ClientTell Blog

There was a time when the practice of medicine seemed almost recession proof. If you are facing the cash-flow woes of most physicians, then you know that is indeed not the case. Perhaps family practices have been hit the hardest by the current economy and recent “healthcare crisis”, but even the most exclusive practices have been forced to do more – with less.

There are many ways the medical office, as with any business, can “trim the fat” without compromising patient care. Here are few methods to streamline — to improve the bottom line.

The unfortunate truth of the matter is, with reimbursements being cut – the only way to improve your revenue is to see more patients. But if you do not do that efficiently you will do more harm than good. One of the best ways to streamline a practice today is to implement an EMR. It is understandable that in an article about “saving money” it is hard to justify that kind of investment. But EMRs do eventually pay for themselves, admittedly with a protracted payback. On the other hand, if you already have an EMR in place, and many practices do – insist that you are using it to its fullest extent. Be sure you and your staff understand every function that your system is capable of – you will likely be surprised at how much time can be saved by using all of the features that already exist in your EMR.

Consider implementing automatic patient reminder service if that is not part of your EMR. If you do not have an EMR, such services are not a huge investment, and can make a big difference in your income.

Billing
One of the best ways for any medical office to save time and money is to think about outsourcing medical billing. Taking the weight of dealing with billing off of your in-house staff frees them up to concentrate on core competencies, and otherwise make your office run more smoothly, or affords you the opportunity to save money by cutting staff.

Perhaps the best reason to use an outside billing service however is that they are most likely much better at collections than your in-house accounting staff.

Medical billing companies only make money if they are successful. It is in their own best interest to aggressively pursue your past-due accounts. Also, outsourced medical billing services have to be up on the latest regulations regarding bill collection and changes in billing codes- this is their primary business, not yours.

General Money Saving Tips
These may seem obvious but consider:
• If you pay for your heat and electricity in the office, install a setback thermostat; they cut utility bills in the office as well as at home!
• Buy office supplies and other non-medical supplies in bulk from one of the large “warehouse stores” such as Costco. If you work in a medical building, and if you do not do so already, consider ordering supplies with other practices.
• Try renegotiating your lease with your landlord – in these times he or she may be willing to lower the rent, rather than risk an empty office space.
• Speaking of space, are you using yours as efficiently as possible? Could you rent out part of your space to an income-generating partner or ancillary service provider?
• Put off any unnecessary purchases of big-ticket items, or office improvements. If you do have to buy something, look for quality used equipment rather than new.

It is impossible for any medical practice to thrive today without being proactive about the cost of doing business.

Attending a medical conference or convention has always been part of Continuing Medical Education. However, in these tough economic times, you may be faced with cutting back on the number of conventions you go to. Your income may be down, incentives by the sponsors of the conventions are fewer and fewer, and your practice may suffer for the time you are away at a medical conference. Now more than ever it is important to understand how to make the most out of any medical conference you choose to attend.

Despite the enticing brochure or email alert that you just received – the question you need to ask yourself is “why should I go” to any given medical conference. To answer that question you need to do cost- benefit analysis as you would with any other major purchase decision for your practice. Length, topic, and location are the key factors. How far away is the conference? What will it cost to get there and stay there? How long will you need to attend? And, ultimately what will you gain from the subject matter? A local seminar with an attendance fee of $45.00 that lasts an hour on a new protocol specific to your practice may be a no-brainer to attend, your specialty’s annual week-long meeting on the other side of the country – not so much.

In the past when times were different, many practitioners looked upon medical conferences as not only a chance to obtain needed CME credits, but to catch up with old friends and colleagues and enjoy an interesting tourist location. While such social opportunities are certainly still part of the major conventions, today the decision to attend or not attend is far more often driven by the content of the meeting, then the allure of sandy beaches.

Know Your Objectives

If you have made the decision to attend a given conference, according to professional event planners the best way to get the most out of your time there is to plan ahead. Know what you want to achieve at that meeting before you sign up for your badge at the registration table. Prioritize to maximize your time. Understand why it is that you wish to attend, whether that is for specific CME, practice management solutions, or personal development – and plan to attend lectures and seek out vendors and presenters that match your goals – before you arrive. The agendas of almost any medical conference are usually available online long before the convention begins – some are even downloadable “Aps” to your smartphone or PDA.

