At a private practice, the departure of an experienced medical billing professional can be more than just an inconvenient, unwelcome loss – it can be downright debilitating.

A small practice might have only one or two billers on staff. If one quits, management of the revenue cycle can easily get off track, stalling cash flow and causing serious consequences on the bottom line.

While a larger practice may have more bodies on hand to cover a sudden biller vacancy, certain specialized tasks – coding, say, or denial management – may have been delegated to the one who parted ways. Her absence could create a hole in the billing process and cost the practice money.

Administrators have been known to panic when a biller unexpectedly gives her two-weeks notice. If it happens to you – fear not. Power Your Practice has some tips on how to best tackle the transition.

1. Don’t Rush to Hire
When an important staffer quits, a manager’s first impulse is often to hurry to fill the open position right away. But immediately hiring someone to fill the exact job that was left behind can be a costly mistake.

This is especially true when the job is a billing or coding position. If your biller departs, it’s critical that you take some time to reflect on your practice’s needs before bringing in someone new.

To facilitate that, have a qualified employee (or two) cover your departed staffer’s duties or bring in a temporary employee. Buy yourself the time you’ll need to figure out what’s best for your practice.

2. Assess Your Performance
Medical practice challenges – like incidents of staff turnover – should always be treated as opportunities for improvement. When a biller leaves, take advantage of the pause in processes. Take an in-depth look at your billing operations and figure out where you need to make changes for the better.

Do an audit of your billing operations, retroactively evaluate your departed employee and observe how your office is handling the loss in staff. Measure your key performance indicators (KPIs) in all areas of billing and compare your stats to industry benchmark data from the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA).

Among other metrics, the MGMA finds that the average medical practice employs roughly one patient accounts staffer per every two full-time-equivalent physicians. It also found that top-performing medical groups average just a 4% claims denial rate. How do you stack up to those standards?

If your data is not on par with that of your peers or you’re not meeting your KPI goals in billing, a change is necessary to spur improvement. Filling your vacated position, even with a new hire of ideal skill and experience level, may not be the ticket to better billing.

3. Weigh Your Financial Options
If you were happy with your previous employee, you may be eager to recreate the experience with a new hire. But keep this in mind: in-house billing may be all you’ve ever worked with, but it’s not the only option available.

Many practices find that it’s cost-effective to utilize the services of a medical billing company. If your departed staffer constituted a one-person billing department, this may be an option worth considering.

Use the billing performance data you measured earlier to help you figure out whether rehiring or outsourcing is the best financial choice for your practice.

Billing companies can charge customers in various ways: via flat rate; by taking a percentage of overall collections; by billing per claim or per statement; or through combination of those. Investigate the going rates at several companies offering the services you may need, and calculate your metrics against their prices to figure out what you’d pay as a customer.

For example, if your biller was processing 1500 claims each month, and a billing service would charge you $0.90 per claim to process them, that adds up to a cost of $1,350 per month to outsource. Is that lower than the compensation and benefits you’d confer on a new hire?

4. Consider the Future
Look ahead and think about what changes are coming for your practice in the months and years ahead. Is your practice going to grow by adding new providers, expanding its services or welcoming new patients? Or will you be scaling down as a physician retires?

Keep this in mind: the last thing any new hire wants is to join a company just to be phased out his position shortly thereafter. It’s common for medical practices to outgrow the capabilities of their in-house billing departments or find themselves underutilizing staff when business slows.

If you foresee major changes coming down the pipe, using an outsourced billing solution could help you avoid cutting staff as your business evolves.

5. Make Your Move
If you’re happy with your billing department’s performance, find it cost-effective to take on a new staffer and foresee a smooth, change-free future at your practice, put up a job listing, ask for employee referrals and start interviewing.

Otherwise, since you’re already in a time of transition, capitalize on the opportunity to make some changes.

For one, you may want to consider moving to a more advanced technology solution for your billing needs. The best systems on the market perform many administrative tasks automatically, which allows medical billing departments to do more work with less staff.

