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When dealing with a staffing shortage, hiring a virtual assistant can help improve your practice's workflow and the patient experience. Learn more here. 🩺
"In American health care, we are facing declining reimbursements and rising overhead costs. Health care providers are tasked with balancing efficient care delivery while managing an overwhelming amount of paperwork, combating staff burnout, and seeing many doctors retire early. A promising staffing solution—virtual assistants (VAs)—can help medical practices of all sizes and locations address these challenges. This article explores how VAs can revolutionize health care delivery and provide practical advice on how to implement them effectively."
#Physicians #Doctors #Pediatricians #PediatricPractice #MedicalPractice #PhysicianPractice
Staffing shortages: Time to consider a virtual assistant
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Staffing shortages are impacting patient care, straining doctors, nurses, technicians, and other essential staff.0 CommentsComment on Facebook
In recent years, the AAP has strongly emphasized the importance of trauma-informed care for pediatricians, recognizing its critical role in supporting patients' overall health and well-being. Read more about implementing trauma-informed care via PCC.
"The AAP's stance on trauma-informed care is rooted in the growing body of research that highlights the profound impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on a child's physical, emotional, and cognitive development. ACEs, which include experiences such as abuse, neglect, household dysfunction, and other traumatic events, can have long-lasting consequences if not adequately addressed — however, a shift in the AAP’s stance offers a new understanding of ACEs and how they relate to trauma-informed care."
#Pediatrics #Pediatricians #PediatricPractice
Building Buffering: Updates to AAP's Focus on Trauma-Informed Care
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Discover how trauma-informed care can enhance pediatric practice by fostering resilience, improving health outcomes, and building stronger patient-provider relationships. Learn key strategies for impl...0 CommentsComment on Facebook
Struggling with anti-vaxxers at your medical practice? You may find arguments on your social media including those looking to troll or bully. Here's how this pediatrician stood up for vaccines and won!
"Independent pediatricians may feel unsure at times about their responsibility to educate their pediatric patients and their parents with so much information readily available online. It’s important to keep in mind that misinformation and anti-vax groups are also rampant in the digital space. For parents, having an informed and kind pediatrician can go a long way to helping them make the right choices for their growing children.
Providing education in the realm of discussion, educational pamphlets, and messaging around a pediatrician’s office can start important conversations."
#Pediatrics #Pediatricians #PediatricPractice
A Victory Against Anti-Vaxxers: Dr. Eve Switzer's Story - The Independent Pediatrician
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Despite misinformation spread by anti-vaccine activists, social media bullies, and internet trolls, Dr. Eve Switzer understood that vaccines in childhood (and beyond) are too important to overlook. So...0 CommentsComment on Facebook
Being time efficient is important for a physician. But as patients turn to the Internet and social media for medical information, it's also essential to ensure that patients have the right education about their health. 👩💻
You can use video to reach patients while also improving your practice efficiency. Read this blog for more info!
"People look for physicians who are qualified to treat their medical issues. But, even more so, they look for physicians they like and can see themselves having a positive relationship with. When they visit your website or see your practice on social media, they're typically not asking where you went to medical school or the accolades you've earned. Instead, they want to know if you're friendly and trustworthy. And they want to see if you'll be empathetic and caring when they're most vulnerable.
That's why videos introducing you and your practice make a difference. On video, people can hear your voice and see your face. They can see how you talk about complex issues and what having you as their doctor might be like. Ultimately, a video introduction is more memorable and makes a stronger impression than just text on a bio page."
#Physicians #Doctors #Pediatricians #PediatricPractice #MedicalPractice #PhysicianPractice
Reaching patients through video
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How practices can use videos to enhance patient education, improve compliance, and increase practice efficiency.0 CommentsComment on Facebook
Section 179 of the IRS code allows businesses to deduct the full purchase price of qualifying equipment and/or software during the tax year. The maximum allowable deduction and the phase-out threshold, however, changes each year. Here's what practices need to know! 🩺
"Section 179 can be applied to various assets such as office equipment including furniture, printers, and copiers, vehicles used for business, computers used for business operations, and business software."
