Tag: careers

Preventing Physician Burnout in Your Practice

Posted on by VettersEnt

Physician burnout is a serious problem. A physician lifestyle survey in 2015 found that over 46% of physicians indicated that they were experiencing burnout. This issue does not just have an effect on the doctor experiencing it, but it also affects the quality of care that patients receive and, potentially, the future of the practice entirely.

The Consequences of Physician Burnout

Before we dive into how physician burnout can be prevented, we’re going to discuss why it is such a bad thing. Burnout leads to:

  • Low patient satisfaction rates
  • Poor patient care quality
  • An escalated number of medical error rates
  • High malpractice risk
  • Increased physician and staff turnover rates
  • Potential drug abuse and alcohol addiction

More worryingly, physician burnout can also be fatal. Suicide rates for male and female physicians are higher than the general population average and widely under-reported.

The Three Signs of Physician Burnout

The most commonly accepted standards for burnout were developed in the 1970s, and there are three core symptoms:

  1. Exhaustion: Low physical and emotional energy levels.
  2. Depersonalization: Cynicism, sarcasm and the need to vent about patients and work constantly.
  3. Lack of Efficacy: Doubting the quality and meaning of work.

The 7 Steps to Prevent Burnout in Your Practice

The American Medical Association lays out 7 key steps to stop your nurses and doctors from experiencing burnout.

  1. Use wellness as a quality indicator for your practice to see how your doctors and nurses are doing.
  2. Create a wellness group (if you have a large practice) or select a wellness coordinator (if you have a small practice) who can promote wellness resources available to physicians and model positive behaviors.
  3. Offer every employee an annual wellness survey that is a good indicator of whether or not an individual might be struggling with burnout.
  4. Meet regularly with other leaders in your practice to discuss potential interventions and survey results.
  5. Don’t be afraid to initiate selective interventions to address burnout as you identify parts of your practice that might aggravate it. Communication, workflow and facility improvements could all be completed during this step.
  6. After your interventions have been in place for some time, offer your survey again to see if stress and burnout levels have decreased.
  7. Using your data, continue to refine interventions and improve your practice.

Partner with Vetters Enterprises for Help Taking Your Practice to the Next Level

Vetters Enterprises specializes in practice management, private practice business support and revenue cycle optimization. We can perform in-depth assessments of your practice or facility and identify potential issues. Let us keep your business as healthy as you keep your patients! Give us a call at (443) 352-0088.

3 Ways to Increase Patient Satisfaction

Posted on by VettersEnt

Maintaining high levels of patient satisfaction isn’t easy, and it can be frustrating hearing negative responses on patient surveys despite your efforts to offer a great experience. Behaviors like empathetic communication can raise patient satisfaction and improve actual clinical outcomes for medical problems including diabetes and the flu. Here are three ways that your practice can increase patient satisfaction.

Improve the Waiting Process Before the Appointment

How can you streamline the waiting process?

  • Provide things to do in the waiting room, like free Wi-Fi or tablets pre-loaded with magazines and books. Unoccupied time will always feel longer than productive wait time.
  • Get patients checked in as quickly as possible, as they are more patient once their basic information has been taken and they feel that they are being taken care of.
  • Always tell patients what amount of time they should expect to wait. Unexplained, uncertain wait times will lead to higher amounts of anxiety and frustration.
  • Provide an excellent amount of quality once patients get into their appointment. Great appointments can offset a long wait.

Spend Time with Your Patients

Most doctors will hear this advice and wonder how they can possibly spend more time with their patients amidst a packed schedule and piles of paperwork. The most satisfied patients have one thing in common—their visit felt like it was long because all of their questions were answered and they didn’t feel rushed. Your practice can make up for lengthy wait times by sitting down and chatting with patients instead of brusquely going through the motions. In one study, 52% of patients preferred a doctor who sat when talking to them, and they perceived that seated visits were 25% longer.

Communicate with Precision

Finally, you should always be clear with patients about their situation. If a patient comes to you with a cold, instead of merely diagnosing it and sending them out the door, go through a timeline of what they should expect from their symptoms. Offer patients an explanation of what they can expect and what to do if things don’t improve. Patients often have an idea of what is wrong and they come to your office for expertise, not just a one-word diagnosis. 

Increase Patient Satisfaction with Vetters Enterprises

Vetters Enterprises specializes in practice management, private practice business support and revenue cycle optimization. We can perform in-depth assessments of your practice or facility and identify potential issues. Let us keep your business as healthy as you keep your patients! Give us a call at (443) 352-0088.

PARTY TIME!!