If you’re interested in outsourcing, make some calls and field a few sales pitches from medical billing companies. Learn how they could improve your business by asking for stats on each company’s average first-pass resolution and denial rates. Get recommendations from other practice managers and talk to each prospective company’s current customers.

Don’t forget – if you still have a billing department structure in place, you can always fall back on rehiring, which puts you in a great position as a consumer. Take your time, negotiate rates and hold out for an excellent deal.

How have you dealt with losing a biller?

With smartphones dominating the telecommunications market and tablets growing ever more popular in the medical setting, the latest advancement in healthcare is the advent of mHealth – the use of mobile devices and applications in support of the practice of medicine.

The technologies may be getting smaller and smaller, but the scope of their capabilities is very, very large. Research firm Juniper estimated that 44 million health-related applications were downloaded on mobile devices in 2011.

Wonder what apps were purchased? You should – and you should be even more interested in the ones being developed. Revolutionary patient education, health monitoring and medical condition management tools are entering the market, and some could have a hugely positive impact on the healthcare industry as a whole.

Patient Education
Studies show that U.S. healthcare costs resulting from poor health literacy add up to as much as $238 billion per year. Lowering that total requires that a much greater focus be put on educating patients about their bodies, conditions and diagnoses.

mHealth can to do that. App developer Orca Health is harnessing the advanced display capabilities of tablets and smartphones to increase health awareness. Orca’s apps use interactive 3D graphics to let patients explore inside the human body with incredible detail.

When using Orca’s SpineDecide app, users can zoom in to inspect a single vertebra and spin it around for a 360° view. There are similar apps for the foot, eye and shoulder, among other body parts, and the company just unveiled KidsDental, which uses dynamic, entertaining graphics to teach children how to care for their teeth.

Orca’s apps make health education fun and interactive. More importantly, though, widespread adoption of tools like theirs could increase health literacy among consumers, which would lower the costs of healthcare.

Health Monitoring
Since mobile devices were designed for portability and can be with you at all times, they’re ideal tools for tracking biometric data.

The trend of “self-monitoring,” which uses smartphone apps and wearable devices to collect and measure personal health data, is growing rapidly. Juniper estimates that by 2016, over 3 million people will be monitoring themselves over mobile networks.

Tools like the FitBit and Jawbone UP track data on their wearers’ activity levels, sleep patterns and eating habits, and can challenge users to meet or exceed daily goals. The devices are popular with health and fitness buffs who not only want to live well, but know just how well they’re living.

Mobile tools are also useful for those seeking to lose weight through dieting, since they can track food intake to encourage healthy eating. iPhone app MealSnap lets users take a picture of their meals and get back instant calorie count estimates. Fooducate reports the nutrition information of a packaged food product when you scan its barcode, then suggests healthier alternatives.

Condition Management
Other mobile tools under development could be especially useful for patients who suffer from medical conditions and need to monitor personal metrics in order to stay well.

Juniper’s research found there’s a high demand for mHealth products for cardiac outpatients; experts predict that a multitude of heart-health apps will emerge in 2012. Today, the AliveCor tracks its users heart rate data using smartphones, but it’s not yet available in the U.S.

There’s also a large market for mobile tools that aid in managing chronic diseases, like diabetes and COPD, and ensuring patients get proper treatment.

A wireless glucose meter from Telcare, the BGM, debuted at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) to rave reviews. The device works like a traditional blood sugar meter but also sends measurement results to a secure online database immediately following testing.

Telcare’s tool electronically aggregates the glucose readings, which diabetics today usually just write down, and enables physicians to access that data remotely at their earliest convenience. This ensures doctors can review accurate readings – since patients can’t report false numbers – and may hold patients more accountable to test at appropriate intervals.

The BGM, and a wealth of other awesome mHealth tools, will be widely available later this year.

What kinds of mobile health tools do you want your patients to use?

Health IT evangelists often dismiss physicians as technophobes, claiming their aversion to EHRs results from a fear of adopting technology among doctors.

However, the use of robots during surgeries, MRI technology and even the surge in popularity of higher-level technological devices for personal use among physicians suggests otherwise.

