Tag: practice management

Is Addressing Social Determinants of Health Vital to Patient Success?

Posted on by VettersEnt

There’s a lot of buzz around the social determinants of health in the healthcare community, and for many good reasons. The social determinants of health have been found to be critical in promoting optimal patient health, limiting disease and improving healthcare quality. 

What Are the Social Determinants of Health?

Social determinants of health are nonmedical things that affect a patient’s health outcomes and overall health. They can include where a patient is born, where someone lives, what job they have, their age and a wide range of other factors that all shape their daily life and health. These social determinants have a serious effect. One analysis of studies measured adult deaths attributed to social factors and discovered that in 2000, over 245,000 deaths could be attributed to low education, 176,000 to racial segregation, 162,000 to low social support, 133,000 to individual-level poverty and 119,000 to income level equality. For comparison, the number of deaths that could be linked to low social support was nearly identical to the number of deaths from lung cancer.  

The Reality in the United States

Currently, the United States is ranked among the 10 richest countries in the world per capita. However, place of birth is more strongly correlated with life expectancy than genetics. There is no one way to improve these statistics without the work of policymakers, physicians, communities and individuals. Community health partnerships are one effective way to address social determinants of health and support your community.

Getting Involved

How can your workers better address needs like transportation or access to healthy food? One family practice in Columbus, OH partnered with the Mid-Ohio Food Bank to pilot a health initiative for patients with diabetes. While the practice thought almost no patients were living with food insecurity, a whopping 43% of patients surveyed had trouble finding healthy food to eat. The practice added a mini food bank inside and offered participating diabetes patients fresh produce (from the food bank), recipes, cutting boards, peelers and a brief nutrition class. In the first 4 months of the program for 40 patients, 12 patients had reduced A1C levels and the majority of patients indicated positive results. Even more promising? Physician satisfaction increased and burnout levels decreased. While this isn’t feasible for every practice, it’s great food for thought for yours.

Address the Social Determinants of Health 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.

The 4 Most Costly Appointment Scheduling Mistakes

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Your office staff always have their hands full between checking patients in, scheduling appointments, answering the telephone and handling all of the other tasks that help keep your practice running. Unfortunately, appointment scheduling mistakes are very common, and they can be very costly to your reputation and bottom line.  

Not Sending Reminders

How many times do you remind patients of their upcoming appointment? If an appointment card offered at the end of another appointment is the only thing you’re doing, you have plenty of room to improve. You should always send patients both email and SMS reminders when they book the appointment and a day or two beforehand. Patients will appreciate the reminder, and you will increase the likelihood of your patients showing up on time or rescheduling the appointment and freeing up the space for someone else.

Over-Booking Appointments

This common appointment scheduling mistake happens when your receptionists pack too many appointments into a single day, and every patient shows up. Unfortunately, this leads to sky-high wait times and upset patients. You should use a scheduling system that keeps everyone on the same page and prevents overbooking. While it can be tempting to squeeze a few extra patients in, is it worth losing your reputation and goodwill with patients?

Not Asking Enough Screening Questions

How much do you ask patients when scheduling an appointment? Confirming things like insurance coverage in advance is critical to making sure that appointments start on time and coverage is clear when the patient arrives. You should also always ask details about why the patient is scheduling an appointment. A patient coming in only for a flu shot should be allotted a different length of appointment compared to a patient coming in for a comprehensive annual physical and bloodwork. It’s better to ask now and be happy you did later than wait.

Not Maintaining a Waiting List

While last-minute cancellations and no-shows are unfortunately not 100% avoidable, one of the best ways to avoid wasting that time entirely is by keeping a waiting list of patients who are looking for an appointment as quickly as possible. You’ll be able to make the patient getting the last-minute call very happy and not miss out on an opportunity for an appointment.

Avoid Appointment Scheduling Mistakes 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.