#Physicians #Doctors #Pediatricians #PediatricPractice #MedicalPractice #PhysicianPractice
The dos and don’ts of Section 179
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Section 179 allows businesses to deduct the full purchase price of qualifying equipment and/or software during the tax year.0 CommentsComment on Facebook
How to Market to Millennials
/in Articles /by Heidi HallettPearls | Aug 1, 2018 | Marketing, Pearls, Technology
By Susanne Madden
Original published at www.physicianspractice.com
Millennials have a completely different set of expectations than prior generations when it comes to engaging with the world around them. They are the digital natives and, as such, are used to interacting with their social networks, accessing services, and having the world’s knowledge all at their fingertips.
Marketing Your Practice to the Self-Funded Employer Market
/in Articles /by Heidi HallettPearl | August 02, 2017 | Payers, Operations, Pearls, Practice Models
By Susanne Madden
Original published at www.physicianspractice.com
The self-funded employer market is growing with groups of 50 employees and beyond now entering the market. In fact, according to The Henry J. Kaiser Foundation’s 2016 Employee Benefits Survey, 61 percent of covered workers are in a plan that is completely or partially self-funded, a market that has been steadily increasing, up from 49 percent in 2000.
How Your Payer Directory Profile May Harm Your Practice
/in Articles /by Heidi HallettMarch 15, 2017 | Payers, Contracts, Patients, Pearls
By Susanne Madden
Original published at www.physicianspractice.com
Are you aware that insurance companies are ‘grading’ you? Do you know what your grade is? Do you understand how your profile can impact your patients, particularly if your score is not enough to make ‘top tier’? If you don’t, now is the time to pay attention to this issue.
An Introduction to Value-Based Payment Models
/in Articles /by Heidi HallettPearl | November 30, 2016 | Payers, Healthcare Reform, Pearls, Population Health, Practice Models
By Susanne Madden
Originally published at: www.physicianspractice.com
For many physicians and practices, their introduction to “value based” contracts will come in the form of understanding Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA). However, if you are getting paid on a “pay for performance” basis from the commercial payers, you are already participating in value-based contracts.
The “value-based purchasing” model evolved from work done by the University of Michigan Center for Value-Based Insurance Design, a non-profit that was established in 2005 to develop, evaluate, and promote value-based insurance initiatives. Their initial research studied the impact of healthcare costs and paying for care “events,” rather than outcomes. Eventually value-based reform helped to shape the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the ACA) signed into law in 2010.
So what does all that mean to you? The bottom line is that “payers” — insurance companies, employers, and now consumers themselves — are looking for more value for the money they spend on healthcare.
How to Utilize Medical Practice Consultants Effectively
/in Articles /by Heidi HallettPearl | August 31, 2016 | Managers Administrators, Law & Malpractice, Operations, Pearls
By Susanne Madden
Originally published at: www.physicianspractice.com
As a consultant, my job is not just to help clients to solve business problems, but also to help educate clients on the best ways to maximize their return on the investment they are making for our services.
Naturally some physicians are afraid to use consultants. They may know that they need help with their practice but are often concerned about costs, and frankly, how to even go about engaging one!
1. Do you need a consultant?
Consultants are best utilized for highly specialized areas, such as insurance contract negotiations, succession planning, strategic business planning, coding audits, practice assessments, practice valuations, mergers, practice start-ups, EHR selection, and those sorts of occasional, single-need projects. If you have needs like these, hiring an experienced expert who knows how to do it right will be worth your investment.
Do not use consultants for things like billing and credentialing, day-to-day management and finance, and human resource management. These are longer-term, daily activities, and as such, you should either hire the in-house experience you need or outsource these functions altogether.
MACRA, MIPS, and APMs — Are You Ready?
/in Articles /by Heidi HallettPearl | July 06, 2016 | Healthcare Reform, Payers, Pearls, Physician Compensation, Physician Compensation Survey
By Susanne Madden
Originally published at: www.physicianspractice.com
With the passage of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA), CMS has proposed a Quality Measure Development Plan that will combine all of the existing quality reporting programs into one new system. To report quality measures, providers will participate in either the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and/or Alternative Payment Models (APMs).
First, do you qualify?
If you have $10,000 or less in Medicare chargesand 100 or fewer Medicare patients annually, then you are exempt from MIPS participation. Otherwise, you need to participate in a MIPS or APM model.
Physicians Contract with Self-Funded Employers
/in Articles /by Heidi HallettPearl | October 28, 2015 | Payers, Patients, Pearls, Physician Compensation, Revenue Cycle Management
By Susanne Madden
Originally published at: http://www.physicianspractice.com/payers/physicians-contract-self-funded-employers
Some medical practices are cutting out insurance companies and providing services directly to employers (direct care), thereby reducing overhead and cost to patients.
