Western Pennsylvania Healthcare News

Covering healthcare news in the Pittsburgh region and beyond.

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PACAH Names Baptist Homes Society’s Allison As CEO of the Year

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Baptist Homes Society’s Al Allison, Jr. was named CEO of the Year at the annual meeting of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Affiliated Healthcare and Living Communities (PACAH) held September 26, 2018 at Kalahari Resort in the Poconos. PACAH represents over 143 diverse long-term living and supports providers and associated businesses, including both county, veterans, private, and non-profit nursing facilities. The CEO of the Year award recognizes administrators and/or CEOs from member facilities who have shown innovation, dedication and commitment to their facilities, residents and staff, as well as the advancement of long-term care in general.

At the award celebration, Mr. Allison’s long-term commitment to PACAH was one of several achievements that were recounted. In his role at Baptist Homes Society for the last nine years, Mr. Allison has guided the organization to meaningful growth and recently broke ground for an expansion of Providence Point. Under Al’s direction, Baptist Senior Services also created Providence Home Care and Baptist Management Services. Providence Home Care is a licensed home care company with its office at Providence Point. Through this company, the independent living and personal care residents of the community can receive high-quality, reliable services when needed. Baptist Management Services now allows the organization to partner with other senior living organizations to offer BHS expertise in an effort to help them improve care and incorporate solid business practices in times of transition and change. [Read more…]

Avoid Ambulance Dispatch Delays

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Delays in EMS ambulance dispatch disrupt the entire EMS patient care process.  What begins as a non-issue can easily expand and impact crew resources, transport vehicle resources, patient satisfaction scores, referring agency satisfaction, and above all, patient care. Certainly, some delays are unavoidable due to traffic or other uncontrollable influences.

However, given that EMS dispatch call delays can completely destroy the successful flow of EMS response to emergency and non-emergency scheduled and non-scheduled patient transport requests, the ambulance system must aim to minimize delays.

Read more.

Filed Under: EMS

3 Ways Your Hospital is Leaving Money on the Table

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seanaudleyphoto (2)Maximizing Revenue from Workers’ Compensation in Pennsylvania

By Sean P. Audley

Hospital administrators are always challenged to find ways to generate revenue from their hospital. Nearly every function in your facility can generate revenue, yet many are leaving money on the table, particularly when you’re dealing with workers’ compensation. Whether you outsource your workers’ compensation accounts to a vendor or handle them in house, it’s highly likely you are missing out on significant revenue from these accounts.

The payment of work-related medical bills is controlled by the Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Act and regulations are enacted under its authority. While most claims are not complicated to resolve, some pose roadblocks to payment. These outlier claims are often high dollar accounts and are often contested by employers. They can take months to resolve, tying up valuable staff time. Not understanding the intricacies of the law regulating these claims can result in missed deadlines or lost opportunities for payment.

As a result, your facility may be writing off accounts or settling for a reimbursement amount that is less than what you are entitled to receive. One way you can be more proactive in trying to maximize the revenue from these accounts is to partner with an experienced attorney well versed in workers’ compensation. This will not only increase your recoveries on these cases, but allow your staff to devote their time to less complicated claims, thereby increasing revenue on those as well. [Read more…]

Hamilton Tower Construction on Target for Completion in Summer 2019

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More than two-thirds of the apartment residences have been reserved for the anticipated Hamilton Tower coming in the summer of 2019. Providence Point has already broken ground on the new Hamilton Tower, which will include 70 one- and two-bedroom residential living apartments that include additional guest rooms, underground parking and easy access to the dining renovation.

Even after a heavy rain season, Hamilton Tower construction is on schedule.  Progress includes excavation, wall waterproofing, as well as completion of the under slab plumbing and electrical work, and block foundation walls to grade.  Plus, the preparation for, and the addition of stone is underway, with the placement of structural steel last week.

The goal is to have the main entrance back intact by the holiday season, judging by the outside construction success, and the start of the dining renovations, this goal is certainly an attainable one.

Another significant phase on schedule, and on the inside, are the dining renovations.  The renovations include a mismatch of rooms by moving the Madison Cafe to the Washington Room, and the Light Horse Lounge—a favorite dwelling since it is known for its spirits, to outside of the Bradford Room. Following suit with the outdoor progression, this expansion is expected to be completed in March 2019, and will conclude all of the dining renovations/expansions.

For more information visit www.providencepoint.org

Never a Dull Moment at Providence Point

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“Did you sign the book?” is repeated often at Providence Point. This “book” refers to a massive registry of events in which residents clamber to enter their names to RSVP for events of all sorts within and outside of the senior living community. The consequence of not signing the book could mean an empty social calendar or missing out on an exciting outing-something unheard of at Providence Point.

Nine years ago when retirees began their move into Providence Point, it was apparent that the amenities would be put to good use. The fitness center, the day spa, the pool, the Chartiers Room and the Light Horse Lounge area are always bustling with activity. The schedule of events, created by the full-time events planner with guidance from the residents, continues to grow in quantity and variety.

