Few surveyed small and midsize physician practices use electronic health record system functions that are seen as essential components of the patient-centered medical home model of care, according to a Health Affairs study, InformationWeek reports.
For the study, researchers surveyed 1,344 small and medium-sized physician practices with one to 19 doctors.
Key Results
Survey respondents indicated that they use only about 20% of the care processes that are considered required for medical homes, which include:
The survey found that smaller practices had implemented fewer health IT-related processes than larger groups. For example:
In addition, the majority of physicians communicated online with patients in less than 9% of the practices.
Steven Shortell — a co-author of the study, and dean of the School of Public Health and professor of health policy and management at the University of California-Berkeley — said that small practices may have fewer resources than larger groups, so it could take them longer to use the full range of EHR functions.
He added that a lack of online communication can reflect “the nature of the patient population” and whether they have Internet access and want to communicate online with physicians (Terry, InformationWeek, 7/8).
Source: iHealthBeat
Under CMS’ proposed rules released last week for hospital and physician payment policies in 2012, the agency provides details of pilot programs aimed at testing online reporting of clinical quality data from electronic health records, InformationWeek reports.
The pilot programs are intended to pave the way for health care providers to submit quality reporting data online from EHRs to a CMS website. The agency is not yet prepared to accept such data online.
The pilot program for physicians — called the Physicians Quality Reporting System-Medicare EHR Incentive Pilot — is the result of CMS’ push to move toward a system that lets physicians report the same information for meaningful use and for the agency’s Physician Quality Reporting System (Terry, InformationWeek, 7/6).
Details of Programs
The PQRS initiative was launched in 2007 and formerly was known as the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative. It provides incentives to physicians participating in Medicare who report certain quality measures. Meanwhile, the 2009 federal stimulus package provides Medicare and Medicaid incentive payments to health care providers who demonstrate meaningful use of certified EHR systems (iHealthBeat, 6/29/10).
Pilot Program Details
Physicians who sign up for the pilot program also must participate in the PQRS program.
Participants would need to submit data on nine quality measures from the meaningful use program that also would fulfill PQRS incentive criteria. Health care providers would submit data for a full calendar year through their software vendor, if CMS lets the vendor reformat the information and send it to the agency, or directly from their CMS-approved EHR system.
Meanwhile, CMS is calling on hospitals to participate in an electronic quality reporting program that involves submitting outpatient data online.
According to CMS, the program will help hospitals meet meaningful use criteria and establish a system for hospitals to report data electronically under the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting Program (InformationWeek, 7/6).
Source: iHealthBeat
Electronic health record system implementation and meeting criteria under the meaningful use incentive program are among the top challenges for medical practice managers this year, according to a survey by the Medical Group Management Association, Modern Physician reports.
Survey Methods
The online survey of 1,190 physician practice managers was conducted from Jan. 7 to Jan. 21 (Robeznieks, Modern Physician, 6/30). Survey respondents rated 44 issues and identified which challenges were most applicable to their daily work (Monegain, Healthcare IT News, 6/30).
Key Findings
According to MGMA President and CEO William Jessee, the pressure to adopt health IT, determining which EHR systems are most useful for specific practices, and the need to comply with various government incentive and regulatory programs have become top concerns.
In past surveys, rising operational costs was the top concern, which now has dropped below meaningful use concerns and preparing for reimbursement models that place a greater share of financial risk on practices (Modern Physician, 6/30).
The survey also found that:
– Implementing standardized, machine-readable patient ID cards was 9.1% more challenging compared with a year ago; and
– Choosing and implementing an EHR system was more challenging for orthopedic surgery practices than other specialties (Healthcare IT News, 6/30).
Source: iHealthBeat
Pulse Practice Solutions is a Nashville company specializing in Healthcare IT solutions and services. For a valuable IT resource, give us a call at 615-425-2719 to discuss how we can assist with your IT needs!
Networks of small health care provider practices can offer guidance on how to overcome challenges to adopting and using health IT, according to a study by the Center for Studying Health System Change, Healthcare IT News reports.
Researchers focused on the health IT activities at five organizations. The study was based on telephone interviews from March to May 2010 with individuals who worked in or had an affiliation with the organizations.
Key Findings
According to the study, networks of small practices — called independent practice associations — can serve as models of how to provide coordinated assistance with health IT activities to other practices that are relatively small or independent.
Researchers found that in the IPAs, physicians familiar with health IT were able to help other clinicians with less health IT knowledge start using electronic health records.
Paul Ginsburg, co-author of the study and president of the center, said that “identifying physician leaders who can bridge the gap between technology and clinical care is a powerful way to help physicians in small practices overcome barriers to [health IT] adoption” (Manos, Healthcare IT News, 6/30).
