Upgrading our nation’s health IT infrastructure and preparing practitioners to embrace electronic medical records (EMRs) makes national headlines daily. On TV, radio, and countless talk shows, the buzz about healthcare reform seems endless. Although changes have been considered for years and repeatedly delayed, EMRs now hold a top spot in our country’s strategic move to improve quality care while allaying ballooning costs. We have to tackle the bucking bull if we are to manage healthcare costs effectively and provide the quality of care our citizens need and deserve, because the bull will no longer wait.
The first step in revamping the healthcare system is getting rid of paper files and manual processes and moving toward full-blown EMRs. Digital accessibility to information is critical to providing continuity of care and top-quality patient services. Federal mandates for adoption are approaching, and significant financial incentives for timely adoption will help to ease the transition. Comprehensive information must be securely accessible in one place to those who need it, whenever they need it, and wherever they are.
Everywhere you turn you read about EMR, EHR, President Obama’s healthcare plans, and more. It’s a problem that’s clearly on everyone’s mind, and everyone has an opinion. It’s easy for everyone on the outside to tell the medical community they have to turn their business processes upside down (oh yeah, and pay for it themselves, too, because we all know how much money the doctors make).
But let’s step back for a moment. When most of us look for a doctor, we’re not really looking for the most technologically capable physician. We’re looking for the person who is the most medically competent. Why should we expect doctors to make technology choices and implement changes any better than the rest of us?
Currently, IT for many doctors is wrapped exclusively around practice management software (PMS) systems. They serve as the core technology (and often the only one) for many practitioners, and are a vital source of information. Some practices have gone a step beyond, bolting on basic scanning capabilities, but their access to information is still limited.
From a ten-thousand foot view, this picture is no different than a university and its student information systems, or an insurance company and its policy administration system. All three scenarios give you a solution with all the data about a “client” (patient, student, or an insured), but none of them include all of the other data that is locked up in paper documents, emails, faxes, voice files, and so on. This is where ECM enters the picture.
As doctors and medical practitioners, you carry out one of the oldest and most important professions of all—caring for people (rather than being expected to be an IT or EMR expert). What you need is a system to get you the information you need—efficiently, easily, on time, and affordably—so you can continue to use your time and expertise to heal people. You don’t have time for software that involves risk, is challenging and time consuming to learn, or is still being refined.
There are some amazing EMRs on the market, but many cater too little to documents and focus entirely on data. In contrast, ECM is a technology that has been around for more than 30 years, is proven and mature, and understands how to securely deliver patient records. It can be purchased with confidence, and trusted to deliver what it promises. ECM may just seem like another fancy acronym and concept. Yet it delivers exactly what you need for a much more affordable price than EMR solutions, many of which are relatively new and are still being perfected. Best of all, it gives you the tools you need to access documents and work more efficiently at a price even small practices can afford.
Why risk implementing a solution before it’s fully proven and market ready? Is it worth paying big bucks for something before you’re confident it will deliver, and risking failure? Doesn’t it make sense to walk steadily with confidence before we try to run?
With browser-based enterprise content management (ECM) software, you can have confidence that you’ll be connected to all of your information, wherever it resides. Once everything is stored digitally, you are steps away from process automation; rules-based processing ensures your standards for consistent, timely, high-quality service are met. Processes such as informing your patients of medical test results are never overlooked again: once your rules are established, data drives standard processes forward to completion, 100 percent of the time.
With the automation and integration powers inherent in ECM, one-stop records are a reality. All of your information is gathered and presented centrally, whether it happens via integration with your PMS or straight through the ECM interface. You can experience the power of digital patient records, with seamless and efficient delivery of information.
Digital patient records solve a serious challenge for doctors and their staff by placing all available information into their hands at their desktops or at the patient’s bedside. By leveraging an ECM solution to access information, you can help your staff adjust to working with records digitally. When true EMRs become reality for your office, you will not only have the right tools and complete access to all of your patient data; you will have already transitioned your staff into the world of virtual care. The challenges of change will lie behind you.
