Western Pennsylvania Healthcare News

Covering healthcare news in the Pittsburgh region and beyond.

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Spending Your IT Budget More Wisely

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Healthcare IT budget, healthcare finance, revenue cycle management

Stretching information technology (IT) budgets are an ongoing challenge for many medical offices today. In theory, your practice should first determine what IT you need to meet your business objectives, and then budget accordingly. However, because technology is constantly changing, many practices would like to stay ahead of the trends to improve their business operations. But there’s a way to stay current and relevant while stretching those precious IT dollars.

Understand your expenditures

Before you begin to slash away at your IT budget, Bob Merrill, IT strategy expert at PA Consulting Group, says to make sure that your practice understands what you are actually spending on IT. You can do that by simply listing each line item/category, and including IT-like expenditures, which may include items such as phone systems, mobile phones and associated services, voice and data networks, copiers, fax machines, printer/copier/fax supplies, maintenance agreements, as well as allocation of floor-space and associated rent for computer rooms. 

“Many of these expenditure categories are considered office expense, even though they duplicate capabilities available through IT technology,” he points out. “Sort the categories from highest annual expenditures to least, and focus on the costliest expenditures first when looking for opportunities for reduction.”

Donovan Niesen, co-founder of The Tech Outfit in Minneapolis, MN, says to begin with your biggest IT expenditures and work your way down.

“When evaluating ways to reduce your IT spending, it is absolutely critical to do a proper risk assessment to understand any pitfalls that can arise from changes made,” he cautions. [Read more…]

6 Productivity Tools for Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

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As a busy executive, you are always seeking the best productivity tools to help you—and your team—improve your strategy and efficiency. Similarly, you should also consider using social media productivity tools to work smarter and become more efficient. Whether you are managing just one social media account or trying to juggle several, it’s becoming difficult to keep up.

Fortunately, there are many social media tools that can help you maintain and manage your social media activity. Below is a round-up of six social media tools you can use to optimize your time and achieve better results.

PromoRepublic

PromoRepublic is a social media marketing platform for everyday use that can help you gain more customers from social media networks. Its platform allows you to find and post great content to your social media accounts.

Its library is jam-packed with customizable templates of ready-made posts. Best of all, their templates are handcrafted by agency-level professionals.

Combining ease of use, co-marketing channels, technology-based content suggestions and templates, PromoRepublic provides an affordable service for first-time marketers and pros alike.

Not only does it contain hundreds of templates and an easy-to-use graphics editor, but it also has a Calendar of Content Ideas. You’ll never run oout of ideas of what to post. [Read more…]

Breaking Your Staff of Bad Habits

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Can you identify any bad behaviors among your staff? You may have employees who are constantly coming in late, taking extra long lunch breaks, playing on their Smartphones and tablets, and even just procrastinating. If these behaviors are not identified and addressed, your employees will continue to repeat them making it even more difficult to break.

Bad habits can have an effect on your other employees as well. Like a younger sibling who mimics his or her older sibling’s bad habits, if a particular behavior is not addressed immediately, it could be repeated by other employees and gradually spread throughout the office. This makes it more difficult to eradicate especially when you have a new hire. Additionally, some habits can be especially annoying to your patients and make your office appear unprofessional, unproductive, and unfriendly.

While it’s important to rectify these bad habits immediately before they become common practice, John Groth, owner of Groth Marketing in St. Louis, MO, says that it is just as important to also praise when something good is accomplished, tell your staff about it and why that particular activity was important to accomplish a goal.

“It’s the little things that are important and shows the professionalism of the staff and the doctors,” he says. “Good habits are good business practices. They reinforce the patients’ impression that they are getting the very best of care. And isn’t this what it’s all about?”

Dr. Laura Umfer, a licensed psychologist in Tampa, FL, agrees.

“Accountability and expectations being clear are important,” she says. “Catching people doing something right and praising them also helps.” [Read more…]

Creating an Ergonomic Medical Office

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Ergonomic Medical Office, Ergonomic Design, Modular Workstations, Medical Office Furniture, Certified Professional Ergonomist, Task Friendly Workstation, Job-Related Injuries

Medical office furniture that poorly supports the bodies of your employees and patients can cause repetitive movement injuries and backaches. An ergonomically designed office can alleviate these job-related injuries.

“Your staff’s overall health will be better and they’ll be a lot happier working there,” says Mollie Everett, senior healthcare program manager of Herman Miller Healthcare, a Zeeland, MI-based firm which designs furniture and systems for offices.

Designing a Task-Friendly Workstation

Task-intensive work, such as work performed by a receptionist or someone who is managing medical records, requires a good chair that can be adjusted to support anyone.

Some measurable symptoms of poor ergonomic design in your workstations include back problems and carpal tunnel issues as a result of a poorly adjusted height at a workstation, as well as headaches if computer screens are too far away or too close to your staff.

Cynthia Roth, CEO of Ergonomic Technologies Corporation, a Syosset, NY-firm which provides ergonomics consulting services, also suggests installing non-glare producing lighting; monitors that have no glare and are easily read by all staff; and non-slip floors.