How Price Transparency Can Increase Patient Satisfaction

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Patients today are very educated about healthcare, and many are also footing a bigger proportion of the bill than ever before. As a result, there is a great deal of concern over pricing for health care services. While some offices worry about revealing too much about pricing, it can actually increase patient satisfaction. When consumers understand the quality that they are receiving for the price and the true value of care, they are more likely to make an educated decision.

Why Is Price Transparency So Hard?

Price transparency is a problem that many in the healthcare industry are already aware of. However, nothing captures a potential patient’s attention more than cost. As more consumers utilize high-deductible health plans (HDHPs), they are hoping to spend less in the short-term at the risk of shelling out more if they are injured. As a practice, it can be difficult to predict a course of treatment for a patient in advance, which leads to a misperception on behalf of patients that doctors are intentionally misleading about how much care will cost. 

What Solutions Could You Implement?

Some practices are experimenting with price estimators to increase price transparency and improve patient satisfaction. This allows you to engage the patient and explain potential treatments one-on-one. When presenting pricing, consider explaining things in one of two ways:

  • A bundled out-of-pocket estimate for medically necessary services
  • An estimate of the rate for a procedure covered by insurance and the associated patient costs

Remember that we are living in the age of Amazon, which means that consumers want the most possible for their money, in addition to transparency over what they will be getting. In your conversations, you should also make it clear that everything is an estimate. The projected costs might not align with the actual costs due to a variety of reasons.  

Showing Additional Benefits

While price is the biggest pain point when it comes to patient satisfaction, there are many other things your practice can do to show your value. Board certification, experience and patient experience all make a difference in what patients are willing to pay. When talking to patients and marketing, make it clear that you have plenty to offer beyond the actual services and procedures you provide.

Take Care of Your Physicians 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.

5 Ways for Physicians to Care for Themselves

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While the primary focus of the nurses and physicians in your practice is taking care of the patients that come in for various ailments all year long, the most effective doctors are the ones who also take care of themselves. Many physicians jeopardize their short and long-term health and well-being to meet the demands of the job, which also harms the patients that they aim to treat. How can doctors take better care of themselves?

Why Do Doctors Neglect Their Health?

While the health care industry has come a long way, some doctors still hold onto the idea that paying attention to personal, physical or mental needs is a sign of weakness and that working as hard as possible around the clock is a sign of strength. While working more and sleeping less can work for a small period of time, in the long term it can cause serious health consequences. Why do doctors routinely neglect their health? One recent study attributed it to a variety of things—sleep deprivation, long hours, heavy workloads, disempowerment, bureaucracy, rigid practice culture, the stress of malpractice lawsuits and more.

5 Ways for Physicians to Care for Themselves

  1. Get enough sleep every night. Working without enough sleep is not something to be proud of. Instead, it’s dangerous to your life and the lives of patients underneath your care. The more tired that you are, the more likely you are to make a critical mistake.
  2. Avoid negative coping mechanisms for stress, like overindulging in alcohol or taking drugs. Instead, try to engage in exercise or experiment with meditation to relax after a long day on the clock.
  3. Never be afraid to seek professional help. Physicians are human beings just like anyone else, and there is no shame in asking for help coping with intense stress.
  4. Schedule small breaks throughout the day. Even 2-5 minutes of walking around outside in between appointments can make a big difference in how you feel and how much exercise you’re getting.
  5. Find self-care practices that are sustainable and good for your well-being. A great self-care practice could be anything from swimming in your apartment complex’s pool to volunteering at a local soup kitchen. Anything that fills up your cup instead of taking more out is a good way to care for yourself.

Take Care of Your Physicians 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.

Preventing Physician Fatigue at Your Medical Practice

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As we covered in our last blog, preventing physician fatigue needs to be a major priority for every medical practice. When providers are under constant pressure to perform, not only are they at risk of developing stress-related health issues, but employees and patients can also suffer increased stress and dissatisfaction. Thankfully, there are a number of strategies currently being used by many medical practices to get to work preventing physician fatigue.