Why, then, are some physicians so opposed to EHR adoption? In many cases, interfaces are sloppy and not user friendly, and consumer devices like Android and Apple gadgets have upped the ante by featuring operating systems that are equally usable and beautiful.

Below we outline reasons why some EHR interfaces are so difficult for doctors to adopt.

EHR Shortcomings

Multitasking

Many EHR interfaces are clunky and get in the way. The system may lack an effective enough design to enable multitasking, which prevents the physician from juggling simultaneous tasks like responding to one patient’s concerns while writing prescriptions for others.

Old-Fashioned

No physician wants to work with an antiquated, old-fashioned system. Many EHR user interfaces were developed years ago, before today’s more simplified and sophisticated interface tools became widespread.

Physicians Have Needs

Many EHRs have a hard time understanding a physician’s needs. Although a number of EHR developers have consultants and staff with medical and nursing degrees, they’re not spending enough ‘elbow-to-elbow’ time with practicing physicians in the field.

Customization Issues

Most EHRs allow for certain fields to be customized. For instance, your medical practice may accommodate individual users with customized templates. However, there are many occasions in which a vendor offers an upgrade to improve usability that won’t accommodate the previously customized fields.

Competitor Information

Unlike the iPhone versus Android battle, EHR vendors often place contractual limitations on customers, preventing them from sharing details of the vendor’s EHR. It’s understandable for vendors to be protective over their intellectual property, but such nondisclosure agreements prevent industry-wide improvements to EHR user friendliness.

What Makes an EHR Usable?

Physician Dr. Juan Reyes, in-house physician at CareCloud, defines EHR usability according to three standards.

“Simplicity, efficiency and design,” said Dr. Reyes. “Simplicity is about having an intuitive process that allows the physician to use the system without a long learning process. Efficiency is the ability to capture all the data required to manage the patient’s condition and maximize the chances of a good outcome while speeding workflow and increasing productivity.”

Dr. Reyes continued: “And a beautiful design or user interface may sound like a superficial thing when describing usability, but at the end of the day, the doctor has to spend a lot of time using an EHR. An outdated, boring design could affect usability in the long run.”

Outlining the shortcomings of some EHRs puts into question what EHR usability really means. The issue of design has become increasingly more important, seeing as poorly thought out EHRs lead to clinician inefficiency and potential safety issues.

“An efficient EHR documents a clinical encounter and captures all the data required to provide the best outcome for the patient with minimum time and effort,” said Dr. Reyes. “The system’s goal should be to provide value and improve outcomes.”

What do you look for when demoing EHRs for your practice?

Many physicians and practices will agree that the continued implementation of electronic health records and other healthcare technologies is too much for the government to regulate on its own.

So while this influx of digital data is great for improving health care, it ups the ante for hackers and thieves to steal valuable personal health information.

Case in point: a report by IT security audit firm Redspin recounts US Department of Health and Human Services data to confirm data breaches from unencrypted devices were up 525% in 2011, or 385 instances since 2009.

How can you help decrease the stunning number of yearly medical data breaches? Healthcare organizations need to act as their own watchdogs, so to speak, to protect their patients – and themselves – from the dangers of a data breach.

Medical Data Breach Repercussions

HIPAA legislation pins blame on organizations defined as covered entities for data breaches, namely doctor’s offices, health insurers and hospitals. The HITECH Act broadened the definition to include business associates as well.

The consequences of a data breach for any of the groups above extend past ruining reputations. Fines alone are much greater than they used to be – $100-$50,000 per violation. Maximum fines can reach a possible $1.5 million in penalties, which is reserved for cases where willful neglect can be proven as a cause for the breach.

Furthermore, not only does the HITECH Act require affected patients are notified of personal health information breaches individually, but any data breach involving more than 500 patients must be reported to that state’s media outlets.

Is Data Encryption Necessary?

For starters, the HITECH Act does not classify the loss of encrypted data by a covered entity as a data breach. Still, data encryption alone doesn’t shield organizations from data breaches.