First, let me define what is meant by “direct care.” Similar to charging patients cash for your services, the difference here is that you are charging employers directly for services delivered to their employees. There is no middle-man insurance company; simply two parties exchanging cash for services. So “direct” here means that you, the physician, are selling your services directly to the purchaser of healthcare, the employer.
This is not as novel an approach as you might think. Employers, particularly those that are “self-funded” (meaning those that carry the financial risk for employee claims rather than the insurance company), have already been investing in medical tourism for years. They contract directly with providers of care overseas (or through medical tourism companies) and send employees for such services as bariatric surgery, knee and hip replacements, and hernia operations, which are far less expensive than here in the United States. Even some insurers, like Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, are exploring the idea of including medical tourism as a part of their coverage.
The Potential of Patient-Centered Specialty Practice
/in Articles /by Heidi HallettPearl | September 02, 2015 | Practice Models, Healthcare Reform, Patients, Pearls, Physician Productivity
By Susanne Madden
What is PCSP?
Patient-Centered Specialty Practice (PCSP) is a recognition program from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) that went into effect in 2013. The PCSP program was designed in many ways to complement the success of NCQA’s Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) program and expand its reach. The goal of the program is to encourage excellent care coordination by specialty practices in the outpatient setting, leading to less duplication of procedures and fewer hospitalizations.
Much like the PCMH program, the PCSP program focuses on proactive coordination of care, information sharing among clinicians involved in a patient’s care, and a centering of care around the patient (versus around the care setting).
According to the NCQA, “Specialists who achieve NCQA PCSP Recognition will show purchasers (consumers, health plans, employers and government agencies) that they have undergone a rigorous and independent review to assess their capabilities and commitment to excellence in sharing and using information to coordinate care.” What this means practically is that practices that undergo the process will be better placed to meet the challenges of the marketplace.
Building Effective Patient Education Programs
/in Articles /by Heidi HallettPearl | April 22, 2015 | Patient Relations, ACO, Healthcare Reform, Patients, Pearls
By Susanne Madden
Patient education programs have been around for a long time, but typically these programs have been geared toward only the chronically ill and those that needed extensive management. In this era of the Patient-Centered Medical Home patients and insurers are looking more to physician practices to provide effective patient education in all aspects of their care. In fact, many insurance companies are actively measuring physicians’ performance on quality metrics. Current accountable care models factor in patient utilization of emergency rooms, hospital visits, and prescriptions, and attribute that cost to the patient’s primary-care doctor, which may also include specialties such as cardiology.
So what does this mean to your practice? With more accountability comes the need to manage patient populations more effectively to be able to hold the line on costs. If you are not doing a good job in actively engaging patients to “self manage” their own care, and utilizing lower-cost opportunities for managing your patients’ care, then you may soon find yourself failing to achieve a targeted level of care and cost utilization, and that will cost you money.
Independent Integrated Networks: What You Need to Know
/in Articles /by Heidi HallettPearl | July 01, 2015 | Practice Models, Payers, Pearls, Performance, Physician Compensation
By Susanne Madden
Many physicians are by now familiar with such terms as “clinically integrated networks” (also known as CINs), but a slightly different model is beginning to emerge as independent practices resist being swallowed up by hospital systems, and physician organizations become more savvy. You can think of this model as a hybrid between the “super group” (or clinically integrated practice) model and the more familiar hospital-based offering whereby care coordination and data is managed centrally there. Rather, these independent integrated networks (IINs) are being driven by independent physician organizations, coalitions, and alliances between physicians themselves.
What is “clinical integration” anyway?
The Department of Justice and the FTC define clinical integration as an active and ongoing program to evaluate and modify practice patterns by the CIN’s physician participants and create a high degree of interdependence and cooperation among the physicians to control costs and ensure quality. Generally, the FTC considers a program to be clinically integrated if it performs the following:
1. Establishes mechanisms to monitor and control utilization of healthcare services that are designed to control costs and ensure quality of care;
2. Selectively chooses CIN physicians who are likely to further these efficiency objectives; and
3. Utilizes investment of significant capital, both monetary and human, in the necessary infrastructure and capability to realize the claimed efficiencies.