Dr. Rogelio Liboon is a solo practitioner in the sense that he is often the sole person working in his office. Doing everything from patient intake to prepping exam rooms to seeing patients, Dr. Liboon is used to doing it all on his own. However, when it came to the adoption of electronic health records for his office, he knew he needed some expert help. He sought out CHITREC in 2011 to help him get started. “I knew I couldn’t do it alone and CHITREC had the resources I needed to adopt an EHR successfully,” said Liboon.
CHITREC is designated by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology to assist clinicians in Chicago as they work toward becoming meaningful users of EHRs. CHITREC delivers education, training, tools and assessments to help primary care providers achieve meaningful use of EHRs. After signing up in October 2011, Dr. Liboon worked alongside Sam Ross, a Provider Resource Coordinator, to get started, “Sam was very knowledgeable and he helped with all the problems from beginning to end,” Liboon recalled. Within six months Dr. Liboon was attesting to Meaningful Use as part of the Medicare EHR Incentive Program.
Liboon said he was grateful for CHITREC helping him through the process, “It’s so overwhelming at first!” he said. “It only took a few months and it was not as big of a challenge as I was expecting,” he continued. While he acknowledges the difficulties, “the first three months were hard and I relied on Sam a lot for help,” Dr. Liboon confidently recommends the use of EHRs to his fellow colleagues.
“The best part of my EHR is the prescription capabilities, it is so easy for me now to track my patients’ medication as well as prescribe new medications,” said Liboon. He is happy with how the new EHR has integrated into his routine and he believes that it has saved him lots of time in regards to billing, “with my billing integrated into my EHR, tracking my hours has become much more efficient and accurate.”
Almost two years after adopting his EHR, Dr. Liboon is glad to have made the change, “while the incentive program was a primary motivator for adopting an EHR, I am glad to see how much easier my job has become and how much faster the whole process is. Things have just clicked and it is so easy to use now,” he said.