ECM is a cost-effective stepping stone to seamless information access. A proven and advanced technology, the marketplace today offers solutions that have a low total cost of ownership (TCO) and are easy to manage. Scalable solutions create an environment that adapts to your needs and grows with you. The benefits are many. ECM:
You also have the assurance of knowing it will integrate with your EMR system whenever you are ready for it.
There are many proven benefits of transitioning to an ECM solution:
ECM readies your staff for the eventuality of EMRs by enabling:
With everything you need at your fingertips via a click or two of a mouse—and an investment that won’t break the bank—the benefits of data-driven healthcare can be yours.
While making the move to a paperless office is not a new concept, it’s still a major change. It means getting used to a different way of working, and there are costs involved. Yet as you move toward the world of virtual care, ECM technology offers an affordable starting point. In addition to helping you be productive and proactive, it saves money on paper, printing, postage, shipping, file management, and more, supporting business practices that are ecologically sustainable.
Much has been written about President Barack Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act HITECH economic stimulus funds, which are anticipated as early as 2011. Practices that are positioned to make the leap early in the funding cycle will benefit the most, seeing improved care as well as significant reductions in administrative costs. The time to move forward? Now. It makes sense—economically, ecologically, and medically.
Change tends to be accompanied by fear. Transitioning to ECM from paper- and mixed-media record storage is no exception. Common misconceptions that lead to delayed adoption include concerns about:
Tip: Make sure your vendor offers flexible pricing or payment options and the ability to start small and add functionality as your practice grows and changes. ECM is a cost-effective way to move toward EMRs, for a fraction of the cost. A vendor that is committed to your success will work with you to create an affordable solution.
Tip: Talk with your peers. Find out what they are using, and whether they’re satisfied. A high sales volume might be an indicator of success, but it may just be a result of clever marketing. Make sure the vendors you are considering consistently deliver results. If you do careful research, you can strike the fear of failure from your list.
Tip: Make sure your ECM solution lets you lock down access to information (and the ability to act on it) by department, job role, document type, etc., so access can be controlled.
Tip: Don’t procrastinate. With federal funding an arm’s length away, now is the time to get your ducks in order so you can take full advantage of federal funding. Although it takes time to achieve a return on investment, it’s typically less than a year, and sometimes a matter of months.
Tip: Make sure you choose a vendor with a web-based solution built on a cross-platform framework that will enable seamless communication with other systems, now and in the future.
Tip: Start with your current and recent patient records. Archived records can be added later. Moving forward, scan every piece of paper as it’s received, and capture as much as possible electronically. If you gain control over the flow of information, the savings are immense.
Ready to bring your practice to a whole new level? Eager to experience more “Aha!” moments in preventive and curative medicine as you view patient records and challenges in ways that were previously impossible? Anxious to experience greater efficiency in patient care and to benefit from better cost control, using proven technologies that you can trust?
If so, it’s time to embrace ECM and travel the path to the world of digital care. By doing so now, you will be ready to soar when our nation embraces a new system of healthcare that promises to revolutionize quality care. Leap forward with confidence…now!
Source: ArticleBase
They take up space, put a crimp in the work process and they don’t generate revenue — and at the Bone & Joint Clinic in Franklin, file cabinets are a thing of the past.
The clinic has gone paperless, moving everything from patient insurance card information to records and charts into digital information stored on servers.
“As of now, we’re completely paperless. We scan everything and then throw it away,” says Duane Murray, Bone & Joint CEO.
Under the new setup, doctors dictate the specifics of their visits with patients and then transcriptionists type up the notes and put them into the patient’s digital file.
Insurance cards that were once copied and re-copied for each new patient are scanned into the clinic’s database and placed in the patient’s electronic file. The clinic put flat-screen monitors in each examination room.
It’s a solution to a problem that is inherent in any medical practice of an appreciable size.
Keeping and tracking patient records is a cumbersome process filled with plenty of wasted time, he says.