Back-up hard drives, the network and hardware (laptops, flash drives, flash drives, smart phones) should also be encrypted to keep data private. There are also higher levels of encryption. While HIPAA requires data is encrypted at 178 bits, your software provider may offer 256-bit encryption, which is considerably more secure and beneficial to your practice.

Lastly, encryption is not sufficient on its own, seeing as it doesn’t protect data when it’s being exchanged over a network, or even when the computer is in use.

Preventing a Data Breach

So what other data protection methods can you exercise? There are several steps and precautions your practice can take, including:

• Adhere to the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Risk Management Framework to evaluate all IT systems containing personal health information at your practice and ensure they’re in accordance with HIPAA standards.

• Adhere to the HIPAA-compliant NIST, International Organization for Standardization and Health Information Trust Alliance standards when formulating an EHR security protection program.

• Divide patient and guest data in an attempt to keep networks secure.

• Consider giving administrators login and authentication on computers and networks at your practice, including controlling access and validating privileges.

• Learn to dispose of computer equipment properly.

As healthcare IT becomes more advanced, new security issues will arise, so it’s important to keep up with current conflicts to protect your patients and your practice.

What measures has your practice implemented to help prevent data breaches?

To the relief of doctors across the U.S., federal lawmakers have now agreed to a tentative deal that delays the 27.4% cut to Medicare physician payment rates. As long as the deal goes through, the current rates will be extended until 2013.

Concerns over the “doc pay cut” measures have been plaguing providers, so the agreement is welcome news to the healthcare industry. But some docs are disappointed with the deal. Congress will still need to revisit the payment issue by the end of the year to reach a real resolution, and worries over the adequacy of Medicare reimbursement rates remain.

Since the start of 2012, Power Your Practice has been investigating the complicated relationship between physician providers and Medicare more closely. A few weeks ago, we published a story that discussed how many physicians are considering completely disenrolling from the Medicare system.

To examine that idea a little further, PYP recently got in touch with Jane M. Orient, M.D., Executive Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), to get her thoughts on physicians’ best interests when it comes to Medicare.

The AAPS is a non-profit organization that considers itself nonpartisan but espouses conservative viewpoints on political issues related to the practice of private medicine in America.

AAPS promotes the concept of physician nonparticipation in Medicare as part of its goal of “preserving the sanctity of the patient-physician relationship and the practice of private medicine.” Dr. Orient has published many articles on Medicare, including a recent piece on Medicare disenrollment.

PYP: Your organization, the AAPS, has consistently advocated physician nonparticipation in Medicare for years. Have the recent melee and last-minute legislation surrounding the 27% doc pay cut caused the AAPS to support nonparticipation more fervently?

Dr. Jane Orient: We have always supported nonparticipation on ethical grounds: physicians should work for their patients, not for the government or third parties, and benefits belong to the patient not to the provider. As the program has become increasingly complex and punitive, as well as nonremunerative, more physicians are interested in nonparticipation.

PYP: If a physician in general or family practice came to you and asked whether he should disenroll from Medicare entirely or just opt-out, which approach would you encourage more?

Dr. Orient: We provide information about the options. Disenrollment has advantages, but is a gray area of the law rather than a safe harbor.

PYP: Since Medicare provides so much funding for physician residency training programs, do you think there’s anything unethical about physician nonparticipation in Medicare? Isn’t refusing involvement in the Medicare system sort of like not paying on a student loan?

Dr. Orient: No and no. When you take out a student loan, you sign a contract agreeing to repay. When you enter a physician training program, you work at less than minimum wage for years and do not sign any contract of indentured servitude (which I believe would be illegal) for the rest of your life. Training programs do take a lot of government money, but it goes to the program, not the residents. It would be interesting to see just how it is spent – I’ll wager it has little to do with the process of educating the residents, who learn primarily by working under supervision. In any event, doctors my age served in programs that were not recipients of much federal largesse.

PYP: What changes would have to be made to the Medicare system to change AAPS’ stance favoring nonparticipation?

Dr. Orient: The AAPS position is based on the principle that physicians should not work under circumstances that tend to interfere with physician judgment or that tend to diminish the quality of care, not on specific problems with Medicare fee schedules, etc. We believe that third-party payment is the basic cause of our problems, not the solution. This is to be distinguished from true insurance, which simply reimburses the subscriber for a financial loss under the terms of the insurance contract.

