Tag: doctors

How to Empower Patients Throughout the Diagnostic Process

Posted on by VettersEnt

When asked what they would improve about their patients, many doctors will indicate the desire for patients to take more control over their health, whether that means putting recommendations into practice or making an effort to build relationships with their doctors. How can you empower your practice’s patients throughout the diagnostic process?

What Do Patients Want from the Healthcare Experience?

A 2016 study of patients examined what patients want the most from their providers. A whopping 75% of patients indicated the desire for a more personal relationship with their providers. The majority of patients also wanted greater convenience and access to digital tools. These desires especially come to a head when patients are experiencing an illness or ailment and going through the diagnostic process.

Embrace the Benefits of the Internet

Building a relationship with patients doesn’t mean spending hours in each appointment getting to know their favorite color. Instead, it means being open to a patient’s concerns and being accessible where and when they need you. The internet is an amazing tool for staying connected with patients and empowering them throughout the diagnostic process. When most patients have a concern, they will head straight to the internet to learn more and ask questions. If your practice offers a secure health portal where they can find out more and send messages, patients will be able to equip themselves with knowledge and feel more understood.

Communicate Clearly and Offer Actionable Plans

Empowering a patient does not start or stop in the exam room. Since so many patients feel comfortable seeking health information from other sources (that may or may not be reputable), it’s important for doctors to offer them clear, achievable and realistic action plans. Giving patients accurate information will soothe fears that inevitably occur during the diagnostic process and prevent patients from clinging to false ideas.

Encourage Wearables and Tracking Methods

If patients are concerned about their health or going through the diagnostic process, encourage them to track symptoms and activities that promote health. Whenever patients actually start to measure and pay attention to their health, they will be more empowered to make the changes necessary to improve the metrics. From keeping a food diary to tracking blood sugar, small changes can add up to lifestyle transformations.

Partner with Vetters Enterprises Help with Your Value-Based Care Reporting

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.

How to Use Patient Reviews to Your Advantage

Posted on by VettersEnt

Did you know that almost 85% of patients use online reviews to evaluate and select physicians? If you don’t have a handle on what online reviews have to say about you and your practice, you can’t afford to do so any longer. How can you harness the power of patient reviews to your advantage?

Good Reviews Matter

Good reviews of your practice online are a big deal. The number of patients using online reviews to determine a provider is rising, along with the number of patients who count them as very important. Almost half of the patients in a 2015 survey indicated that they would consider going out of network solely based on patient reviews. If that doesn’t convince of the power of great online reviews, nothing will!

The Good News

While plenty of physicians loathe online review sites on principle, like restaurants worried about Yelp!, there is plenty to be excited about. The majority of patient reviews are either neutral, somewhat positive or very positive. When patients read healthcare reviews, they are more likely to focus on positive experiences rather than negative experiences. Only 19% of online reviews are negative. That number is high, but there are many ways to encourage good reviews of your practice without stepping into ethical hot water.

How Can You Encourage Patients to Leave Reviews?

The most important thing to keep in mind when asking patients to review you online is never to tell them what to write or to say only positive things. You should also avoid offering an incentive for a positive review, like a gift card or discount. So, how can you encourage patients to leave reviews of your practice online?

Get in the habit of proactively asking for feedback in your patient communications. When you send out an email thanking a patient for attending an appointment, include a link to popular review sites. When checking a patient out, have your receptionists give them an appointment card with the date of the next appointment and a reminder to leave a review online. By routinely reminding your current patients to review your practice online, you will increase the chance of them actually doing so. You can also start by approaching your long-term, most satisfied patients and asking them to write a patient review about your practice online.

Partner with Vetters Enterprises for Great Patient Reviews

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.

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.

How Can Volunteering Help Your Physicians Recharge?

Posted on by VettersEnt

Experts have known for a long time that volunteering is a good thing. After all, what could be bad about giving back to the communities around us? However, new research is suggesting that volunteering is also good for your body and mind. Physicians who are looking to recharge and reignite their passion for helping others can benefit from taking time to volunteer.

