Plato
Plato
In the Cycle 2 review, there has been a significant dip in response numbers from Plato users in our CMS User Survey. The CMS Sutra project team has checked in with our CMS reviewers to identify the phenomenon, and this drop in response numbers could be reflective of a decline in active users among our survey population. The stand-out feature of Plato remains its rock-solid stability. However, its adoption of HealthierSG functionalities appears to lag behind.
Ease of Use, NEHR and Meeting Grant Requirements
As one reviewer remarks: “Although the HealthierSG functions are technically fulfilled, there is too much manual work involved with claims - it is almost like working with pen and paper.” SmartCMSes should aid clinics to streamline processes down to further improve clinical operations. The reviewer further illustrates to the team that claims are still not native within the system and the clinic must still go through MHCP for CHAS and Medisave claims. The reviewer reports having to go through the claim reference numbers manually to reconcile claims as they are unable to reconcile the claims within the Plato system. From our User Survey, 54.5% of users have given a rating of 3 stars and above for the CMS ability to calculate billing for different coverage between HealthierSG and non-HealthierSG patients. After being shown the billing workflow to the CMS Sutra team, it is easy to see that there is still much manual work that is needed for the user to key in by themselves. This will reflect in additional time spent on manual administrative work that is taken away from clinical staff which factors into cost for efficiency if the clinic owner were to engage additional staffing.
Another CMS Reviewer mentioned that “there is too much manual work needed to do to achieve the Early Contribution Incentives, and it is not within my power to fix the issues”. Looking at our User Survey, less than 20% of respondents have given a rating of 4 to 5 stars for Plato’s ability to meet the NEHR accuracy standards criteria. This is a concerning figure as it suggests that while passing the criteria is a possibility, variability is high and the system might not be as intuitive for the common user to meet the NEHR accuracy requirements. With regards to the timeliness criteria, approximately 30% of respondents have rated 4 to 5 stars, this average rating is sometimes related to an issue with the clinics’ IT systems as data is already available in the CMS and much improvement is needed on the CMS’ capabilities to deliver the data to NEHR timely.
Health Plan, Inventory and HealthierSG Whitelist Drugs
Based on our User Survey, ratings were also lower in the confidence levels as compared to other SmartCMSes regarding the CMS’s capability to apply price caps to whitelisted drugs, with only 27.3% of respondents giving a rating of 4 to 5 stars. Some users reported personal experience of non-Whitelist medications being subjected to price caps, leading to monetary losses. This could potentially be due to inventory stocking issues or inaccuracy in the application of price caps. It is recommended that users who encounter such issues should consider providing the details of these cases to the CMS team for troubleshooting so steps could be adopted to prevent it from recurring.
System Stability, User Support and Perceived Value
Plato is still regarded very highly as one of the most stable CMSes, with more than half of our User Survey respondents giving a perfect rating of 5 stars for system stability. Our reviewers have also agreed that Plato is a very stable system and they have not experienced any system crashes since adopting the Plato system. This is a highly valuable aspect, as clinics would have a peace of mind on an operational basis.
Plato’s built in clinic appointment system is also a very useful additional feature which is easy to set up for clinics as well as for patients to book appointments. CMS Sutra reviewers mentioned that improvements could still be made regarding patient cancellations to free up appointment time slots on the physician’s dashboard, as it is currently manual cancellations with patients having no ability to cancel appointments from their end.
Summary
All in all, Plato is a very stable system for clinical operations with low to no crashes. Plato is also a feature-rich CMS that is easy to use, with a 100% rating of 3 stars and above from respondents from our User Survey. However, much more improvements should be made to automate processes to better aid the multitude of manual tasks needed for billing and claims.
To learn more or book a demo, head over to https://platomedical.com/