PYP: Can you foresee a physician-friendly Medicare system becoming a reality in the near future – say, within the next five years?

Dr. Orient: No. It only gets worse. More and more costly administrative busywork, more bounty hunters out to extract huge fines, more federal prosecutors determined to imprison physicians for coding errors, more interference with physicians’ decisionmaking. Medicare is bankrupt and has at least $50 trillion in unfunded liabilities (promises made that cannot be kept). Unless politicians start telling the truth about it, they will continue to devise ways to restrict care and scapegoat doctors.

Would you consider disenrolling your practice from Medicare?

Dr. Orient’s responses to the above questions represent her opinions and the stance of the AAPS on Medicare. Power Your Practice does not advocate for or against physician opt-out or disenrollment from Medicare. 

The MGMA estimates that, on average, U.S. medical practices are failing to collect 25% of the money they’re owed for treating patients. That means $125 billion is left on the table every year.

Power Your Practice understands the challenges medical practices are facing in accounts receivable and is here to help. Every week during our A/R Best Practices series, we’re describing the must-have features managers need to look for in practice management systems to manage and collect all of their receivables.

Innovative Tools Make Practice Management Easier
The most effective A/R management applications need a variety of advanced tools to greatly improve a practice’s efficiency and workflow. The features that will benefit practices the most are:

1. Work queue for collectors – The system should be able to send information and assignments to collectors and queue up an automated list so they can work quickly.

2. Skills-based routing – The system should be able to automatically send assignments to employees with the appropriate skill sets. For example, the practice can identify an employee as a Medicare specialist and the system can automatically send Medicare denials to that person.

3. Advanced tracking – Practices should be able to track all denials, underpayments, and lost or ignored claims and charges for a better-organized workflow.

4. One-click action – All tasks within the system should be as easy and intuitive as possible. Common collection item needs – resubmissions, appeals, electronic eligibility verification, demographic and insurance data changes – should be able to be accomplished with one click.

5. Electronic claims status checking – Many payers allow practice to check the status of their claims electronically so they can easily know when to expect a payment or when to follow up on a claim. Make sure you choose a system that can connect with your payers and allows electronic status checks. 

6. Advanced organization – One of the appeals of using an electronic system is the ability to store and easily access all A/R data in the same place so they can make better decisions and improve collections. Therefore, the system allows practices to sort denials by payer, responsible party, provider, payer type, billing amount and any other category. 

7. Tracking expected value of denials – Practices need to know how much denials are costing them so they can assign collection resources appropriately.

8. Standardized denial types – Finally, the system should be able to categorize denials based on their type – for example, justification, enrollment, authorization, coverage, medical necessity and others. These denial types should be able to be standardized into the same category themes across different payers. That gives practices another data point to analyze when trying to minimize denials.

A/R Best Practices: In Conclusion
The revenue cycle for medical practices is complex and tough to manage. That’s why it’s more important than ever to get a handle on the process and efficiently collect more of the money your practice is owed.

Installing your first practice management system or upgrading to a different system with the features described above is one major step toward improving your practice’s accounts receivable operations.

Better billing and collections not only saves practices money and adds to their revenue, but it also allows medical practices to focus more time on what they do best – caring for patients.

How do you plan to optimize accounts receivable in your practice?

For more information, download our free Whitepaper, “7 Best Practices for Medical Accounts Receivable Management.”

Over the past decade, many medical industry experts have been espousing the development of a more transparent, consumer-driven healthcare system.

Advocates for healthcare consumerism seek a truly patient-centered medical environment, in which patients can make decisions about their treatment options, have easy access to their health data, get multiple insurance options to choose from and are given the power to research and choose their providers.

The healthcare industry may never become fully consumer-driven. In fact, the consumerism trend has plenty of detractors, who say that a patient-centered system assumes an overly high level of general patient interest in medical care.

But whether or not they’ve welcomed it, many say that the healthcare consumerism age is no longer a looming trend but a current reality.