The Mental Health Benefits

Volunteering has a wonderful effect on mental health. According to the Corporation for National and Community Service, much of that stems from social integration theory. Social integration theory is the idea that the social connections between individuals provide meaning and purpose and satisfaction. Individuals who volunteer feel accomplishment from giving back and also gain fulfillment from being in a helpful role. Another study of older adults found that volunteering can buffer the sense of loss that they felt as they lost other identities, like being a wage-earner or parent.

The Physical Health Benefits

One study from Carnegie Mellon University found that adults over the age of 50 who regularly volunteered had a lower likelihood of developing high blood pressure. As most physicians know, high blood pressure is a major risk factor for heart disease, stroke and premature death. While the link between physical health and volunteering might be incidental, it goes to show that doing good can also do your body a whole lot of good.

Why Volunteering for Physicians?

Long days and nights at a medical practice can make it easy to forget why doctors went into medicine in the first place—to help others. If doctors and nurses in your practice need to recharge, volunteering is the perfect way to do so. What are some of the other benefits of volunteering?

  • Increase social interactions with people other than patients and co-workers during the week.
  • Provide a sense of satisfaction and increase self-esteem.
  • Add career experience in other fields to your resume, like public speaking, writing or business development.
  • Stay mentally and physically active outside of work.
  • Enjoy the rush of endorphins and happy feelings associated with volunteering (similar to how you feel after a great workout).

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.

Is Your Practice Location Hurting Your Bottom Line?

Posted on by VettersEnt

What is one of the keys to a successful medical practice? It’s all about location, location, location! When you are trying to find the perfect practice location for your office, there are many factors that you must consider to ensure long-term profitability and success. Whether you’ve been in the same location for a decade or are finding space for the first time, here’s what you need to know about choosing the right location. 

Why Does Location Matter?

Three recent studies found a single common factor in what matters to patients—location. 6 out of 10 patients choose a practice primarily based on location. In fact, convenient location is twice as important to patients as your practice’s success rates or outcomes.

Competition Isn’t Always a Bad Thing

In neighborhoods and cities where medical practices are on every street, it might seem like you have no chance to succeed against already-established doctors with a reputation in the community. Don’t be intimidated by competition, as there are many clever ways to differentiate your practice from the crowd. Check the population-to-professional ratio for the area around you. In areas with low numbers of professionals, there won’t be much competition. However, in busy areas marketing, reputation and customer service can make a huge difference.

Demographics Make the Difference

Another key to a great practice location is staying on top of ever-changing demographics. Is the population declining or growing? In many cases, it’s easiest to gain traction in newer communities than tight, well-established locales. Pay attention to numerous demographics including household income averages, age distribution, the types of jobs and population growth.

Look Around You

The most successful practice locations are often those surrounded by other popular things. What else is located within 5 miles of your potential practice location? Are there banks or grocery stores? What traffic patterns are there? In general, a location that is passed by 40,000 or more cars in a 24-hour period is considered to be a retail location. If you set up shop in a smaller town, you might have higher visibility thanks to less roadside clutter, but you also won’t have access to as many potential patients.

Partner with Vetters Enterprises for a Great Practice Location

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.

Tips for Surviving a Federal HIPAA Audit

Posted on by VettersEnt

Being contacted by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) or the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) for a HIPAA audit can be a very scary situation. The best way to survive a federal HIPAA audit is ensuring that you have the proper procedures in place every single day on the job. A single employee who is non-compliant could cost your practice a lot. 

Make Sure It’s Valid

Unfortunately, some scammers try to take advantage of practices by pretending to be OCR representatives conducting an audit and asking practices to purchase “certification” services. OCR and HHS will only make contact with your practice via email or certified letter. You always have a right to respond to ask for proof of validity, and that will not be held against you during the audit process. There is no certifying body for HIPAA compliance in existence, so any organization that approaches you claiming that they are one is lying.

Educate Your Employees

One of the best prevention strategies is educating your employees of the serious consequences of a HIPAA violation.

  • A HIPAA violation that occurs without knowledge: $100-$25,000 violation
  • A HIPAA violation due to reasonable cause: $1,000-$50,000 violation
  • A HIPAA violation due to willful neglect, but fixed within 30 days: $10,000-$50,000 violation
  • A HIPAA violation due to willful neglect that is uncorrected or corrected after 30 days: $50,000 violation

Reminding employees of the steep cost associated with each violation regularly can help to ensure compliance.