How Your Practice Can Work to Prevent Physician Fatigue

  1. Make wellness for your employees a top priority at your medical practice. Remember that physician burnout isn’t just a problem for the doctors experiencing it, but also the patients and employees who may bear the brunt of it.
  2. Create a wellness position at your practice or a collaborative committee. Your wellness chairperson or champion should be someone who can help to survey employees for burnout and troubleshoot initiatives to prevent physician fatigue. These employees can also work to make employees aware of all of the wellness resources available and model positive anti-burnout activities, like leaving the office on time or stopping during lunch for a short meditation session.
  3. Survey your employees on a yearly basis to see what employees are doing to keep themselves in good physical, mental and emotional health. Use the results to identify potential workplace wellness initiatives and get a look at where your medical practice is succeeding and where you could stand to improve.
  4. This might seem obvious, but if you complete a workplace wellness survey, you should also use the results to make positive changes in your workplace. Whether it’s redesigning the way that daily workflow occurs or developing new and better ways for employees to communicate, these changes will show employees that you are listening and that you care about their experience enough to change.
  5. Once you have made some changes, you should repeat the survey to see how things have changed. Are you doing your job when it comes to preventing physician fatigue? Checking back in allows you to also see if there are new areas where you could stand to improve.
  6. Don’t call out employees or embarrass anyone in the office with survey findings. Instead, you should be supportive and continue to emphasize improvement. Just like physician fatigue doesn’t happen overnight, counteracting burnout doesn’t happen in one day either. 

Preventing Physician Fatigue 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.

The Real Cost of Physician Fatigue

Posted on by VettersEnt

According to a number of recent studies, physician fatigue is no longer a marginal problem, but instead an epidemic sweeping through hospitals and medical practices. Physician burnout has a far-reaching impact on physicians themselves, patients and the finances of every healthcare facility.

Physician Fatigue 101

Physician fatigue is used to refer to doctors experiencing emotional exhaustion, a decreased feeling of success and pride at work, cynicism, exhaustion, depersonalization of patients and a lack of empathy. Burnout can be subtle and affect any healthcare practitioner.

There are four core factors that increase stress levels and the likelihood of physicians specifically experiencing burnout and fatigue.

  1. Time: Doctors are under a great deal of pressure to do a lot of tasks in a short amount of time and document the entire process.
  2. Chaos: Physicians experience disorder on a regular basis, even in organized offices that sometimes lack resources or a streamlined workflow.
  3. Lack of Control: Feeling a persistent lack of control over the tasks performed, work conditions and environment can increase fatigue.
  4. Competing Demands: When doctors are constantly pulled in two different directions, like needing to increase the number of patients but also spend more valuable time with each patient, it can also contribute to burnout.

It has been directly linked to:

  • Physician alcohol and drug abuse
  • Decreased patient satisfaction and care quality
  • Higher malpractice risk
  • Higher turnover
  • Physician suicide

With physician fatigue being a potentially fatal disorder, it’s vital that your practice takes it seriously.

On Patients

Burnout can compromise patient care and patient experience. When anyone experiences high levels of stress for long periods of time, their memory, attention and decision-making will be affected. In a career where skilled, competent and timely decision-making is so important, the consequences of physician fatigue can be deadly for patients.

On Practices

To demonstrate the devastating impact of physician fatigue can be demonstrated in one study by the American Medical Association. This found that in a healthcare system with 500 doctors and the average national rate of burnout (54%), a whopping $12 million a year would need to be spent only to replace the physicians that were lost. That figure does not factor in decreased productivity, financial ramifications of mistakes and more.

Reduce Physician Fatigue with Vetters Enterprises

Let us help you eliminate the chaos in your office and reduce stress levels with our services 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. Give us a call at (443) 352-0088.

The 4 Most Common Reasons Your Practice’s Claims Are Bouncing

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Billing can be time-consuming, tedious and frustrating to say the least. It can be even more frustrating when the medical claims that you worked so hard to submit are bounced right back. What are the most common reasons that a medical practice’s claims are bouncing back after submission?

