Medical Practice Management Software
Features, Development Roadmap, Costs
In healthcare IT since 2005, ScienceSoft engineers custom PMS solutions for hospitals, outpatient clinics, and private practices, focusing on automation of daily operations, ease of use, and data-driven process optimization.
Medical practice management software (PMS) helps healthcare providers schedule patient appointments, code diagnoses and procedures, submit insurance claims and bills, track payments, and analyze the organization’s operational and financial performance.
Healthcare facilities and practitioners increasingly seek advanced and comprehensive functionality in their PMS tools. In the 2024 Gartner Tech Trends Survey, which involved 9,399 interviews with medical software buyers, 24% of participants mentioned they wanted to replace their current systems because of limited functionality (27%), lack of user-friendliness (19%), or inefficiency (19%).
Custom practice management software is often a preferred option when medical practices and clinics need a solution that offers:
- Automation of complex workflows unique to the organization, such as patient referral processes, claim submission and billing for specialized services, or multi-location scheduling.
- Interoperability and data centralization through integration with existing systems, including legacy software and third-party tools (e.g., EHR products by Epic, Cerner).
- Tailored analytics, such as tracking claim denial reasons or patient no-shows, to optimize clinical and administrative procedures.
Implementation time: from 8 to 12+ months.
Typical integrations for practice management software: electronic health records (EHR), a revenue cycle management (RCM) system, a patient portal, CRM, an HR management solution, and health insurers’ systems.
Costs: $300,000–$1,000,000+, depending on complexity. Answer a few questions about your business needs to get a custom quote from our consultants.
Key Capabilities of Practice Management Software
Below, ScienceSoft’s healthcare IT consultants showcase PMS features that are often requested by clinics and healthcare practices among our clients.
Featured Custom Practice Management and Scheduling Solutions by ScienceSoft
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Essential Integrations for Practice Management Software
- Electronic health records (EHR) — to synchronize patient information between the EHR and PMS; to pull diagnosis and medical procedure details from EHR for claims.
- Revenue cycle management (RCM) system — in case an RCM already exists as a separate system or part of the EHR, the PMS would integrate with the RCM to exchange claim and billing data. In the integration scheme above, RCM is an internal module of comprehensive practice management software.
- A patient portal —to let patients book appointments, register for visits, check coverage details, and pay bills online.
- Insurers’ systems — to validate patient insurance eligibility and coverage details; to send claims and track their status.
- Customer relationship management (CRM) system — to collect patient engagement data and allow administrative staff to update patient and appointment info directly via the CRM.
- HR management system — to obtain staff schedules for booking patient appointments.
How to Develop Custom Medical Practice Management Software
Below is a general process overview highlighting the key steps of custom development for practice management software. In real projects, ScienceSoft’s experts adjust this plan to suit the needs of each particular healthcare organization and turn it into a detailed roadmap that specifies the budget, milestones, and risk mitigation strategy for each project stage.
1.
Business analysis and requirement engineering
Business analysts communicate with the healthcare provider’s representatives (executives, medical coders, administrative staff, etc.) to understand the organization’s specific patient registration, appointment scheduling, and claim management workflows. Then, they compose a PMS feature set that can simplify workflows for all user groups, achieve better data consistency between systems, and ultimately increase the bottom line by improving operational efficiency and reducing claim denials.
2.
Compliance planning
Medical practice management software generally has to comply with patient data privacy requirements outlined in HIPAA, HITECH, or GDPR (depending on the country), as well as payment security standards (e.g., PCI DSS) if the solution includes online payment capabilities for patients. Before the development starts, compliance consultants identify features required to meet applicable regulations and standards, such as role-based access control (RBAC), multi-factor authentication (MFA), patient data encryption, full audit trails, and more.
3.
UX/UI design
UX/UI designers create interfaces and dashboards that allow users to conveniently access all the necessary information to complete their tasks.
For example, staff at multi-specialty practices and hospitals might benefit from an appointment scheduling dashboard that shows the recent patient test order statuses and turnaround estimates from EHR or LIS. By alerting staff when a specialist appointment is scheduled before the results are expected to come, the system prevents booking specialist visits too early.
Advanced versions of such dashboards can also recommend the optimal appointment dates based on patient preferences, test result timelines, and physician availability.
4.
Development and QA
At this stage, developers create the back end and front end of a practice management solution according to the requirement specification and UX/UI designs.
When features are delivered, medical staff can beta-test them and provide feedback so that developers can improve the software in future iterations. For example, medical billing specialists can evaluate the adequacy of claim prioritization and categorization capabilities and request to include additional claim types.
Testing is usually done in parallel with development. One of the key QA processes for custom PMS software is testing integrations with the partnering insurers' systems, as delays or inaccuracies in data exchange can lead to revenue losses. Another crucial step is security testing, which validates whether the software meets the requirements of HIPAA and other patient data protection regulations.
5.
Implementation and support
Post-launch, the team monitors the solution’s performance and fixes emerging issues. It also provides the initial training to the healthcare organization’s staff by offering user manuals and consultations. A support team may also be assembled to quickly respond to user queries, provide assistance, and update the PMS as needed.
If you decide to pair your scheduling system with a patient-facing AI chatbot to offload the administrative staff, I suggest implementing several ways to control and enhance its performance after the launch. For example, this can be done by asking patients for feedback on chatbot answers, reviewing and evaluating dialogue samples, and introducing AI self-learning to have the model treat low schedule utilization as a negative reward.
How Much It Costs to Develop Custom Medical Practice Management Software
In ScienceSoft’s experience, custom practice management software development costs vary from $300,000 to $1,000,000+. Key contributing factors are the need for complementary functionality (such as a full-scale RCM module, patient portal, or advanced analytics) and the number of integrations with internal and external systems.
$300,000–$500,000+
PMS for midsize practices that enables patient registration, appointment scheduling, and basic analytics. Claim management capabilities are enabled via an integration with the existing RCM system.
$500,000–$1,000,000+
PMS for midsize and large providers with dedicated features for automated medical coding, patient self-service, RCM capabilities, and advanced operational and financial analytics.
Learn the cost of your PMS
ScienceSoft's experts are ready to provide a non-binding quote for your specific case.
Why Choose ScienceSoft for Your PMS Project
- Since 2005 in healthcare IT.
- 150+ successful projects for the domain.
- Experience in meeting HIPAA, HITECH, and GDPR requirements.
- ISO 13485- and ISO 9001-certified quality management, ISO 27001-certified information security management.
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