Welcome back! In this solo episode, I share my top five tips to make switching EHRs smooth and easy. I also share (finally!) why I decided to switch to Jane.

I switched to Jane a year ago and I’ve been meaning to share this episode for ages. At first I wanted to spend some time in Jane, maybe four months, to get used to it, before creating this episode.

Times flies and suddenly it’s been a year! So this episode is long overdue from me. By now I’m very comfortable in Jane and I have lots of thoughts for you.

Show Notes:

🎙️ Listen to Episode #79: Tips for Switching a New EHR and Why I Switched to Jane

💙 Naturally, this episode is sponsored by Jane!

The team at Jane understands that clocking out from the clinic doesn’t always mean you’re clocking out for the day. Instead, it’s often the start of charting long into the evening.

With time-saving charting features, like custom smart narratives, chart duplication, and dictation (dictation, you guys!), Jane helps you finish charting your patient or client notes during work hours, not after hours. 

And, to save you even more time, you have access to Jane’s Chart Template Library that’s fully stocked with pre-made templates that have been generously shared by practitioners in the community. You can even customize them further with charting tools, like side-by-side photos, checkboxes, and range scales.

To see how Jane can help you free up your evenings from admin tasks, head to meet.jane.app/more-time to book a personalized demo. But, if you’re ready to get started, you can use the code ACUSCHOOL1MO at the time of sign-up for a 1-month grace period applied to your new account.

Subscribe to the Acupuncture Marketing School podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

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Transcript:

[MICHELLE GRASEK] (00:05):

Welcome to the Acupuncture Marketing School Podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Grasek, and I’m here to help you get visible in your community, take marketing action with confidence and get more patients in your practice and more money in your pocket every week. We both know you’re a talented, passionate acupuncturist and that acupuncture has the power to change lives. So let’s dive right into this episode and talk about how you can reach more patients.

(00:33):

Hi there. Welcome back. Today is the first solo episode I’ve done in a long time and I wanted to talk about important tips for switching to a new electronic medical record software or EMR as well as finally share why I decided to switch EMRs to Jane. I switched to Jane about a year ago and I’ve been meaning to share this episode for ages. At first, I wanted to take some time to get familiar with Jane and really see how I liked it before producing this episode. I was thinking probably four months would be enough time for that, but time flies and here we are a year later. So I’ve definitely had enough time inside Jane to feel familiar with it and I have lots of thoughts to share with you.

[JANE.PP] (01:17):

Of course, today’s episode is sponsored by Jane. The team at Jane understands that clocking out from the clinic doesn’t always mean you are clocking out for the day. Instead, it’s often the start of charting long into the evening. With time saving charting features like custom smart narratives, chart duplication and dictation Jane helps you finish charting your patient or client notes during work hours, not after hours. And to save you even more time, you have access to Jane’s Chart template library that’s fully stocked with pre-made templates that have been generously shared by practitioners in the community. You can even customize them further with charting tools like side-by-side photos, check boxes and range scales. To see how Jane can help you free up your evenings from admin tasks, I’ll put the link in the show notes to book a personalized demonstration with the Jane team and if you’re ready to get started, you can use the code [ACUSCHOOL1MO] at signup for a one-month grace period applied to your new account. And I’ll put that in the show notes as well.

[MICHELLE] (02:20):

Alright, let’s dig in with this episode. So first I wanted to share this episode because it’s kind of a big deal to switch to a new EHR and I know this is the number one reason. It took me over six months to finally bite the bullet and switch to Jane. I knew I wanted to switch, but I was worried it was going to be a lot of work to move all the data from my old software into Jane, like my calendar and my appointments, all of my charts, et cetera. And I was also worried about how technical that might be. I basically assumed the process would be a pain and that it would be time consuming and for a little while it just felt easier to stick with what I already had. And I also know that, you know, from working with a lot of acupuncturists that this is the reason most people are nervous to switch EMRs. Even if they want to switch. This is really what’s holding them up, a fear of unknown amounts of work or difficulty that prevents you from making the switch.