“In the past couple of years, the view that providers should treat patients as if they are partners in their own care has advanced especially fast – at least when compared to the glacial pace of change that’s a hallmark of the healthcare industry,” writes Gienna Shaw, editor-in-chief of FierceHealthIT.

When you consider the many advances of recent years, it’s impossible not to see the growing footprint of consumerism in the daily operations of the modern medical practice. What’s truly remarkable is how many of these changes and improvements have resulted from technological progress, and how many more will be further advanced by technology.

Consumerism Today
With the wealth of medical information now available online, patients are more empowered than ever to research their symptoms and diagnoses to better understand their medical conditions. The means have expanded well beyond pharma-sponsored WebMD; the Mayo Clinic Symptom Checker is an incredibly useful and straightforward tool for obtaining general health information.

Also, HIPAA laws today authorize all patients to access to their medical records and amend misinformation within them. Thousands of errors have been caught and corrected by motivated, interested patients. The growing use of electronic health records (EHRs) has already made obtaining that personal data easier for consumers.

Sites like that of the Federation of State Medical Boards provide patients with the tools to learn more information about their providers. Some states’ sites even allow users to see any marks against a doctor’s reputation, making sure physicians are openly accountable for their errors.

And more payers than ever are providing coverage for alternative medical options, like acupuncture, opening up new treatment approaches for patients to request and physicians to turn to.

Consumerism Tomorrow
Further advances in healthcare consumerism will undoubtedly be moved forward by technology.

Providers are already embracing patient portals, which give patients direct, quick access to labwork or other test results. As developers advance the capabilities of existing technology, more and more portal systems will enable appointment requests, patient-to-staff messaging and bill payment options

As ePrescribing expands, it will become easier than ever for patients to fill their prescriptions without ever dropping off a slip of paper at the pharmacy. The AMA published an estimate that 20% of paper-based prescription orders go unfilled. ePrescribing enables patients to get their medications in an easier manner.

And the market for patient-operated technologies in healthcare is growing rapidly, as evidenced by the spate of healthcare apps and self-tracking devices showcased at recent trade shows like CES.

Hopefully, the data extracted by those monitoring tools will soon be incorporated into the patient health records of all who receive medical care. Some EHR technology already has the capability to compile that info; it will be up to doctors and their staffs to use it properly to enhance patient care.

The Patient-Centered Future is Here
Critics believe that healthcare consumerism puts too much power in the hands of patients who are not trained to make informed medical decisions. But what those detractors don’t readily accept is that the patient-centered shift doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing move away from the “doctor knows best” mentality.

At its best, healthcare consumerism should endow patients with better tools for wellness, more access to information, and an improved focus on patient involvement, education and knowledge.

“The future is about empowering individuals,” says Ronald Bachman, president and CEO of Healthcare Visions. “It’s about supporting and rewarding healthy behaviors regardless of plan design. It’s about engaging employees, employers, medical providers, insurance carriers and other stakeholders in a new relationship that deals with health rather than sickness and disease.”

Technology has set the stage for that relationship. Today, by embracing it, your practice can help the best aspects of healthcare consumerism to develop, grow and expand.

What features of healthcare consumerism have you implemented in your practice?

Health care’s prognosticated transitions in recent months and years have spurred a series of questions that healthcare providers and practice managers would’ve never dreamed of asking just a decade ago.

The cloud versus server question is a behemoth among EHR-related questions.

Take a minute to think about what you know about EHRs and how your practice functions. Is a cloud-based EHR easier for your practice to deal with, or do you still believe the client server route is the most efficient?

The Pros and Cons

In a cloud-based EHR system, a practice’s information is stored on external servers, meant for web-based access from wherever you can take advantage of an Internet connection.