Source: iHealthBeat
Last week, Google announced that it will shut down its personal health record system Google Health less than four years after its launch, the New York Times reports.
In 2008, Google introduced Google Health, which the company hoped would attract millions of regular users.
Reasons for Decision
According to Aaron Brown — Google Health’s senior product manager — the company intended to “translate our successful consumer-centered approach from other domains to health care and have a real impact on the day-to-day health experiences of millions of our users.” Unlike electronic health records kept by physicians or hospitals, PHR systems allow consumers to directly input, monitor and alter their health information (Lohr, New York Times, 6/24).
At first, Google Health attracted several well-known health care provider and drug outlet partners (Conn, Modern Healthcare, 6/24).
However, PHR systems long have struggled to engage regular users because they rely heavily on individual motivation and effort, according to the Times. A recent survey by research firm IDC Health Insights found that 7% of consumers had tested online PHRs but that fewer than half continued to use them (New York Times, 6/24).
The company said Google Health did not “catch on the way we would have hoped” (Hoeksma, E-Health Insider, 6/27).
Dealing With the Data
Google plans to shut down Google Health on Jan. 1, 2012, but will keep data available for consumers until Jan. 1, 2013 (Modern Healthcare, 6/24).
Consumers will be able to download Google Health data to related services such as Microsoft HealthVault (Gohring, Computerworld, 6/24). The company also will offer the capability to transfer data using the Direct Project protocol for health information exchange (Claburn, InformationWeek, 6/24).
Any data remaining in January 2013 will be permanently deleted (E-Health Insider, 6/27).
Source: iHealthBeat
Building a practice through marketing must first start with a plan. Your plan should include market analysis, market strategy, implementation, and follow-up. Developing this plan and making it effective must begin with plenty of background information.
Consider:
With these facts and ideas in mind, you can choose which marketing methods will be most effective for your practice.
Click here to learn how to market your practice.
Source: NetDoc
For a medical practice to succeed and grow, you must nurture it through medical marketing; whether your practice is a specialist or a primary care physician. In order to continue increasing revenue, building patient volume, diversifying patients, and perhaps even opening new office locations, you must continuously promoting your practice. Marketing is not a one shot concept; successful marketing is an ongoing process. Once a doctor stops advertising, he or she is forgotten. It’s important to keep in mind that consumers are bombarded by more than 500 advertising appeals a day. A doctor’s message gets lost in an overcrowded advertising environment.
However, doctors have to be careful not to be too aggressive in their medical marketing approach. Without even realizing it, a doctor could be breaking several state and federal laws by marketing and advertising aggressively. Following is a list of top 10 do’s and don’ts of medical practice marketing that will help you stay on the right track.
10 DO’s
1. Define your target market. Identify who are the people most likely to want your services and have the ability to pay for it.
2. Develop a well thought, strategic marketing plan with specific goals and with certain objectives in mind. Create action plans to meet those goals.
3. Send a clear message to your target market that your services are what they want, your practice is a place they can feel confident, and comfortable with. Bold print that image in your advertising.
4. Educate your target audience, whether it consists of referring doctors, patients, or the community. Educating and helping others is the key to success in modern medical marketing.
5. Make sure that all of the marketing materials you use are straightforward, accurate, and not deceptive. All the marketing materials should be readily comprehensible and create realistic expectations.
6. Your ads or marketing materials should have a “call to action.” They should make the target audiences do something. Call your office, make an appointment, pick up a free brochure on their area of interests, etc. Suggest that practice should have at least two brochures. One that hits all the high points of the practice – like the things you’re good at; it’s short, clear, and easy to read with lots of bullet points and heavy on benefits. Second one is the informational brochure. It has a lot of detail for the person who really wants a lot of information. It’s usually used after the first brochure has brought the client in and after the initial consultation, you present the second one to re-enforce the follow up.
7. Several brochures are more effective than just one. It’s better to create several brochures to cover your various services than just one on all services. Don’t mix medical dermatology services like eczema, acne, and rosacea with cosmetic dermatology procedures – Botox, reducing wrinkles, and removing unwanted spider veins, etc.
8. Patient to patient referrals are highly effective. Be sure to include a “Send to” button to all your electronic newsletters and correspondence to past patients. Have your staff make an on-going effort to collect emails addresses for all patients so that you may use this cost effective way to keep your practice “on top of mind” with past patients who may refer friends and family. This is the most powerful business building tool of them all. It simple means that you encourage your current patients to refer people to you.
9. Get yourself known in the community. It’s the key to success. Join and become more active in one or more of the groups or clubs around your area. Include your business card in every bill, flyer, and letter you send out.
10.Make sure you know the laws regarding the advertising of your particular practice. Consult a health care attorney to ensure that your medical marketing efforts do not violate any state or federal laws.