(03:23):

So I’ll start by saying that Jane made this process much easier than I thought it was going to be. Maybe other softwares do this too, I’m not sure, but when you are ready to switch to Jane after you’ve signed up, you set a date with the Jane team that you want to be your launch date and then they give you detailed instructions on how to download all of your data from your previous EHR, your calendar, your patient charts, your inventory, everything. And then all you do is take those downloaded files and upload them to a link that Jane provides and then the Jane team does all the work behind the scenes, they load your data into the correct areas of your account, they make sure that it’s right so that you are not losing people from your patient calendar or anything like that.

(04:15):

After that, you schedule a live Zoom call with one of their team members and you can share your screen and they will walk you through any setup help that you need. So if your schedule is very complicated, for example, maybe you have multiple rooms, multiple practitioners and different types of appointments, you can explain to them how you want your schedule to work and they will help you get it set up exactly the way that you need it. And of course, there’s also digital onboarding inside of Jane. So once the team uploads your data and you sign in for the first time, a prompt will come up welcoming you and then giving you your first steps to customize your account and it leads you through the whole process with step-by-step video and written tutorials. So whatever you prefer, if you want to watch a video for what to click next, you can do that. If you prefer to read instructions, they have written instructions as well. So basically, you are not left on your own to figure out the software. Hopefully I’ve convinced you that switching doesn’t have to be super scary. Whether it’s switching to Jane or another EMR, just give them a call and ask what the process is like so that you can have a realistic idea. It’s probably nowhere near as scary as you’re imagining because I know that was certainly the case for me.

[MICHELLE] (05:37):

Okay so let’s talk about some tips. We’re making a smooth transition to a new EHR. Again, regardless of what EHR you are coming from or moving to, there are always some important things to think about. The first thing I recommend is assess your current workflow and think about what’s working and not working for you. And if you’re considering switching, you are probably thinking about this already. But think about what you want to be improved and then call or email the new EHR that you are considering moving to and ask them specific questions to first establish that they do offer the features that you already have that contribute to what you like about your workflow so that you are not losing anything in this transition. Because that would not be a fun surprise assuming that the new software is going to have a feature that you rely on and then finding out it’s not there when you sign up. And then of course also confirming with them that they have the features that you’re looking for or rather the capability that you are looking for to improve your workflow.

(06:47):

So one thing I really wanted from Jane was a better calendar so that patients could never accidentally be double booked online. And I wanted to make it a little more complex. So I called the Jane support line before signing up to describe here is what’s not working in my schedule for me right now and here’s what I want it to look like. Can Jane do this? And not only did they say yes, but they explained how it was possible that the Jane software could accommodate this. So that’s really what you want to be talking to the people at the new software about is here’s what’s not working for me and here’s what I want. Can you make it happen inside your software and can you explain to me the mechanism or the way that you’re going to make it happen so that when you finally sign up for this new software, you feel confident that you are getting what you need.

(07:44):

The next thing to consider is your timeline. It does take a little time to switch to a new software and I gave myself a month because Jane offers that one-month grace period where they don’t charge you and you have the chance to get familiar with the software and see if it feels like a good fit. If you decide to go for it then a couple weeks out you would want to schedule your data transition. So as I recall, I think Jane, the team is usually booking a couple weeks out, maybe two weeks out for their data upload process and then I had a week or so to download my data from my old software and then upload it to their link inside Jane. And I chose to schedule this transition during a vacation that I had. I had a week off and that way I wasn’t going between both softwares while also trying to treat and reschedule patients and take phone calls and schedule new patients. That felt like the cleanest way to do it for me and I got lucky because I had a week off planned around the time that this transition made sense. So it’s not necessary, but if you can make it happen, it did make my life a little bit easier I think.

[MICHELLE] (09:01):

But I would recommend giving yourself at least, at least a month so that you can plan ahead for this process, make sure you’ve got all of your data, have a chance to have all your questions asked and answered and just not feel rushed. And Jane will be with you through this whole process, if you choose Jane, I mean hopefully whatever software you choose will be very supportive during the transition process because they probably know it’s a stress point for many people.

(09:28):

I also recommend keeping your old software subscription for a month or two so that you can look up and download any last records or documents or information that you didn’t think to download in your initial data export, things like patients asking for superbills or other random things they might request from their previous account. For me, for example, I forgot to download records of my sales tax from the previous year. So I was really glad I still had my old software for a couple months. It was easy to log in and grab that information so that I could use it for my taxes. And I feel like there’s always something you don’t realize you need until you’ve been using the new software for a little bit and then you realize you can’t find it because it’s still living in your old EMR. And by the way, I realize I’m using EMR and EHR interchangeably, EMR, electronic medical record and then EHR electronic health record. I think it kind of depends on what country you’re in or maybe what part of the country for what you prefer, but just in case you haven’t heard of one of those, they’re the same thing. They’re the software.

