Selection 13 min read

Best EHR for General Surgery Groups (2026 Buyer Guide)

General surgery groups need EHR systems that connect pre-op, intra-op, and post-op workflows without documentation gaps. Most commercial demos underrepresent this end-to-end coordination complexity.

What matters most for surgical groups

  • Reliable perioperative workflow orchestration across clinics, ASCs, and hospitals.
  • Procedure documentation templates that support coding accuracy and audit defense.
  • Scheduling and block-time visibility with conflict and cancellation controls.
  • Closed-loop post-op follow-up workflows and complication tracking.
  • Interface reliability for labs, imaging, pathology, and facility systems.

Scenario-based evaluation checklist

  1. New surgical consult with pre-op risk, consent, and scheduling handoff.
  2. Procedure-day documentation flow including operative note finalization timing.
  3. Post-op call/visit workflow with escalation and readmission indicators.
  4. Claim review for global periods, modifiers, and denial-rework queues.

Revenue integrity controls to validate

  • Charge-capture controls for procedure bundles and modifiers.
  • Denial reporting by surgeon, facility, and payer root cause.
  • Template and coding governance with periodic physician feedback loops.
  • Workflow support for prior authorization and documentation traceability.

Implementation guardrails

Use staged rollouts by subspecialty or region. Establish surgery-specific governance for templates, op-note quality, and coding review. In the first 90 days, monitor note completion lag, denied surgical claims, and follow-up completion rates weekly.

Bottom line

The best EHR for general surgery groups improves perioperative coordination and protects surgical margin. If the platform cannot demonstrate end-to-end workflow reliability, do not advance it in scoring.

Next Steps

Editorial Standards

Last reviewed:

Methodology

  • Mapped perioperative and post-operative workflows to practical enterprise selection controls.
  • Prioritized documentation and coding controls that materially affect surgical reimbursement and compliance.
  • Aligned recommendations with national quality and interoperability standards relevant to surgical operations.

Primary Sources