10 DON’Ts
1. Waive coinsurance or deductible amounts because you can violate several laws by doing so. For example, a physician can face fines of up to $10,000 for offering a waiver to sway the decision of a Medicaid or Medicare-eligible person to choose him over another physician. There are exceptions to this rule; however, as long as the waiver is not offered as part of an advertisement or solicitation, the physician does not regularly offer waivers, and the physician only offers the waiver after determining that the patient is in financial need, no laws would be violated.
2. Wait for patients to find you. Be proactive and use medical marketing methods to attract more and diverse people to your practice.
3. Use medical terminology or illustrations that are difficult for the general public to understand in your marketing materials.
4. Make unsolicited phone calls to Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries. In order to call them, they must have been your patient in the last 15 months and you must have their permission to call
5. State in your advertising that patients will not have out-of-pocket expenses and that Medicare or insurance is accepted as payment in full. You should avoid saying that you provide discounts to beneficiaries of Medicare.
6. Provide discounts for services if the patient commits to purchasing another item or service at a specific price. Offering contingent discounts is a violation of state and federal laws.
7. Assume that marketing is advertising. They are two different things. Marketing refers to the systematic planning, implementation, and control of a variety of business activities that is carried out to bring together providers and receivers. Advertising refers to the paid, public announcements of a persuasive message and/ or a presentation or promotion by a business of its services to existing and potential patients/clients.
8. Take advertising lightly. If you do not play your cards right, advertising can prove to be very costly for your business. Advertising is all about location – where you place your ads; and audience – who receives your ads; and messaging – how your services are being conveyed. Medical professionals have to be particularly careful with ads, considering the fact that some frown upon advertising in this field, and herald it “flashy” and “unprofessional.”
9. Compensate your employees and marketing consultants based on the success of their marketing efforts. Make sure that the fee you pay them is fixed in advance.
10. Expect results overnight. Medical marketing is just like everything in business, achieving real results take time. If you’re patient, you’ll see your efforts bear fruit.
Ultimately, your medical practice is a brand, and you need to make the effort to build a strong brand image with professional reputation through your medical marketing efforts.
Take a look at our DO’s regarding practice marketing by clicking here …
Source: BINGMED
As a physician you’ve spent years becoming credentialed and learned about your medical specialization. Now you’re finding that sustaining and growing your practice requires you to enter into competition with other offices to get new patients and referrals. You’ve realized that you have to learn about marketing and branding your practice. A sound marketing and branding campaign can help grow your practice, increase patient-retention, and when done right will inspire staff.This article will give you a comprehensive overview of branding and marketing your practice, so you can work confidently with the best design and marketing team you can afford.
One. Define your practice. Decide what kind of an image you want your practice to portray to your patients and/or referring physicians. Write a mission statement describing (a) your goals as a practice and the goals of your marketing efforts (b) describe how the benefits of your practice will relate to achieving your goals.
Two. (a) Perform a SWOT analysis. Write down your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. (b) Define your “unique selling proposition” (USP)—the element(s) of your practice that differentiate you from your competitors. This is also a good way to become familiar with your competition. Test your USP by imagining it as a print ad headline. Does it capture the best part of your practice? Is it unique to your practice? (c) Define your geospecific target area – how far away will patients come to your practice? (d) Define your demographic and think about how you are going to educate your demographic about your practice—this is the heart of zen marketing.
Three. Brand your practice. Branding is one of the most important investments you’ll make. Branding can be explained best with the three “C’s.” Credibility. Consistency. Connection. How do you know if your designs are any good? Answer: are they credible? High-end professional designs used consistently become familiar and with familiarity comes trust. When we talk about connection, we’re talking about a “value proposition” (who you are, what you can deliver, why you can be trusted). Can your target audience of patient and/or referring physician connect with your value proposition? To summarize, branding is about credible high quality designs, used consistently, and joined with texts that make a connection with the reader.
Four. Prepare for marketing by developing texts about your practice. Write it down, or better, hire a copywriter. This is the best way to determine if “this is who we are” or “wait, that doesn’t capture what we’re about.” Marketing is the process of getting your practice out in front of the people that will sustain your practice–either patients or referring physicians. Marketing requires thoughtful messaging, a plan and then action to follow the plan. Organization along with consistency will help your campaign achieve its goals. And of course, you will need a budget. Practices that target the individual like dentists, dermatologists or cosmetic surgeons have larger budgets than practices relying on referrals.
