Dissecting the business of a private pediatric practice for the purpose of examining its parts & discourse
One of the best decisions our practice has ever made, has been requiring parents to leave a credit card on file. We've done this since 2009 and it has really worked well for us. The most obvious advantage is that this policy reduces your practice’s account receivables. I also like the policy because it shifts the risk of not getting paid to another party, namely the credit card company – which is a far better entity to handle … [Read more...]
Software demos are notoriously biased. EMR representative will generally show you the stuff that works really well. They will show you the stuff that will make you say, ooh, aaah. Nothing wrong with that. When I'm showing something off, I want to share the best of what I have too. But one of our main jobs as leaders of our medical practices, is to shift through the nonsense and get to the nitty gritty. So how do we know, from a … [Read more...]
Fed up with learning that many kids in her community were getting the measles, Dr. Natasha Burgert decided to take the vaccine epidemic in her city head on. Over the 12 weeks of summer, she partnered with her patient's families to support ShotAtLife. This vaccine advocacy group allowed her to have a way to actively respond to the measles epidemic that affected her Kansas City community. In just a few weeks, she collected $6,740. That is … [Read more...]
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you probably know about my e-book, 101 Ways to Transform Your Practice. If you haven’t picked it up (it is free by the way) I wanted to give you a little nudge to do so. Not everything in the ebook is going to work in your practice. But at the very least, I think the ebook will spark ideas that you would have not had otherwise. If you are still not convinced, then let me share this little … [Read more...]
Today, I have another guest post. This time it's from Dr. Suzanne Berman MD, FAAP. Dr. Berman is also a contributor to Survivor Pediatrics. In this post, she gives insight into the real benefit of having a EMR. For example, many docs believe that a EMR will help them chart faster. But as Dr. Berman points out, that is not always true. The real benefit of an EMR isn’t being able to put data in/chart faster – this is great if you can do it … [Read more...]
I don't think you really need one. And here is why. Social media is merely a communication tools just like a telephone. We don't have a phone policy in place for employees yet I would assume they already know what is appropriate and what is not when talking with patients or parents on the phone. Thus we don't need a document to tell employees how to act online. A well written employee manual ought to be enough to set the proper … [Read more...]
It seems the tides are turning. With all the government incentive talks, meaningful use guidelines and healthcare reform, doctors are starting to really look at implementing EMRs. Deciding on which EMR to choose is no easy task. How to implement it with the least amount of burden is also a challenge. Fortunately, there are countless articles online that will help with these tasks. And there are many consultants that can help you with this … [Read more...]
Written by Scott Needle, MD, FAAP In 2005 I had a solo private practice in the town of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. That August, Hurricane Katrina destroyed most of my town, home, and office. My practice had a rudimentary disaster plan, and while no one could have anticipated the extent of devastation after a storm such as that, I was still able to return to seeing patients a short time later. My experiences over the next months—including, … [Read more...]
The mobihealthnews blog posted an infograph titled “Sizing Up the iPad for Healthcare” a while back. The data shows that 60% of physicians plan to either buy an iPad, were interested in learning more about the device or bought one when it came out. There is no doubt that the iPad is an attractive device for just about any healthcare setting. And that includes a medical office. In our medical practice, we’ve had mixed reviews with the … [Read more...]