The indoor parking garage, and the new non-denominational chapel certainly have distinguished the retirement community as a premier living space, but the plethora of activities truly separates Providence Point from its competition. [Read more…]

5 Ways to To Boost Your Practice’s Efficiency and Profit

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Running any business is stressful, but when you are running a medical practice, the consequences of your management decisions can have serious consequences. It’s a fine balance between being cost-efficient and being able to deliver a quality service that your patients deserve. Increasing your practice’s efficiency not only boosts you and your staff’s job satisfaction and morale but increases patient retention too. Here are 5 ways to grow your practice.

1. Technology to help

Entrepreneurs outside of healthcare would instinctively say that to boost your practice’s efficiency, you need to see more patients; however, this simply does not work within the medical profession. Doctors and healthcare providers will soon burn out and the quality of the care will slip if this is just thought of as a numbers game. The key is to reduce administrative inefficiencies.

Spend time reviewing where administrative inefficiencies are occurring. Outdated technology is one hurdle to optimizing productivity. A recent report found that manual transactions that could be made autonomous costs the dental industry up to $9.4 billion per year. This means that time is being wasted performing tasks that could be completed at a fraction of the time with the introduction of appropriate technology.

Everything from instantaneously retrieving a patient’s medical records to sending patients reminder texts of their appointment time can be streamlined to increase the efficiency. It’s not about technology replacing the human element of attending your clinic, rather it is about using technology to support the service that you provide. [Read more…]

Avoiding EMS Trip Report Delays

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EMS agencies have been talking about if/when to move away from paper EMS trip reports to electronic EMS trip reports for ages. In the past, the cost comparison between purchasing base computers or ruggedized laptops and handwritten EMS trip reports or scannable forms proved formidable barriers for so many EMS agencies.

Thankfully, in recent years as EMS agencies have begun using ePCR software to document EMS trip reports with more frequency, discussions have moved away from paper versus electronic to the benefits of moving to Online EMS software versus on-site software.

Read more.

Filed Under: EMS

8 Negotiating Strategies for Reducing Rental Rates

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By Jeff Grandfield and Dale Willerton—The Lease Coach

Healthcare tenants should not be afraid to negotiate assertively on the rental rate. So why do healthcare tenants have such difficulty in this area?  Frequently, the answer is a simple unawareness of market rental rates (or the “going rate” in an area).

Let us explain. Suppose the leasing agent or landlord wants you to pay $25 per square foot on new lease space (or even on a lease renewal). However, you know that every other tenant in the building is paying rent ranging between $18 to $20 per square foot. Armed with this information, you would have no difficulty justifying your negotiations would you?

Healthcare tenants often mistakenly believe that the agent or landlord wouldn’t dare ask for more rent than the space is worth. Consider that the landlord is paying the leasing agent commission not just to lease the space, but to lease it for the highest rent possible – and to the best tenant available. Commercial landlords justifiably want to maximize the return on their real estate investments, which is entirely acceptable.

Here are eight strategies for lowering the rental rate on commercial leases: [Read more…]

Conemaugh Physician Group Welcomes Critical Care/Pulmonary Physician

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Conemaugh Physician Group welcomes Muhammad Imtiaz, MD to its Critical Care and Pulmonology practices. Dr. Imtiaz is board-certified in internal medicine, critical care medicine, and pulmonary medicine. He will see inpatients at Conemaugh Memorial Medical Center, and outpatients at Conemaugh Physician Group – Pulmonary, 1111 Franklin Street, Johnstown.

Dr. Imtiaz earned his medical degree at Allama Iqbal Medical College in Lahore, Pakistan, followed by an internal medicine residency at New York Medical College, Montefiore Medical Center. He completed two fellowships – Pulmonary Medicine fellowship at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine; and Critical Care Medicine fellowship at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Dr. Imtiaz was most recently an Assistant Professor of Medicine of Pulmonary and Critical Care at Albany Medical College in Albany, New York. [Read more…]

How to Handle Conflict with Office Neighbors

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Doctors Discussing In ClinicBy Daniel Casciato

As with any residential neighborhood, we do our best to get along and play nice with our neighbors. Occasionally, however, conflicts do arise. Some can be as minor as your dog running into their yard; others could be more serious such as property line disputes. In the end, no matter the situation, we try to amicably resolve such conflicts so they do not escalate.

Neighborly conflicts are not limited to our homes or apartment units, they can arise in an office building too. Managing conflicts with the office tenant next door or across the hall need to be dealt with delicately as well. Below are some tips to help you deal with potential conflicts with your office neighbor.

Respect your neighbor

The corporate offices of Kissito Healthcare are located in a business plaza in Roanoke, Virginia. It operates six nursing homes, five in Virginia and one in Arizona. It has a simple policy—respect your neighbor.

Recently it had a grand opening of a new facility which involved building a concrete wall and having two of the world’s strongest men busting through a wall. This involved some of the biggest potential conflicts with neighbors—parking, noise, and access to offices.

[Read more…]