Five. Design cohesive and matching corporate collateral: business card, letterhead, envelope, prescription pads, signage, brochures, print ads, newsletters, etc. Cohesive and matching marketing materials build trust with patients, referring physicians and the community. Poorly designed and written materials reflect poorly on your practice. People don’t have time to read loads of information, so employ short paragraphs of text and bullet points. It is recommended that you have a separate short branded brochure for each specialized service you provide and a general one for the practice. Patients and referring physicians alike will be able to easily get the information they need about your practice with this method. THE KEY to successful marketing material, print or web, is to emphasize the benefits of your practice. If possible, create differentiation between you and your competitors.
Tip: You can send referring physicians a branded brochure to pass along to their patients as a great marketing tactic. Make sure your brochure is “something of value” with quality information.
Take note: Remember that it will be the combination of all your marketing and branding efforts that will yield results. That being said, more or less, you will only go as far as your budget will allow.
Take note: Your main brochure should contain all the basic information such as office hours, a map, your website address, and services. Not only will this help market your practice, it can free your office staff from answering frequently asked questions and help avoid potential patient misunderstandings. It is recommended that you employ a professional copywriter.
Six. Look for high quality strategic partnerships with other practices. Make sure that this is a win-win situation.Take time develop lasting strategic partnerships.
Seven. The Waiting Room. Make sure that your brochures and some giveaways like pens are readily available. Consider a kids corner to help out patients with small children. A relaxing waiting room that makes every patient feel at home is something to market.
Eight. Web development. You must have a brand coordinated website design that is easy to navigate and informative. A website is very much like a virtual employee and you want your best employee greeting web visitors. The website will become a prominent part of your marketing plan, so make sure you’ve also hired a professional that will make it SEO-friendly (easily picked up and ranked high by search engines). Particularly for plastic surgeons, dentists, psychiatrists and other professionals reliant on web traffic, your goal is to show up on the first page of Google for the keyword search terms that patients will use to find you. Additionally, you also want to show up on Yahoo! and MSN on the first or second page. However, if most of your patients come from referrals, then your web presence will be much more engaged with providing information. In this case while SEO may be less of a priority, credibility certainly is not. And don’t forget to include directions to your practice as well as any patient information sheets or other information that will help spare your receptionist.
Nine. Choosing marketing vehicles. Your marketing strategies depend upon whether you are targeting the individual or the referring practice. If you are targeting the individual or perhaps even companies, you have more options available such as local newspaper advertising, direct mail, coupon mailers, yellow pages, etc. However, if you are targeting referring physicians or practices, your activities will be more focused. In this case you’ll need to decide if you are going to do this through one-on-one meetings (highly recommended) or by sending marketing collateral in the mail (or both). Your marketing firm should tailor your efforts to your specific needs. In either case, you’ll need the highest quality marketing and promotional materials you can afford. And at the very least you do need to be ready to go with your website, appointment cards, and a brochure as your base.
Ten. Before its too late, check in with your own practice. For example, ask yourself, am I doing enough to keep the appointment books filled? Am I contacting patients that need an annual evaluation? Do referring physicians have marketing materials from my practice at their fingertips? Am I doing enough to keep current patients engaged in my practice?
Eleven. Branding goes beyond design, it also applies to your support staff. Your patients are the lifeblood of your practice, so take care of them not only with expert medical care, but also excellent and courteous office and billing support. You and your staff are part of your brand.
Want to improve your brand and identity? Click here to learn more…
Source: Momentum
Half of more than 1,300 surveyed physician practices anticipate purchasing an electronic health record system during the next two years, according to a report by the advisory and research firm CapSite, Health Data Management reports.
Of the remaining practices, 70% say they already have an EHR system that is capable of supporting meaningful use criteria under the federal health reform law, according to the survey.
The survey of both independent and hospital-owned practices also found that:
Vendor Share of Market
The survey also provided details on the leading EHR vendors relative to physician practice size.
For example, the survey found that Allscripts and eClinicalWorks are the leading EHR vendors considered by practices of one or two physicians, while Epic leads among practices with more than 101 physicians (Health Data Management, 6/21).
For any questions or needs regarding EHR/EMR, feel free to contact us.
Source: iHealthBeat
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT has publicly released teaching materials to help develop the nation’s health IT work force, Government Health IT reports (Mosquera, Government Health IT, 6/24).
The materials were produced by five institutions that comprise the Curriculum Development Centers Program, a $10 million program funded by ONC. The five schools are:
The materials have been used by the 82 schools participating in the ONC Community College Consortia Program, which offers health IT training courses.
Curriculum Details
The training courses and the teaching materials aim to reduce a projected shortage of 50,000 health IT workers nationwide (Conn, Modern Healthcare, 6/24).
The materials contain 20 curriculum components and are intended to become the foundation for health IT training at community colleges and universities.
The materials cover topics including:
According to ONC, regional extension centers could find the materials useful.
Instructors can adjust or combine the teaching materials to meet their needs (Government Health IT, 6/24).
Source: iHealthBeat
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