(10:50):

Another thing to consider is how you’re going to let your patients know about the new software because they will probably have to set up a new patient account and their old booking links will obviously not be working anymore and you want to make sure they have the new links so that they can easily get on your schedule. And you want to tell them ahead of time so that there’s no frustration and patient drop off as a result. And as long as you let people know, I think that’s unlikely. But of course, we just want to make things as easy and simple for patients as possible. So I recommend sending a couple emails to let people know this change is coming. Once you decide on the date for the transition, I would email them, for example, three weeks in advance and then maybe about a week in advance and then again on the day that the transition happens. So that’s two or three emails depending on what you’re comfortable with. But people do need repetition. I don’t think it’s enough to tell them once you know, “Hey, in a month we’re going to have a new EHR.” They will definitely need to be reminded that it’s happening soon.

[MICHELLE] (11:58):

And most EHRs will have a feature where you can send an email blast to all the patients in the system and it will provide a link with instructions for them to create a new patient account. So that’s also really easy to do on the day that you start using the new software. I would also put up a sign at your front desk and I would share about this transition on social media, letting people know that there’s a new system and new booking links because not everyone will be on your email list.

(12:28):

The next thing you want to do is spend some time on your social media and website changing every “book now” button and link to your new EHR link. So changing your link on your Instagram bio, for example, making sure the link on your Facebook page is correct and changing the booking link on your Google business profile, all of these are very important, as well as any other digital listings where your scheduling link might be, for example, Yelp. If you have it on there, you definitely want to make sure it’s changed. If you are listed on the websites of your local chamber of commerce, you want to get in touch with them and make sure that the link is changed there. So I will admit that I have a lot of “book now “buttons across all the pages of my website and I didn’t switch them all to Jane at first and I didn’t realize that I missed some of them. And in my Google analytics for my website, I could see that somewhere on my site people were still finding and clicking on the scheduling link for the old software.

(13:31):

And that’s no good because those links are now dead and that meant I was losing those people. They weren’t able to schedule unless they kept clicking around on my website. And you guys know I say all the time that people don’t like clicking around, they don’t like feeling frustrated on your website and so I’m sure I lost a couple people who were clicking those buttons and getting nowhere. So I really had to sit down and take some time and comb through my website and I did find those dead links. If you don’t have a lot of pages or schedule now buttons on your website, then it will be easy. You’re likely to catch them all. But I’m just putting that out there because that is a mistake that I made and I feel like that is one of the best ways to learn. So hopefully you will not have to do the same thing.

(14:17):

Okay, so, so far the recommendations are to call the new EHR and ask them your specific questions before you sign up with them to make sure they’re able to do what you want the want the software to do and then plan out your timeline for the switch. Keep your access to your old software for a few months in case you need anything. Let your patients know multiple times before and after the transition and make sure you change your scheduling links everywhere they are available online. And then the last thing I would recommend is definitely to take advantage of all the support offered by the new software company. Jane gives you unlimited support. You can chat through the app, you can call, you can email, you can set up a Zoom call with them and share your screen. They are outstanding. But even if you’re not with Jane, remember that it’s the job of the software support team to help you customize your account to your needs. So if you sign up for new software and you can’t get it to do exactly what you want, keep contacting support, tell them exactly what you want the software to do and ask them to walk you through it, so, what should I click on next? Where would I find this option inside the software? Get on a Zoom call with them and share your screen so they can help you troubleshoot. A really good company will have the support staff to do this with you. And as I mentioned, Jane is really outstanding about this. Okay, so those are my recommendations for switching EHRs regardless of what software you go with.

