Selection 10 min read

Best EHR for Sleep Medicine Practices (2026 Buyer Guide)

Sleep medicine practices depend on tight coordination between diagnostic studies, device therapy, and ongoing compliance follow-up. The wrong EHR fragments these workflows and creates gaps in CPAP adherence tracking, referral closure, and reimbursement documentation. This guide covers what to evaluate before you commit.

What Sleep Medicine Groups Need That General EHR Buyers Miss

  • Polysomnography and home sleep test result integration with structured AHI, oxygen desaturation, and sleep staging data
  • CPAP and BiPAP compliance data import from device manufacturers for therapy adherence monitoring
  • Home sleep testing workflows including equipment tracking, patient instructions, and result interpretation
  • Referral management with tracking from initial consult request through study completion and treatment initiation
  • Prior authorization workflows for diagnostic studies and DME that capture payer-specific documentation requirements

Procurement Criteria for Sleep Medicine

1. Sleep study result integration

The EHR must import polysomnography and home sleep test results as structured data, not scanned PDFs. Key metrics like AHI, RDI, oxygen nadir, and sleep efficiency should populate discrete fields that support clinical decision-making and quality reporting. Ask vendors to demo how in-lab PSG results and home sleep test data appear in the patient chart. If the provider must open a separate portal or manually transcribe study findings, the integration is not adequate for clinical workflow.

2. CPAP compliance tracking

Medicare and most commercial payers require documented CPAP compliance data at 30, 60, and 90 days post-initiation. The EHR should import usage data from device cloud platforms (ResMed AirView, Philips Care Orchestrator, or similar) and surface compliance status within the patient chart. Evaluate whether the system alerts staff when a patient is approaching a compliance deadline or falling below the four-hours-per-night threshold. Manual compliance tracking through phone calls and faxed reports is unsustainable at scale.

3. Home sleep test workflow management

Home sleep testing requires equipment assignment, patient education documentation, device return tracking, and result interpretation. The EHR should manage this end-to-end lifecycle within the clinical workflow rather than relying on spreadsheets or separate inventory systems. Demo the complete HST cycle from order to result to verify the system handles equipment logistics alongside clinical documentation.

4. Referral management and closure

Sleep medicine operates primarily on referral. The EHR must track incoming referrals from scheduling through study completion and treatment initiation, with visibility into referrals that stall at any stage. Evaluate whether the system provides a referral dashboard that shows pending studies, incomplete follow-ups, and patients who were referred but never scheduled. Lost referrals represent direct revenue leakage in sleep medicine.

Red Flags in Sleep Medicine EHR Selection

  • Sleep study results are stored as flat PDF attachments with no structured data extraction
  • No integration with CPAP device cloud platforms for automated compliance data import
  • Home sleep test equipment tracking requires a separate inventory management system
  • Vendor has no existing sleep medicine clients who can validate study-to-treatment workflow continuity

Implementation Guardrails

  • Validate sleep study result integration by running parallel data comparison between the EHR and your sleep lab system for the first 30 days
  • Configure CPAP compliance import and test threshold alerts before go-live to confirm that deadline notifications fire correctly
  • Build a referral tracking dashboard and establish baseline metrics for referral-to-study conversion rates during the first 60 days
  • Run a 30-day post-go-live audit of DME and study-related claim denials to catch prior authorization documentation gaps

Bottom Line

Sleep medicine EHR selection succeeds when the system connects diagnostic studies, device compliance tracking, and referral management into a single workflow. Prioritize structured data integration over feature checklists and verify that the vendor has proven sleep medicine deployments with measurable compliance and referral performance data.

Next Steps