iRVU app is a simple resource tracker for physicians that needs some further enhancements

By Surinder Yadav MD

The iRVU app is a simple and extremely resourceful tracker of your daily work whether it’s in a clinic, in the ER, or in the hospital — yet it probably needs some further enhancements before it becomes an essential part or your practice.

As a hospitalist, I find it extremely difficult to keep track of my workload, which means that I never really know what my real time billing produces are in regards to relative work units.

The iRVU app allows you to have at least an estimate for your daily RVUs and automates the calculation so that you don’t have to spend time adding it all up. It is simple and to the point.

The home screen:

You have to be familiar with the codes, which most of us are. If you’re not familiar with these codes, the app does not help you — and you probably won’t benefit from it.

Overall, this is an extremely useful but limited app. It fits the bill as a simple daily tracker for your billing / encounters and RVU estimates which you can then print and store somewhere. At the very least, the option to print is helpful.

The encounter data is separated out into helpful categories such as hospital HP, follow up, consult, discharge, critical care services, observation, ED encounter and clinic services as well.

All you need to do is tap on the desired encounter service and add in the appropriate number with the pop up keyboard which automatically drives data population in the RVU summary field giving you a total of your encounters, total RVUs and charges.