[MICHELLE] (15:54):

Let’s talk a little bit about why I chose Jane because as we’ve discussed, it’s kind of a big deal to make the change. I didn’t do it lightly at least, and I don’t want to have to switch again. So I wanted to choose a software that I knew I would be with for a really long time. And the main reason I switched was that I wanted more specific control over my online schedule. I run two treatment rooms and there are some treatment types that can be overlapped and then other treatment types that should not be overlapped. For example, a basic follow-up patient can be overlapped with another basic follow-up by half hour. That works fine, but new patients and patients for certain cosmetic acupuncture treatments or microneedling, those I don’t like when they’re overlapped. It gets a little too complicated and I hate feeling rushed or stressed at clinic because someone is squeezed into the schedule where they shouldn’t be. So I wanted people to be able to book online and just have it be streamlined and organized without the possibility of accidental double booking of appointment types that made things complicated.

(17:01):

And Jane has a lot of features for customizing your schedule. You can make it very complex if you need it to be. They have a feature where multiple practitioners can share rooms and limited resources and as the rooms are booked or certain treatment types are booked, then they become unavailable. So let me give you an example. We have one Celluma light at my office, but as I mentioned, two treatment rooms. So the Celluma light is set up in Jane as a limited resource, which means that only one person can book a treatment with the Celluma light at a time. So that was my primary reason for switching. And the second was that I wanted an online schedule that looked high-end. My clinic focuses on cosmetic acupuncture and the goal is to be more spa-like than medical. It’s just a different sort of experience and I wanted the booking process to reflect that experience. Jane’s online interface for patients is pretty attractive and it’s well organized and patients always comment on how nice it is to use. I know that the appearance of your EHR does not matter to everyone, but I felt like it was good to have a software that was more aligned with our brand and the value of what we’re selling.

[MICHELLE] (18:23):

And then beyond that, there are just a hundred little reasons that I chose Jane. There are so many clever features and options and I really enjoy them all. I’m just going to share a few more of my favorites that I think are special and make Jane unique and an even better value. Some of them are marketing oriented because you know I absolutely love marketing and I love that Jane helps you do great marketing for your clinic. The first feature that I love is the ability to send automated emails from Jane to patients requesting a review of their experience. So you can turn this feature on and off and you can set it up with all sorts of different parameters. But the email will ask for a review and then it will also provide a direct link to your Google Business Review page and encourage the person to copy and paste the review there.

(19:18):

I think this is really helpful because collecting reviews is something that we all intend to do and do it regularly because if you’re in a country where you can request reviews, then it’s an outstanding marketing tactic because it’s great social proof. But a lot of us just forget to do this regularly so you can automate this in Jane. Petty spectacular. I also love that in Jane you can add classes to your online schedule so that patients can sign up for a class and pay for it through the portal. And of course, you can set how many people are allowed to attend the class. It could be like a telemedicine type class, like a Zoom class or it could be in person. Jane will keep track of how many seats are left. It’s just really helpful. I don’t know if you have ever taught classes to your community in the past, but typically I would have people pay through Square and I would be just manually keeping track of how many people are signed up and I would have to send them the payment link separately. But when it’s on your online schedule, it’s so easy because people are discovering the class who weren’t even looking for it. If a patient signs on to make an appointment and they can see that there’s a class available on the schedule, they investigate and then they can sign up. So I think that’s a pretty neat feature.

[MICHELLE] (20:45):

I love that patients can share a credit card between family members. This is one of those small things that brings me an enormous amount of pleasure. It’s really helpful if you’re treating kids and their parents, you can just load the parent credit card into their chart into their account. And then when you go into the child’s account, there is a feature where you can connect them as, you can give them a relationship like child, parent, and then you can share credit cards through that relationship so that parent can easily pay for the child. It’s just less steps. I have found that to be really helpful and my patients really like it as well. They appreciate that it’s very simple.

(21:31):

Chart notes save automatically as you type. I have had EHRs in the past where the chart note doesn’t save until you hit save and if anything happens like you lose website, like sorry if you lose Wi-Fi connectivity, it might not save. This is such a relief. As you’re typing, Jane is auto saving always, all the time, again, as long as you’re connected to Wi-Fi, but if it’s saving every four or five seconds, you’re going to get most of what you typed. So that’s really helpful. There’s also a feature where if you are working on your charting in public, like if you’re at a coffee shop or if you are waiting at an airport, you can blur outpatient names to be HIPAA-compliant so that nobody who glances over at your computer can see any patient names. I mean, truly Jane has thought of everything. It’s a really easy short keyboard shortcut. If you have Jane already and you have never used it, it’s just Shift+P. Give it a try.

