When I was at American Laser Centers, they had a home grown scheduling system started by a guy in their IT dept. named Graham.

Well, he had a falling out with the owner and left to start his own company- INET Portals.

I recently had to replace our software and demo'd quite a few of the so called medspa software programs out there.

Once I saw how advanced the INET program had become, I jumped at the chance to implement in my medspa. It's relatively cheap, does everything that you have asked for and has the ability to upload your charts.

It can be customized to show all of the different treatment rooms and staff scheduling as well. each room can be automatically scheduled for the minimum time required for each treatment. ie: LHR for full legs is going to be different than injecting 1 vial of Restalyne.

I still keep my paper charts for a hard copy of the initial paperwork: the HIPPA, financial contract, health history, pre and post treatment protocols etc. but upload all the treatment records.

Best of all, from a business standpoint, INET has the unparalleled ability to slice and dice every bit of marketing and sales data you can put into it, so it is very effective at helping me drive my business to higher levels.

I have no idea about the eligiblity for the federal reimbursement.

Their website is: http://www.inetportals.com/

I'm pretty impressed with them.

Thanks so much. Do you do any surgeries such as Laser liposucion? Can the software accomodate anything beyond the usual scope of medspa business such as those surgeries?

As of now we do not offer Laser lipo-however, my investors are looking to add it to the practice with my medical director(licensed board certified plastic surgeon) performing treatment.

Right now we don't have a "room" or operating room for those invasive type of treatments, and we were looking to perform the treatments off-site. I have been working with INET to see exactly how we can schedule those procedures in their system as well as track the $$$ collected and the payroll expense of the room and the procedures performed.

However, we DO offer teeth whitening and my dentist also does Invisalign and Veneers. All of those (cosmetic only) dental treatments are tracked through INET, so I don't think there will be a problem adding the laser lipo.

If you are going offsite to a hospital, it may be a little trickier to set up-but the INET support is outstanding.

Right now with the economy so... odd...well I guess I mean...crazy.... I have to really keep an eye on what is producing revenue and what is not. I have always been a little anal retentive about tracking $$$ but after The Great Recession I have had to become fanatic.

I have learned the hard way that myself and my staff has to be able to turn on a dime if something that we've tried is not working out. I literally have called INET support staff at 5:30pm on a Friday night and they have dropped everything to sit on the phone and brain storm strategies with me to get the reports and the scheduling that I need.

Because INET is not true software, it's web based, it is very easy for them to customize anything you need from them...for VERY short money. But I know they are working with other MedSpas that offer surgery so you should be in good hands.

good luck

Hi. I am a partner in a fairly new start-up, free-standing, Urgent Care & Wellness Center (aka medical day spa). Likewise, i have found this an EXTREMELY difficult and daunting task, We have a need for a complete system for our urgent care center that can provide all the features required of an ambulatory medical clinic, such as the EMR/EHR, practice management, insurance claims scrubbingbilling, integration of our in-house digital imaging, laboratory testing, point of care dispensing, and inventory management. If that isn't hard enough to find, we also were needing something (preferrably 1 system) that will also manage our wellness center patients, including the registration, appointment booking, documentation (ie Botox/Juvederm diagrams), photo management, retail, point of sale, ecommerce, marketing, plus staff management. I have come to the realization that this "PERFECT" system does not exist. I have personally done about 40 software demo's , and there are some really good systems out there. Unfortunately, I have yet to find one that does it all, but i have noticed somewhat of a trend in their capabilities.

1. EMR/EHR/PM-The systems geared to general medical/surgical practices have the best insurance billing and EMR/EHR and integration with diagnostic equipment. They will also be the ones that are ONC certified, CCHIT certified, and will monitor/help you qualify for the stimulus money. (BTW- You must go live and have 90 days worth of data for 2012 to qualify this year!) However, very few of these systems have inventory management, and almost none are capable of employee/time management, retail (point of sale/inventory/commissions/loyalty tracking/gift cards etc.) Most of the medical systems that are full featured are rather pricey and implementation requires a significant committment from the entire staff.

2. Day Spa/Med Spa Software - These tend to have awesome appointment (provider or resource based) scheduling systems (w/sms or phone reminders), retail, point of sale, inventory, loyalty point systems/ gift cards, employee management, time tracking/commission tracking, booth/room rental, marketing, and CRM. However, these systems significantly lack on the ability to document a full medical record (usually just client preferences), and many do not integrate a medical or insurance based billing system, nor do they have Rx writers built in. Last but not least, these are not going to be ONC certified for meaningful use.

3. Dermatology/Plastic Surgery Medical Record Software - These systems to have a mixture of features from both of the medical systems and day spa systems. However, most are geared toward these specialties, so I've yet to find one that will serve our need, Lastly, these systems can be cost prohibitive for new or small facilities, or for day spas.

The following are the most comprehensive systems I have encountered:

*****NexTech (awesome marketing/letter writing module. Send out promos/letters/etc via mass email, without leaving the system.

****Patient NOW

****SuiteMed

****Waiting Room Solutions

I am still trying to figure out exactly how and what we are going to implement, but perhaps this will help some. Also, if anyone out there has any feedback on any of these systems, please feel free to comment back.

Thanks,
S. Chambless

Sorry, I forgot to mention that the price will vary significantly over these categories of software. It depends on if you are going to have an "in-house" server system, a hosted system, or SaaS (cloud) based system. This can be very confusing....

- "In-House" System - means you have to purchase a server, you purchase the software (and hopefully it includes a lifetime of upgrades). Everything "lives" on your hardware that you have to buy, usually resides in your office, and you have to ensure maintenance, back-up, disaster/recovery plans are in place, and HIPAA security rules are followed. This model has the largest upfront cost.... usually. 75K-100K + (depending on your size of course)

- Hosted (or mixed) model - means you purchase the software, or a component of it anyway, but the sofware itself lives on the software company's server, they maintain it, back it up, monitor the security, etc. Some companies want an upfront fee, plus a hosting fee, others alllow you to pay the sofware costs out over time, but the hosting fee will always be there. Some require additional remote access licenses / VPN's (Citrix, etc). Also, it depends on if the software company will also be doing your billing.... If so, they may charge a % of collections, plus a per/provider fee.....WATCH THE MINIMUMS! For example, if a company charges.... say 6% of your collections, that is not so bad right? Well, what if the 6% must total a minimum of $6K? Not so great anymore! The overall cost of these systems can vary signficantly, but is often less upfront than the in-house server.

-The latest is taking everything to the "cloud" and software-as-a-service (SaaS). These are the latest, more affordable models. Basically you pay a monthly or yearly subscription fee.... or perhaps a "per use" fee that is usually far more affordable that any software purchase. Everything is kept on the world wide web, on the software company's server, accessible from anywhere on most any device. Cheaper, however, is not without sacrifice..... or at least a good plan. The problem is, you are putting all your eggs in 1 basket. EVERYTHING is on THEIR server(s).... HIPAA compliant? Disaster Recovery? Internet goes down? or What if they go out of business.... with your data? IIf you discontinue subscription, are they going to give you access in a format where you can run a conversion to a new system? It's still new, so there is a lot to think about and sort through. Sticking with a reputable company that has been in the software business for a long time is key!!

The last note is regarding the stimulus $$$.... Just because you go live with a system that is certified for meaningful use, doesn't gurantee you will get it. There are core measures that you have to designate and it is my understanding that you qualify based ont he number of medicare patients you see. So, if your practice doesn't have many medicare patients with billable visits, you may not meet requirements.

I am not an expert by any means.... just a small business owner, starting up with limited funds, and wearing many hats!!! More than I ever wanted to!