Minor Errors

Just like it’s easy to miss a comma in an email or mistype a word, it’s also very easy to make minor errors in medical claims. Reimbursements are often denied or delayed due to seemingly-small mistakes, like forgetting to include a plan ID number or mixing up a letter. Because front desks are already so busy and overwhelmed, mistakes can fall through the cracks. One winning solution to this is using a professional outsourced claims processing service that will review claims before submission and look just for errors. The time saved from going through a resubmission is much less than time spent reviewing claims.

Missing Information

Another common reason that claims are bouncing is insufficient information. You always need to submit documentation to back up claims, and you should always supply each insurance provider the information that is requested to process payment in an expedient manner. Again, it is much easier to put the effort into properly gathering everything beforehand instead of needing to go back in the future to find the right documentation.

Skipping Authorization

If you needed authorization before a procedure was performed and it was not secured, you shouldn’t be too surprised that a claim bounced back your way. You should verify whether or not prior authorization is needed before you schedule the procedure. When it is time to bill, ensure that you also include the prior authorization number on the submitted claim. While prior authorizations can seem like an annoying extra step, they are vital to ensuring that claims receive approval in a prompt manner.

Changes on the Patient End

One of the most common reasons for claim denial isn’t necessarily your practice’s fault at all. Claims are often denied because a patient’s coverage has changed, the plan or payer has been changed or coverage has been terminated altogether. Even if you think everything is the same as the last time you spoke with a patient, you should always ask to confirm insurance information and see an insurance card at each appointment.

Trust the Experts at Vetters Enterprises for your Billing Needs

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 the 2018 Flu Epidemic Can Prepare Your Practice for the 2019 Season

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The 2018 flu epidemic caused a frenzy across practices, the internet and communities throughout the United States. While many flu seasons over the past few decades have been unremarkable, the 2018 flu epidemic was notable for the severity of the virus and the deaths that occurred as a result. As in any field, it’s important to learn from the past to improve the future. The 2018 flu epidemic has many lessons to offer the average practice.

Communicate Clearly with Patients

Communicating with patients and employees is critical for triaging potential flu patients before they ever come in for an appointment. Doctor’s office and emergency room visits are not necessary for the majority of people experienced mild flu-like symptoms. Your practice should educate patients early on what symptoms are cause for concern and what symptoms do not mean they need to head right into the office. This limits both unnecessary strains on your resources and prevents exposure in your waiting room. If you can, include the most worrying symptoms that should lead to medical care (trouble breathing, chest pain, confusion, dizziness, etc.) in a brochure or email blast that you send out to patients.

Offer Protection Tools in Your Practice

When patients with flu-like symptoms arrive in your office, provide them with tissues and surgical masks. Always have hand sanitizer available for any visitor to your practice. If possible, keep patients with influenza symptoms away from other patients. If it isn’t possible to maintain more than one waiting room, mark off a specific area or prioritize patients with flu symptoms when filling exam rooms. This stops the spread of flu inside of your practice and makes patients visiting for unrelated reasons feel more comfortable coming in.

Educate About the Flu Vaccine

One of the key hallmarks of the 2018 flu epidemic was many patients ignoring the influenza vaccine because of perceived ineffectiveness or other concerns about vaccines. When visiting with patients, take time to explain why flu vaccines are important, even when the past year’s vaccine was perceived as a “failure” in some circles. Answer questions with respect, and understand that patients are often undereducated or misinformed on the subject of flu vaccinations. Start promoting the vaccine’s availability early in the year and reach out to patients who haven’t been vaccinated by the start of flu season to make it clear that it isn’t too late.

Flu Epidemic Guidance for Your Practice from 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.

Ending the Revolving Door of Patients at Your Practice

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A general practice with a revolving door of patients is one that always seems to be losing patients at the same rate that they are attracting them. New patients are showing up for appointments, but most of them vanish off to never be seen again. While it’s tempting to invest most of your marketing efforts towards attracting new patients, without making an attempt to keep the old ones, you’ll end up with a revolving door of patients.

