order and manage shipments for specific prescriptions.

This feature simplifies the process of sending and shipping prescriptions and refills from your local inventory. It also gives you more oversight and control of the history of both the shipment and the prescription once the medication has been shipped.

For more information on shipping medications, check out this article. And if you have any questions regarding Shipping Prescriptions or anything else, please don’t hesitate to drop us a line at support@atlas.md.

We take feedback from our doctors seriously and are always working to implement features that will make using Atlas.md a better, easier, and more productive experience. Our latest update, the Import Lab Results feature, is a direct result of this feedback.

This feature allows you to move test results from labs directly into Atlas.md as discrete data. Instead of only being able to view test results as a static PDF, this information can now be viewed as tabular data, allowing for way more flexibility when it comes to compiling and tracking results.

Observation History

The Import Lab Results feature also allows you to compile multiple different iterations of the same test and view the concurrent results all on the same page. Using LOINC codes provided by the lab companies during the result reporting process, you can review and track these results over time. This is especially helpful for identifying trends and saves massive amounts of time by being able to view all results simultaneously.

Exporting Results

You can also export this data as a .CSV file. So if you’d like to view the data in an Excel or Google spreadsheet, manipulate it further, or send it off to a patient or colleague, you can do so easily from the results page.

Note: At the moment the Import Lab Results feature is only available for lab results from Quest Diagnostics.

For more information about requesting labs, check out this article, and if you’re unsure about how to enable labs from Quest Diagnostics, you can find out more here. And lastly, if you have any questions regarding the Import Lab Results feature or anything else, please don’t hesitate to drop us a line at support@atlas.md.

Before now, when adding attachments to a patient’s chart, you were only been able to add one single file at a time. We’ve updated this feature to allow multiple attachments in different formats to be uploaded simultaneously. This means you’ll now be able to compile files and images from different sources, helping you to better organize information and attachments within a patient’s chart. We’re confident that this feature will save you time and help you work more efficiently.

If you have any questions regarding multiple chart attachments, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at support@atlas.md.