As the adoption of certified electronic health records (EHRs) continues to increase, more practitioners are setting up electronic laboratory ordering to help increase practice efficiency. By eliminating the manual processes associated with paper-based orders, electronic lab ordering in an EHR saves time, improves order accuracy, and drives better patient care.

Healthie’s E-labs feature gives providers the ability to include a variety of lab tests from Quest Diagnostics directly within their packages.  Clients are able to purchase the package, have the testing done, and get the results sent back to both their and your Healthie portals.  Leveraging Healthie’s electronic lab features allows you, as the provider, to expand your service offerings, generate extra income, and streamline client care to one comprehensive platform. To set up a free Starter account for your practice today, click here. 

Benefits of Offering Electronic Lab Ordering In Your Practice

✨ Streamlines the electronic lab process

Electronic labs are extremely beneficial for those providers who may not typically be able to order labs for their clients.  E-labs include automatic approval by a physician, saving time for both you, as the provider, and client.  If you feel a lab test is necessary, you can easily recommend it to a client and speed up the process by skipping the step of communicating with a physician.

Clients are also able to pay for the electronic lab directly through their EHR, saving them time at the testing center.  They can focus on getting the test done, without spending too much time on paperwork or payments.  Having clients order and pay for their electronic labs through their EHR also gives you the opportunity to generate extra income, by slightly increasing the price to make a small profit.  

It also saves time on the back and forth between you and the testing center.  Once results are generated, they are automatically sent back to your EHR.  You’re bound to get your clients’ panels back sooner than if you had to continually check up on the status of the results, and subsequently can update your client as well.

✨ Improves patient outcomes

Storing client lab results within your EHR allows for comprehensive care.  Providers are able to get an even more complete picture of their client’s health as well as potential ailments and tailor their interventions to individual client’s needs. Electronic labs are extremely beneficial in providing preventative care; they are able to show abnormalities and alert providers if clients are at-risk of adverse health conditions.

Keeping electronic labs over a long period of time offers another method for tracking client progress.  Both providers and clients can compare previous numbers to current, and see the numbers improve over time.  Using a more relevant and data-driven approach will help clients feel confident in their progress, and propel them to continue working on their goals. Once your clients see their results forming, it will give them motivation and align them to stay determined and focused throughout their entire journey.

Healthie’s Electronic Lab Ordering  Feature

Healthie’s e-Labs allows you to bundle specific lab tests within a package, which you can recommend to clients (new or existing) for purchase. Once a client orders a lab test package online, they will be prompted to set up an appointment at a Quest lab draw site located near them. If you’re struggling to find a trusted EHR platform, consider trying Healthie’s free starter plan to test our extensive features for $0.

Clients will visit the draw site to have their blood drawn, and Quest lab will run the ordered tests. Results are then sent to the provider, and client, electronically through Healthie. E-Labs essentially is a quick and efficient way for clients to receive specific lab work at the recommendation of you, their wellness provider.

Creating a Package with Electronic Labs

To create a package within Healthie, click on the Billing tab, and select “Client Packages” from the drop-down menu.  Begin creating a new package by giving it a title, a description, and deciding on the visibility settings.  

Then, click on the “Included Items” tab, and scroll to find the “Labs” drop-down menu.  From there, you can select any of the labs you would like to include in this package.  

Pricing Your Electronic Labs Package

When you create a package with a Lab in it, fixed lab costs and order fees will display in the pricing that you see.  At this time, clients are required to pay for labs out of pocket, and labs purchased via Healthie are not processed via insurance. Clients can however provide an FSA card just as they would a credit card to process their payment.

In the example below, the fixed lab costs and fees are displayed in the first row. Once the package is processed, these fees cannot be refunded, should you or your client need a change in labs.

You are optionally able to mark up the lab’s fixed fees to make a profit on labs that you offer in your business. You can do this by increasing the price of the Package, below the minimum package price that is displayed. The system will prevent you from entering a Package Price that is below the lab costs and fees.

Within a Client Package that includes an E-lab, you are also able to incorporate Sessions, Programs, and other products that you offer. Simply add these to the “Included Items” when creating the package. Make sure that you’ve incorporated these other offerings into your overall package price.

You will then receive the mark-up (minus the lab’s fixed fees), minus Stripe’s credit card processing fees, as you normally do, via Healthie’s Payment system. Healthie’s helpful tools reduce the administrative time of corporate wellness professionals by over 40% and enables real-time communication within an organization and with clients.

Sharing Your Package

Once you’ve created your package, you can share it with clients either internally within Healthie, or using the share links outside of the platform.  To share internally, when editing your visibility settings, make the package visible to all clients or the specific client group the package is targeted towards.  You could also copy and paste the URL and share it as a message blast to clients.

You can also use the package link in a variety of ways to share your package outside of the platform.  Include the link in your email campaigns or newsletters to market it to new clients, or create buttons on your website that clients can click to purchase.  The embed code within your package on Healthie also allows you to embed a package directly into your website for lab ordering and purchasing.  

Interested in learning more about Healthie E-labs? Check out our help article here, or watch a replay of our live class here.