Why Are Patients Leaving?

One survey of patients who chose to leave their medical practice of choice found that patients have 4 core reasons for putting their medical care in someone else’s hands:

  1. Feeling neglected
  2. Poor communication or misinformation
  3. Feeling rushed
  4. Lack of detail or description for procedures, tests and results

At the heart of all 4 of those things is that sometimes, doctors do not have enough time to satisfy patient needs fully. What does that mean? You should go above and beyond to provide patients with additional resources and also distribute the patient retention responsibility throughout your practice. It isn’t just the doctor who is responsible for keeping patients. Instead, it’s also the receptionists, nurses, technicians and more.

Educate

Invest in resources that can educate your patients. While you might not have time to explain a procedure to a patient in one visit thoroughly, you could show a video, offer them literature or direct them to a page on your website. When patients know where to find the information that they need, they will be much more likely to seek it out and sate their curiosity.

Ask and Reassess

Regular patient surveys are another great way to see how you’re doing and make changes to suit the needs of your patients better. In some cases, patients value the opportunity to express themselves more than actual changes taking place! Make it clear that you care about your patients, their health and their experience at your practice and you will be much closer to retaining them.

Follow Up

When a patient leaves that means that they’re gone forever, right? No! If a patient leaves your practice, despite your efforts to retain them, you should place a follow-up call to see why they chose to do so. Many patients are willing to give you valuable insight on why they left, which could help you pull more patients out of the revolving door of patients.

Additional Retention Tips

  • Ensure that patients are informed of when their next appointment is.
  • Reward patient loyalty.
  • Send appointment reminders.
  • Make scheduling as easy as possible.
  • Keep track of important patient information, like birthdays and contact information.

Practice Guidance for Your Practice from 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.

Breaking Down GDPR and What It Could Mean for US Physicians

Posted on by VettersEnt

There’s a high chance that if you subscribe to 200 mailing lists, you’ve received what feels like 1,000 emails informing you about privacy policy changes. All of these emails are coming in the wake of the European privacy laws called the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). What do you need to know about these laws, even if you’re only treating patients in the United States?

Who Is Affected by GDPR?

Any business that is established in the European Union and any business that handles the personal information of “data subjects” in the European Union, regardless of where they live and their citizenship, is subject. If a doctor works or is based in the EU and has a website that collects any personal data, like a name, email address, phone number of IP address (even through Google Analytics), they are required to comply. Doctors in the UK must follow these new regulations, but US doctors are exempt…for now. There’s a good chance that over the course of the next few years, the United States will put similar regulations into place.

What Happens if Doctors Don’t Comply?

Anyone who doesn’t comply with these new laws can be subject to fines up to 20 million pounds or 4% of the worldwide turnover for the past 12 months depending on which is greater. These steep fines probably won’t be levied against small practices, but instead against any businesses that receive the most complaints. It’s a good idea to practice keeping patient data safe now, instead of running into nasty surprises in the future.

What Should You Do for GDPR?

If GDPR-type regulations go into place in the United States, here’s what you need to know!

  • Personal data includes names, phone numbers, emails, questions, comments, IP addresses and digital data. Even if you do nothing with personal data but store it, you must still comply.
  • You should audit the personal data that you’ve already collected and note where it is from and who it is shared with. Once you do that, you should document the legal basis for the processing of data and send an email to all existing list members to notify them of your privacy policy.
  • When collecting personal data in the future, you must add opt-in wording to all of your forms. It should include the affirmation of “explicit, affirmative and granular consent.” Patients should have no doubt that they are granting their consent and not simply have an automatically-selected box. You should also make your privacy policy so that it is written in plain, easy-to-understand English.
  • Update your cookie policy or add one.
  • Make sure that all of your data processors are GDPR-compliant.

Protect Patient Information 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.