The medical conference is still a great way for medical professionals to share ideas, communicate best practice solutions, and generally enhance the practice of medicine. However, as with just about everything else in your practice today – you need to streamline your approach to attendance – to get the most bang for the buck.

In the front and center debate about Healthcare Reform, both Electronic Health Records, (EHRs) and Healthcare Information Technology (HIT) have seemed to take a bit of a back seat. However, now that the dust has settled on the Reform Bill, practicing physicians need to be reminded that more than a year ago, before the passage of Healthcare Reform as part of the original stimulus bill, President Obama created incentives and set asides for implementation of EHR and other HIT solutions. If you have not thought seriously about Electronic Medical Records, now is the time to start.

First some definitions. If you have at all looked into an EHR solution then undoubtedly you have come across several different terms. EHR, EMR and PHR – it can all start to seem so much like alphabet soup. As already stated, EHR stands of Electronic Health Record. The earlier accepted term was EMR for Electronic Medical Record – and now there is another solution commonly referred to as a Personal Health Record or PHR. There are technical, albeit subtle differences between the three.

If you do not understand the differences, you are not alone – the terms are often misused interchangeably even by those who sell the products!

Particularly between EHR and EMR, there may seem to be little or no difference, but there are clearly defined technical distinctions, and you need to be aware of these because the incentives in the Health IT portion (also known as the HITECH ACT) of the Stimulus Bill, are based on what defines an EHR.

In 2003 Health Level 7, part of the American Standards Institute was given the responsibility by the Institute of Medicine to come up with a precise definition of an EHR. HL7 based its definition on functionality. It defined an EHR as an integrated system that had to have over 100 specific capabilities and levels of function. The point of HL7’s definition was the idea of integration and that an EHR was a system that accomplished all of the specified tasks. HL7 made it clear that all of those operations did not need to be provided to the hospital, facility or medical office by a single vendor.

So in other words, you could get the software that runs your patient information services such as appointment reminders and lab result notifications from one vendor, and your e-prescribing software from another, as long as they all work together in a single functional system. This is the main distinction between an EHR and an EMR. In fact, according to HL7’s definition, an EMR can be part of the entire EHR solution.

These subtle distinctions may seem trivial, but they all become important as certifying bodies search for what will define “meaningful use” that will guarantee that a given EHR solution will qualify for the incentives in the HITECH Act. This idea of Electronic Health Records as an integrated system was backed-up by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS). Furthermore, the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT), the non-profit organization that has been given the contract by the federal government to certify EHRs, currently uses the original HL7 critera as the core for issuing its certifications.

With incentives that are becoming available, and with every medical practice being forced to streamline, cut expenses, and do more with less – over the next few years, the decision to implement an EHR solution will likely be one of the most critical to any practice.

In observance of the Memorial Day Holiday ClientTell will be closed Monday May 31, 2010. In order for your calls to be made efficiently please send appointment reminder files through Tuesday June 1, 2010 no later than Friday May 28, 2010.

Thank you and have a safe Memorial Day!

Social Networking

The digital age is here, and social network marketing is critical to creating a brand identity, building communities, and maintaining communication with clients. The corporate world is recognizing this, as every major brand has a Facebook page where it can reach out to its community of loyal followers

The same technology that can be used to update interested consumers on the latest products from NIKE, Lexus or Honda – can and should also be used to keep your patients abreast of vital health information.

Last year, during the peak of the H1N1 outbreak, your patients were undoubtedly subjected to a lot of misinformation, and in some cases downright lies about dangers and exposure levels, the source of most of which was the internet.

Yet, when used responsibly by true healthcare professionals these same digital technologies can be leveraged to ensure that you patents receive accurate and reliable information. Case in point: hospitals in the UK sent out text messages informing patients of the symptoms of H1N1, and what to do if they were experiencing them.