“Most practices have been struggling with the same problem. The question of `where’s the chart?'” Murray says. “Based on any individual patient’s scenario, his or her chart could be in 20 different places at any time. Multiply that by a few hundred patients.”
The bottom line is finding a cost-effective solution to the problems of the daily grind in a medical facility, Murray says.
“You don’t want to be equipment-based as much as solution-based,” he says. “In our case it was space and inaccessibility of records. You have to have those motivations there.”
Financial rewards
All contracts signed by the company are handled digitally and Bone & Joint is moving its human resources functions into the system — maintaining an employee director, orientation manuals and handbooks in digital form made accessible to employees.
“I now have the capacity to grow efficiently. I didn’t look at this as means to reduce staff,” he says.
Faced with an expanding business, the clinic needed to increase the size of its facilities. The problem: how best to handle the expense of a buildout while growing efficiently. The answer was to turn existing space tied to filing and paper-laden back office functions into patient space.
The clinic spent $70,000 in upgrades to the building’s systems and network and another $80,000 doing chart conversions.
“This approach is more cost-effective for us. We would’ve spent $70,000 on upgrades anyway and then we would still have the question of `Do I build another building?'” Murray says. “I know $80,000 wouldn’t build an additional building.”
Moving into a paperless environment gives the clinic a leg-up on meeting federal Health Insurance Privacy and Portability Act (HIPPA) requirements.
Part of the federal legislation requires health care facilities to guard patient records closely and increase availability to the records.
A byproduct of the technology upgrade should also cut costs on the development of the Bone & Joint’s new surgery center. Construction on the $3.8 million surgery center is expected to begin this summer on a vacant lot adjacent to the clinic, will be linked into the clinic’s files and network.
Rather than go full-bore into new technology, the clinic started small, Murray says.
After visiting a paperless clinic in Lexington, Ky., Family Practice Associates, Bone & Joint officials began the planning process of making a similar move in baby-step fashion, focusing only on the processing of insurance cards, then expanding gradually to include all records.
Digital Vandy
Vanderbilt Medical Center’s division of general internal medicine has also taken up the paperless methods to keeping track of patient records with software systems developed in-house.
The StarChart and StarPanel programs are home runs in managing records associated with the 700,000 outpatient visits at the Medical Center and its clinics, says Nancy Lorenzi, professor and vice-chancellor in medical center’s office of informatics
“If you visit to our clinics twice a year, that counts as two visits. We count each time a patient comes in,” she says. “StarChart is our electronic repository of data (related to those visits).”
Going to digital records allows the Vanderbilt clinics to pull out the bulk of its paper records and speed the efficiency of access, she says.
“(An) adult primary care physician is able to take all of the StarChart ocean (of information) and pull information about only his patients. What he now has is the ability to look at just those records, so if he orders a
test, the new results come onto the screen,” she explains.
“If a major drug has a recall, he could sort out the five or 10 patients on that particular drug in less than a minute. The way it was, when a major drug is withdrawn, we would have nurses, secretaries and others going through charts.”
The design of the system was based on a survey of physicians on how they would like to practice medicine in 2004.
“We wanted to take them out far enough to say, `If you had your vision, what would you do?'” she says. “In Informatics, we have been trying to create the products to make that a reality.”
The result was the E3 project (electronic in three years) and StarChart and StarPanel are steps in that direction.
White patient care has been at the forefront of technological advancement, medical facilities have lagged behind the corporate world in the adoption of record keeping and back-office systems, says Abe Niedzwiecki, president of CabinetNG.
Located in Athens, Ala., near Huntsville, CabinetNG developed the systems used by the Bone & Joint Clinic.
It’s not so much the lack of desire to move toward paperless technology that has held up the medical industry. It was the cost and the cost is dropping, Niedzweicki says.
“This software has been around since 1992,” he says. “The other side (facility network infrastructure) didn’t catch up to make it viable cost-wise. The hardware, the PCs, the storage space and those kind of things have come down in cost.”