(22:41):

And speaking of keyboard shortcuts, this is amazing, you can customize your own keyboard shortcuts in Jane. So if there is a phrase that you use a lot in your chart notes or a treatment that you use all the time, you can create a shortcut to insert it. It’s like copy and paste, but the text is always saved within Jane and you create your own code for it. So I have it set up for the point protocol that I use for a standard cosmetic acupuncture treatment and I just put the shortcut, which is only a couple keystrokes into the patient chart and it pastes all of that, text all of the points and then I can kind of go back through and customize if I changed anything. But setting up your own keyboard shortcuts for frequently used phrases and treatments makes charting so fast and easy. And of course, you can duplicate a previous chart for the same patient, which also helps. But the keyboard shortcuts are just another level up that I think is so smart. And again, it’s one of those things that just I enjoy very much, like some really clever people work at Jane.

[MICHELLE] (23:52):

The last thing that I’ll say is that onboarding the acupuncturist who works with me at my office was super easy. And I was a little worried about this because I thought I would have to sit down and teach her how to use Jane and what happened instead, and this was a super surprise, was I created her account in Jane and she got an email onboarding her from Jane. So it walked her through the process. It basically, when she logged into Jane, she got that welcome email and then she got a series of notifications with videos for how to use different parts of Jane, how to schedule people, how to take payment, how to customize a chart template and how to use charting shortcuts, et cetera, et cetera. So by the time she had her first patients on the calendar and she was ready to go at my office, she already knew how to use Jane and I did not have to teach her. So I thought that was really pretty incredible.

(24:55):

I know I said that was the last thing, but one more, because this is a marketing feature. It’s called canceled patient Reschedule reminders. So basically, you can tell Jane to send an automated email to a patient, for example, someone who just canceled with the date and time that you want to suggest for them to come back. So if this person always comes in on Mondays at 3:00 PM you could set this email from Jane to offer them 3:00 PM the following Monday to remind them to get back on your schedule. So when they click on this email, it’s going to bring them to your calendar online in Jane and it’s going to offer them 3:00 PM on Monday the following week because that’s what you said it to and all they have to do is say yes or no, I want it or I don’t want to reserve it. So I’m sure you experience this all the time, but people always say they will reschedule. They’re like, yeah, yeah, I’ll go online and I’ll book again, and then you never see them again or it takes a month and a half. So this is such a great way to prevent that from happening.

(26:01):

And obviously, it’s much less work than you having to put a note on your calendar. Oh, if so and so doesn’t reschedule by this date, I need to reach out and send them an email or give them a phone call. Jane just makes this super easy and intuitive. You can set it up the moment that they have to cancel. Alright, these are some of my absolute favorite features inside Jane. There are more, but I feel like that that’s probably enough today. I really just wanted to share that even though I know switching to a new EHR is a big deal, I really think it’s worth it. I think Jane is pretty special. A lot of thought and heart and feedback went into creating Jane and is always going into updating Jane. They’ll never be done adding these amazing little features that make your life easier. So if you have questions, you are always more than welcome to email me about my experience with Jane or switching EHRs, whatever you need. My email is michelle@michellegrasek.com.

[MICHELLE] (27:08):

And again, the link for setting up a free demo with Jane is in the show notes along with the code for your free one-month Grace period, which is [ACUSCHOOL1MO].

(27:19):

All right, thank you for being here. As always, I appreciate you. And before you go, I have a brand-new free PDA credit class for you called Pelvic Care for Acupuncturist introductory course and I am hosting this class, but it will be taught by acupuncturist and physical therapist, Dr. Crystal Couture. So she teaches both introductory and advanced pelvic floor classes for acupuncturists and in this free one hour class, she’ll be talking about the anatomy of the pelvic floor, the need for more pelvic care support, treating pelvic pain with acupuncture and concepts around TCM and pelvic floor vitality. This class will be live on Wednesday, June 24th at 12:00 PM Eastern time and it’s worth one N-C-C-A-O-M-P-D-A credit. And of course, if you can’t attend live, a replay will be available for everyone who registers. The link is in my bio and I really hope you can join us. Of course, send me your questions if you have any. I hope to see you there.