Checklist for Retiring Physicians

Physicians spend their entire careers working to care for their patients as a doctor and now as you are getting ready to retire and spend time with your loved ones or have planned out a country trip or fulfill your long-lost dreams. 

For physicians who are looking to close their medical practice and retire, there is definitely a ton of paperwork and information that you will need to take care of and this is the last thing you want to think about as your golden steps towards your retirement. 

As a retiring physician, the first thing that comes to mind is the retiring physician’s medical records situation. It is better to assess ahead of time the number of medical records that the practice has in total and evaluate the time frame for maintaining the medical records specified for the particular state.

ChartRequest Can Help Your Retirement Stay on Track

Planning retirement requires a lot of effort and probably doesn’t want anything to stop it. ChartRequest has an experienced team of specialists to help you. ChartRequest offers a variety of services that can help you progress into retirement smoothly.

To keep things moving effortlessly towards your dream retirement, Our team is experienced in the following services.

• Scanning: Your physical files will need to be scanned and saved in PDF Format. If you have an EMR software Chartrequest will export all medical records out of it. From there we will be able to securely store all files under HIPAA guidelines. 
• Release of Information: After you have retired, your patients will still need access to their medical records. With our Release of Information Provider service, you don’t have to worry about it at all! We can take care of it for you. 
• Record Retrieval: With our large healthcare provider network, your organization can easily request records and receive real-time alerts on their progress for increased operational efficiency

Let Us Manage Your Medical Information

While preparing to close your medical office, there is plenty of medical information that you will have to take care of 99% of all patient-related documents have sensitive information on them that cannot be disposed of in a trash can.

Most documents have to be stored for years even after the practice closes as per the state law, so let ChartRequest manage your medical documents for you.

Let ChartRequest help your patients with their records retrieval. To learn more about us click here to schedule a demo.

Pre-requisites Before Physicians Retire

Retirement can be an exciting time as you will get to pursue your long-lost dreams and look into spending more time with your loved ones. Before you jump in and start enjoying your retirement, you need to take the necessary steps to make retiring easier for you. Addressing the below four things will help you easily transition into retirement

• Would you like to maintain your medical license? Are you still thinking of returning to practice after retiring? If there is a possibility, then you should consider maintaining your medical license, otherwise if the license lapses, it can take up to half a year or more to renew based on your state rules, and may be required to pay lapsed fees, lapsed fees, or reactivation fees. 
• Set all your insurance needs in place. If not, now is the time to focus on your family’s health so you and your spouse may require different medical coverage. Shop around for high-quality insurance for you and your spouse for a worry-free retirement. 
• Revise your employment contracts. If your employment is contract-based or had signed any other work-related contracts, now is the time to review the contracts you had signed, Your contract will likely have specifics regarding working part-time or retiring. 
• Arrange for patients’ medical records. The most important part of your retirement would be making sure that your patient’s medical records are taken care of. If you plan to close your own practice when you retire, you will need to make special arrangements for the storage and retrieval of your patient records.

Pros of Having Your Medical Records Stored Electronically 

Is retrieving your patients’ medical history is straining and time-consuming? Do you have enough medical records storage capacity in your facility? 

If the answers to those questions are yes then it’s time to get your patients’ medical records to be converted to digital form. Today advanced technologies have allowed the conversion of old-school paper charts into an electronic form.

Electronic Medical Records [EMR]

Electronic Medical Records offer time savings, convenience, ease of communication, safer prescribing, and improved care coordination. EMRs will help eliminate a huge chunk of paperwork and downtime for staff members. It will also provide convenience to staff members so they don’t have to be in the same location in order to access them. 

Electronic Health Records provide a digital network for physicians and staff members to manage referrals, billing, and exchange messages with other doctors, staff members, and patients. EHR also helps with better and safer prescription of medication interactions and allergies which can cause a serious threat to patients’ health.

EHRs help in limiting the redundancy of tests and examinations due to the existence of a care coordination platform and support maintaining separate health records. The care coordination platform helps physicians access medical records with patients’ permission including the line of treatment and test. This would provide an overarching umbrella to the practitioner who will need access to patients’ health records. 

ChartRequest is Your Release of Information Custodian

ChartRequest prevents improper PHI disclosure while adhering to the minimum necessary standard. In addition, every medical record request is double verified to proactively correct errors and ensure that each release of information is HIPAA Compliant, accurate, and efficient for all parties

Document Management After You Retire and Close Your Medical Practice

Are you planning to retire and close your medical practice which is extremely exciting but along comes the hassle and frustration of maintaining the patient records for a long time based on the state & federal requirements? 

Find out more on this pdf here. After you have closed your practice if your patient needs access to their medical records and by law, they are guaranteed access to those records ChartRequest can help by providing Release of Information services to ensure that your patient has access to their records without having to come to you.