HIPPA is also a driving force in the increase of demand.
Source: NBJ
Pulse Practice Solutions is a Nashville company specializing in a wide range Document Management Solutions for Healthcare organizations. Due to the EMR push, there are alot of practices that need assistance in converting their backfile of medical records. If you have a need, feel free to give us a call at 615-425-2719 for a cost-free evaluation of how we can make your practice more efficient!
Pulse Practice Solutions provides patient chart conversion services for Healthcare organizations that have or are planning to implement EMR solutions. We convert paper charts to indexed images, named PDF files, or any other digital format needed for import into new or existing EMR or Practice Management systems.
We are a full service organization dedicated to helping Healthcare organizations such as yours and offer professional file preparation, scanning and indexing services.
If you simply wish to archive inactive charts rather than integrate them with an EMR, we can convert them to indexed digital images for easy retrieval and minimal cost.
Most importantly, we can do it faster and more efficiently than if your staff takes on the task. And once we’ve cleared your paper charts out of the office you’ll have additional space in which to see patients.
Pulse Practice Solutions provides patient chart conversion services for Healthcare organizations that have or are planning to implement EMR solutions. We convert paper charts to indexed images, named PDF files, or any other digital format needed for import into new or existing EMR or Practice Management systems.
We are a full service organization dedicated to helping Healthcare organizations such as yours and offer professional file preparation, scanning and indexing services.
If you simply wish to archive inactive charts rather than integrate them with an EMR, we can convert them to indexed digital images for easy retrieval and minimal cost.
Most importantly, we can do it faster and more efficiently than if your staff takes on the task. And once we’ve cleared your paper charts out of the office you’ll have additional space in which to see patients.
Is your practice looking for educational videos for your patients? If so, contact us and learn how we can help!
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT is planning to develop animated videos that explain to consumers the value of health IT, according to an announcement on the Federal Business Opportunities website, Government Health IT reports.
Project Details
ONC plans to hire a vendor to design one or two animated videos, which will be about 10 minutes long or less.
The vendor will be expected to put together a small panel to advise on video style and content, as well as to prepare a draft storyboard for review.
Vendors interested in the project must respond to the announcement by July 26.
Purpose of the Videos
In the announcement, ONC said it wants to increase public demand and support for health IT tools and services to better involve patients in their health care.
ONC also said there is a need to help people identify changes that it is pushing for in the health care system (Mosquera, Government Health IT, 7/12).
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
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
We’ll help you take control of your online reputation & connect with your patients online!
Pulse Practice Solutions, through it’s sister company Evolution Interactive, offers web and interactive services, including reputation management and social media marketing services in order to protect your brand, grow your practice and develop your brand identity.
What is Online Reputation Management?
Reputation management is the consistent research and analysis of one’s personal, professional or business reputation through all kinds of online media.
If you are not already managing your online reputation, it is important that you begin right away. The internet has become a great resource for people to gather information about medical practices and providers. It has also become a platform for provider and practice reviews, both good and bad. While negative reviews can have a devastating impact on your practice, positive reviews can help you grow.
Do you know what to do if a negative review is uncovered?
Are you regularly checking your online reputation?
If you answered no for either question, let the professionals here at Pulse and Evolution take control! We use our experience to scour the internet in search of anything about you and your practice. We also take action when something is uncovered!
What is Social Media Marketing?
Social media marketing enables others to advocate for your business through compelling content. With over 500 million active Facebook users and 126 million blogs on the internet, you must reach out to potential patients in an entirely new way to facilitate success. Evolution Interactive helps you achieve success by implementing relevant social media accounts, customizing your brand identity on each and training your practice on how to engage with patients in an entirely new way. Through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and company Blogs, you can extend your marketing reach and engage your audience thereby increasing leads and success.
Contact us today for a FREE evaluation of your site and interactive presence!
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Drugmakers Leverage Doctor, Patient Data To Market Their Products
May 31, 2013
Consumer Organizations Defend Meaningful Use Program
May 31, 2013