“Office workstations layouts should have the most frequently used items closest to person to eliminate reaching,” she adds. [Read more…]

How to Improve Teamwork in Your Practice

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TeamworkTeamwork is a requisite for the success of your medical practice. Without good teamwork, your practice can appear to be disorganized and unprofessional. Your patients need to feel like they are in good hands and are taken care of from the moment they step through your doors.

Teamwork often fails when there is a lack of communication between you and your employees; unclear tasks and priorities; little accountability; poor training; and a lack of clearly defined goals.

“It’s just not possible to build a successful organization without teamwork,” says Tim Ryan, vice president of marketing for YouEarnedIt, a SaaS HR technology platform that redefines the way companies engage with their employees. “Sure, you can have individual superstar performers who make an enormous difference. But, they’re nothing without contributions from others involved in the entire process of serving a customer or patient. Moreover, the innovation that comes from joining ideas from multiple brains far exceeds what one can create alone. The collaborative environment challenges team members to be more innovative and productive.”

There are several ways you can improve teamwork in your office so your practice can portray a better image to patients as well as improve office morale.

Win as a team

For Ryan, improving your teamwork starts with your core values. Specifically, he says, with a value called “eyes on the prize,” where all employees are encouraged to win as a team.

“Posting our core values on a break room wall isn’t enough, though,” he says. “We’ve integrated them into our digital employee recognition and reward program where employees can publicly recognize—and reward—their peers for behaviors aligned with our core values and business objectives.”  [Read more…]

Five Signs Your Practice is Out of Date

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outofdatewebWhat to look out for so you don’t get left in the dust

Has your administrative staff never touched a PC? Is your waiting room furniture scuffed, worn, or ripped? Are you signs rusted, dirty, and faded? Does your website contain “current” office news from the Bush administration?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, your practice is a bit out of date, and you could be in big trouble when it comes to remaining competitive in your community. Following are five signs that your practice needs updating—fast! See if you recognize yourself in any of them and read our solutions.

#1: Your practice or your vendors are not utilizing the fullest capacity of an EMR.

An electronic medical records (EMR) implementation is a large undertaking for any practice and is most likely your biggest financial investment. One of the reasons many practices are willing to invest thousands of dollars into an EMR is that it can creates greater efficiencies, saving you money in the long run and allow physicians to spend more time with their patients.

It also allows you to share patient information, such as lab results, more easily between your practice and your lab vendors. But if your staff or vendors are re-entering standard patient data whenever a lab test or treatment is performed, you’re merely wasting time while increasing the opportunity for errors, defeating the purpose of obtaining an EMR in the first place. [Read more…]

Does Your Practice Have the Right Legal Structure?

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Legal Structures for Medical PracticesFor physicians who are starting a medical practice and trying to decide on their legal structure, the main issues to consider are liability, taxation, and disposition of ownership.

“When selecting a business entity for their practice, physicians and their advisors often think that the only issues are taxes and ease of administration and reporting, believing that malpractice insurance will address the threat of liability to the business,” says Patricia Farrell, an attorney for Meyer, Unkovic & Scott based in Pittsburgh, PA, who has more than 24 years of experience advising medical practices and other small businesses.

She says many forget that, in addition to the fact that insurance coverage is sometimes denied, there are other kinds of liability not covered under their insurance—such as lawsuits from vendors or employees, malfunctioning office equipment or software, issues with landlords and cash flow challenges.

Taking some of these issues into consideration, below are the three types of legal structures to consider for your practice—sole proprietorship, partnership, or a corporation. [Read more…]

Improving Patient Outcomes and Lowering Patient Cost of Care

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Richard Kimball Jr., HExL

Richard Kimball Jr.

Today, about 80 percent of the $3 trillion spent on healthcare annually is attributed to people who are living with chronic conditions, such as diabetes, obesity and heart failure.

Part of the problem is that hospitals are extremely high cost venues for care, according to Richard Kimball Jr., who started his own company, HExL (which stands for ‘health times longevity). After 26 years as a banker at Morgan Stanley and then Goldman Sachs, Kimball attended Stanford’s Distinguished Careers Institute, a yearlong executive education program. From this experience, Kimball launched HEXL to help independent primary care physicians transition to new outcomes-based healthcare system through population health management. 

Kimball says this change will need to come from doctors and patients wanting to align interests to drive better outcomes, lower costs and better accessibility of care.

“This gives physicians the capability to ultimately get paid more and be incentivized for keeping people healthy, rather than per visit and per procedure which is the current model under the fee-for-service reimbursement environment,” notes Kimball. “It requires population health management and proactive care, particularly for people with chronic diseases.”  [Read more…]

Five Biggest Financial Mistakes to Avoid

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Financial MistakesThese days it’s not enough for your medical practice to generate a profit, but you must also safeguard it once it comes into your practice. Many issues can affect the financial health and stability of your practice including business cash flow, risk management, and practice growth and development.

“You love healthcare, you love medicine and taking care of your patients, but do not forget you are running a business with revenue, overhead, and market segments,” says Rebecca Busch, CEO of Medical Business Associates, Inc. in Westmont, IL. “Know your business, understand your margins, understand your customer base. Do not take this for granted.”

Below are the five biggest mistakes that your medical practice should avoid in order to run a more profitable business. [Read more…]