Tips for Survival

When preparing for a federal HIPAA audit, ask yourself the following:

  • Are our HIPAA policies and procedures regularly updated and effective? You should have things like a Breach Notification policy on hand and in effect.
  • Is our HIPAA training regularly updated and effective? How do we know it’s working? Every practice is required to hold HIPAA trainings for employees that are up-to-date, as well as maintain detailed records showing when employees attended the training and tests or surveys showing they understood the content.
  • Has our practice completed a risk assessment? This aspect of HIPAA often lies under the radar, but it’s a requirement as part of the HIPAA security management processes.
  • Have we had HIPAA breaches? If you have had a breach, you should make sure that all documentation has been properly completed.

Keep Your Practice HIPAA-Compliant 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.

Patient Payments Simplified

Posted on by VettersEnt

Most practitioners don’t know that you are 50% less likely to recoup a patient copay if they leave your office without paying.  This impacts your cash flow more than you know.

I wanted to share with you a great idea from a great company – Payspan.  Some folks who work with Medical Assistance or any of the Beacon Health Options carriers may be very familiar with logging on to Payspan to pick up their EOPs but they have a great program for helping you get that payment up front that you need.  Check out this webinar if you can.

 

Webinar: Simple Techniques for Accelerating Patient Payments

Join us Thursday, October 6th for the Simple Techniques for Accelerating Patient Payments Webinar

If you missed Simple Techniques for Accelerating Patient Payments Webinar join usOctober 6th, 2016 and let us help you accelerate patient payments.

The abundance of high-deductible health plans is presenting unique revenue challengesfor healthcare providers, and many practices are struggling to quickly and accurately collect patient financial responsibility dollars. There are simple tips and solutions every practice can adopt to increase patient revenue and improve operational efficiency.
SAVE YOUR SEAT TODAY
Please join us on Thursday, October 6, for a complimentary webinar titled, “Simple Techniques for Accelerating Patient Payments.” We will be speaking about:

  • Best practices for dealing with the increase in patient responsibility and high-deductible health plans;
  • Best practices for accelerating patient payments; and
  • Innovative patient payment solutions that will get your practice where it needs to be today.

With the shift to new reimbursement models and the increase in out-of-pocket patient responsibility, it is more important than ever for providers to adopt innovative tools in order to stay financially viable. If you are interested in maximizing revenue in today’s evolving healthcare economy, join us at 2:00pm, EDT on October 6th, 2016.

Sincerely,

The Payspan Team
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ABOUT PAYSPAN
With the largest healthcare network in the U.S., we provide payment automation services that improve administrative efficiency, meet regulatory requirements, and enable payers and providers to manage new reimbursement strategies. We bring together healthcare expertise with proven financial services technology to empower a new generation of healthcare economics. CONTACT US

 

CoffeeChat #2 Is up on our YouTube Channel

Posted on by VettersEnt

Take a listen to our latest CoffeeChat https://youtu.be/zMKxGhcfdVY here on our YouTube channel.  This episode talks about how just getting a HIPAA Risk Assessment is not enough to be HIPAA compliant according to HITECH and OMNIBUS regulations.  Use the contact us page to find out how CompliancyGuard can help your practice Achieve, Illustrate and Maintain HIPAA compliance.

How can CompliancyGuard help you avoid HIPAA fines?

Posted on by VettersEnt

Well I will tell you how…

CompliancyGuard is like an insurance policy that protects you from failing HIPAA audits and the excessive fines that can come with those.

The fact is that over 70% of Covered Entities (CEs) will fail their HIPAA audits.  And while the reasons for such failures can be all over the place, primarily it will be because of inadequate preparation to achieve complete HIPAA compliance and the inability to maintain compliance after initial risk assessment.

What CompliancyGuard does for you and your practice is simply and effectively provide you a “One-Stop-Shop” solution that sets you up for success and allows you to Achieve, Illustrate and Maintain HIPAA compliance so that it is completely taken off your plate.  It is a HIPAA compliance officer in a box.  Check out these case studies and tell me you don’t want to have this solution in your back pocket when the HIPAA auditors come knocking!

http://compliancy-group.com/hipaa-case-studies/