Posted on by VettersEnt

So I moved into my own officeclose-up-of-explosion-of-champagne-bottle-cork2 on October 1, 2016!  It’s amazing to believe that only 3.5 years ago I was scared as hell to be leaving Corporate America and embarking on this new journey.  I had no confidence, no marketing ability, and really no idea if I could actually make it in my chosen field.  So I took steps to ensure success.  I joined a networking group and got over my fear of meeting other business professionals.  I found a business coach who showed me that it is OK if someone doesn’t want what I have to offer, move on to the next potential client.  He also showed me that there is a “negative voice” inside that needs to be pushed out and never listened to.  I also surrounded myself with others who complemented my skills with theirs and together we bounced ideas off each other, supported each other and made each other’s business grow as a result.  Most importantly my confidence in what I could do, make and achieve for myself exploded.   Now I’m celebrating my success as a result of relentless perseverance and shear will.

So for any of you who have beaten yourself up in a cube for several years because it only seems like you can get so far.  Or lost that promotion you were sure to have gotten to someone else who clearly was a chump and didn’t know anything about the project.  Or stuck up for what was right only to have it overturned by the “powers that be” because it was all about the MONEY.  Or most importantly, got downsized and left to pick up the pieces and send your resume to every job on Monster, Career Builder, and even Craigslist, just to be told you are too qualified, too old, or too whatever their excuse may be.  Find your WHY and get out there and do it.  Take the chance, drain your 401K to finance it, you only have one life to live so make it the best life you can possibly live.  Enjoy, hell love, what you do for the first time in your life.  If it works, it will be all you and no one else can take it away from you.  If it fails, start over, don’t ever give up.  To quote Thomas Edison “I have not FAILED, I just found 10,000 ways how not make a light bulb”.  Make your light bulb.

ICD-10 Delay

Posted on by VettersEnt

So on 3/31/14 both the house and senate voted on a “Dr. Fix” bill that included language for another one year delay on the ICD-10 implementation.  CMS has been saying for more than a year that there will be no more delays…period… Then what does the congress do? Overrule them.  Many healthcare organizations are speaking out that the delay portion of the bill did not have to be included. That congress has once again cost us billions of dollars by not listening to their constituency or the experts when it comes to throwing in additional pieces of legislature just to pad the bill.  Here is what the American Healthcare Information Management Association had to say: http://journal.ahima.org/2014/03/31/senate-votes-on-icd-10-delay-bill/

While most experts agree it was a stupid move to include the delay in the bill, now providers are wondering what they are supposed to do.  Check out this link: http://www.fiercehealthit.com/story/icd-10-delay-how-providers-should-respond/2014-04-02

As far as VE Cycle Management is concerned we are going to continue to prepare our clients for ICD-10 as part of what we do for them daily.  Providers now have some extra time to train, map and migrate and may think that the road to full implementation will be slowed again.  The point is and the point that my company will emphasize is “don’t put off tomorrow what you can do today!” 

ICD-10 is still coming, we are the only western nation still on ICD-9, most of Europe is on ICD-11 so it’s just a matter of time and you have to make sure your staff, technology, and you are ready for it.  Ask us, we’ll help!

The Perils of Business Ownership

Posted on by VettersEnt

Now don’t get me wrong, I love being my own boss.  This is what I have waited for all my life, I think.  When you have been raised under the poverty line you do everything you can to make sure that when you finally get to be an adult that you never dip below that line again.

Thus has been my goal throughout my life.  I think when you add children into the mix it becomes a serious goal.  Reaching my 30s-40s it seemed like the stuff I had gave me status in my mind.  I had a house, garage, 2 cars, a kid, nice stuff.  I must have made it somehow.  Certainly better than my parents did, I thought, in my mind.  As I am moving out of my 40s and soon into the big 5-0 I realized that I had it all wrong.  As a person with an innate entrepreneurial spirit, you are always wanting more, and it isn’t more stuff.  That isn’t what does it.  It’s more meaning and purpose in your life that turns the motor on.  I realized this when I buried my parents 7 months and 10 days apart.  All their stuff, their memories, prized possessions now became scrutinized by everyone and their purpose in life became increasingly more obscured.  What were they here for.  Surely this pile of old clothes and pots and pans didn’t tell that story.

So I began my journey into business ownership because I wanted my purpose in life to be more important than what the money from a “job” got me.  Oh I won’t lie, when the business isn’t doing well all I am thinking about is what am I going to have to give up or what am I going to lose, my house, my car, all of it.  But yet I still get up and I still try and find new ways to get my business name and purpose out there, I’m not giving up the spirit that drives me, that innate entrepreneurial spirit that has taken hold of me and made me the mad woman I am today.

I love running the show, I love being my own boss, I love what I do for the first time.  Is it scary…HELL TO THE YEAH!  But it’s my rules, my vision, my choice.  I’ve got some great support and one hell of a marketing director and we are going to make it.  And for the first time in decades my back brain is not saying “you should be doing something else, this isn’t you”.  You don’t know how long I have wanted to quiet that voice.  I think he’s finally speechless for a while.