The hospital used an outside “patient messaging service” that is linked into the hospital systems patient database. Use of such a platform to communicate specific info about the Swine Flu is a great example of how forward thinking physicians can use text messaging, an increasingly popular method of “personal” communication, which patients appreciate.

Furthermore, text messaging such as this allows practices of all sizes to send “community” specific information to patient groups. For example, you can send a message to all of your diabetes or arthritis patients updates about new treatment options available through your practice, or in your area.

Texting is also a great way to send your patients appointment reminders, appointment conformations, and lab results.

So, while the Internet and social networking can often be a bane to practitioners, who have to deal with patients coming in “knowing it all” – these technologies can also be leveraged responsibly. This allows not only healthcare agencies, but also individual practitioners, to ensure that patients receive accurate, reliable, and timely information during a real or potential health crisis – and helps to once again establish you, the practicing physician, as their most trusted source for medical information.

There was a time when healthcare seemed to be almost recession proof. Any physician, regardless of the area of practice, knows that today, that’s is just nowhere near the truth any longer. Add in the uncertainty caused by the impact of the recently passed healthcare reform, and many doctors now find themselves in the unfamiliar, and uncomfortable position, facing almost every other business during tough times – finding ways to do more, with less. However, if there is one thing that can be said about medical professionals, it is that they are a tenacious lot – and certainly up to facing challenges.

Just as physicians know the best way to treat disease is to be proactive – now is not the time to “wait and see” when it comes to your medical practice surviving and thriving in this recession.

Traditionally, practicing physicians did not have to rely as much as other types of businesses on advertising and marketing to survive. However, today, due to the on going healthcare crisis people are seeing themselves less as patients, and more as “medical consumers”. With lack of adequate health insurance and higher deductibles, patients are going increasingly out of pocket for medical care. They are now shopping for healthcare the same way they shop for everything else. And that means branding and brand loyalty are as important to your practice as they are to NIKE or McDonalds.

“Branding” is a great way to improve any medical practice. Yet many physicians may not be that skilled in the areas of marketing and public relations, certainly these skills are not taught in medical schools. With your practice facing a financial crunch, you may not have the ability to hire an outside marketing or PR firm. Here are some ways you can start to establish a brand identity for your practice and leverage the latest marketing techniques.

Make Use of Your Staff

As we said earlier most physicians may not have the skills, or background, certainly not the time, to establish a brand identity and marketing strategy for their practice. However someone else in your office might, probably your office manager, or practice manger. They will have studied marketing as part of their training to become a medical office manager; they may even have an advanced degree in business administration. In any event, as the main point of contact between the medial practice and the public, the PM can be crucial in establishing and maintaining the brand identity for the office and the physician within.

Now is the time to establish, or increase your online presence. According branding experts, the internet and Social Networking is critical to creating a brand today. Start with a blog. Then continue to build brand awareness by leveraging the large aggregators such as Facebook or Twitter. Delegate this responsibility. Most practicing physicians will not have the time, nor desire to partake in such activities, but your office manger, or other member of your staff is likely already using these very sites!

Colorectal cancer screening saves lives. If everyone aged 50 years old or older were screened regularly, as many as 60% of deaths from this cancer could be avoided.

ClientTell can call your patient population on demand to remind them to schedule their annual screening. The process is very easy, simply contact us and we will get you started. It is a great way to improve the health of your patients through preventative healthcare.
To learn more or get started, please call our office at 1.877.244.9178.

During HIMSS, Healthcare IT News New Media Manager Chip Means stopped by our booth and interviewed us.

Because of the great feedback we have received from dentists across the country, we have decided to exhibit at the Greater New York Dental Show between November 29th and November 2nd. We love New York and we are very excited to visit the Big Apple and talk to prospective dentists. Our booth number is 4410. As always we will have giveaways and we would love to meet you there.

We are going to Denver! After having so much fun at the MGMA for the last two years, ClientTell is exhibiting again at the annual MGMA conference. Our booth number is 511. We will have a lot of fun giveaways. Come by to see us.