Pros

• Low monthly licensing costs, which is great for smaller practices.
• Don’t typically require startup costs. When they do, don’t expect a hefty bill, which isn’t always the case with client-server systems.
• Better client support, and vendor companies have better built-in service security. Best of all, cloud-based vendors can assist your practice remotely, so you don’t have to wait days for an IT professional.
• No in-house hardware or software, which rids a practice of maintenance worries. This hearkens back to the point above.
• It is ideal for mobile physicians and often works on various tablets, i.e., an iPad or a Toughbook. Client-server systems don’t generally work on mobile devices.
• There is more focus on the vendor to meet Meaningful Use requirements.
• A cloud-based EHR may make it easier for your practice to meet HIPAA regulations.

Cons

• Cloud-based EHRs allow little to no customization.
• The host company controls your data.
• The cloud-based system can make uploading large files a bit impractical at times.
• There is often a certain degree of latency when trying to access the web, which may cause even more difficulties for rural practices.
• Many practices fear expenses. A practice may own it’s client-server based system within five years, but never ‘truly own’ a cloud-based EHR.

Debunking the Myths

There seem to be a valid list of complaints associated with cloud-based EHR systems. They can’t all be myths, can they? Let’s dig deeper, starting from the top.

No Customization – This isn’t the case with a number of cloud-based EHRs. Many systems allow users to customize a number of elements, from switching between and/or combining narrative and form-based note-taking techniques to color coding the patient scheduler.

Data Control – This is an oft-cited complaint for client-server proponents. However, most EHRs allow for one-click downloads of any chart or bit of data the healthcare provider may need. In other words, all information in the system is storable in a more permanent way – with encryption.

Uploading Large Files – Why would your practice concern itself with huge files? This complaint is the case with any web connection, particularly for smaller practices. Uploading and downloading large files strains both your hard drive and your web access, and it’s simply unnecessary.

The main concern here is access to the system. However, most EHRs boast a fully functional system in the event that it’s necessary for your practice to upload an abnormally large file.

Latency – While a client-server is not web-based, neither the latter’s software nor your practice’s hardware guarantees lightning speed. A cloud-based EHR is a lightweight system that can work at optimal speeds when your web connection isn’t acting up.

Expenses – Sure, you’ll own your client-server EHR system in a half-decade. But considering the speed at which technology is moving, a five-year-old system may be outdated. It’ll hurt to cough up more cash for a new one. A cloud-based system boasts the luxury of constant updates, which helps keep your practice relevant.

Cloud-based systems boast a level of practicality that clunky client-server systems can’t match. What do you think is best for your practice, and why?

With the state of the economy in flux, the last thing you want happening at your practice is an employee exodus. Training new hires is expensive and time consuming, so having a set of reliable staffers who are experienced in their job duties is essential.

Keeping employees happy should be a priority at your practice. Here’s a set of simple, recession-friendly reminders on the best ways to keep your staff motivated and content.

Show Your Appreciation
If your staff is doing above average work, thank them for it. It’s easy to neglect to express gratitude, especially if you become accustomed to superior performance.

Think about it: If a long-term employee always goes above and beyond for you, you may come to nonchalantly expect excellence from that person as a baseline standard. If you stop acknowledging how well he does his job, he may come to feel underappreciated and thus unsatisfied with his position.

Thanking an employee or issuing small rewards for good work can go a long way. Be sure to make appreciatory gestures whenever possible.

Embrace Change
Managers can be resistant to moving outside their comfort zones. The medical practice is a setting of well-established schedules and routines – which isn’t always a bad thing.

But if you get too attached to the customs of your office, you may find yourself behind the times. Many employees are seeking a more modern workplace experience than your practice may provide, especially when it comes to schedules.

Research from Georgetown Law School and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation found that 80 percent of employees would appreciate more flexible work options. You may not like the idea of watching a full-time employee walk out at 3 pm, but embracing change and adapting to employee needs is a great way to ensure staff satisfaction.

Ask for Advice
“Having a management style that allows for collaboration is one of the subtle ways you can make staff feel empowered,” says Paula Comm, administrator at a Chicago-area psychiatric practice.

Your workplace should be an environment where input is valued, so involve staff in your process when you’re making business decisions. Soliciting advice from your employees shows you appreciate their opinions and expertise, which helps them feel valued by you.

Know What They Want
Take the time to learn what your employees want to gain from their positions and how they envision their future at your company.

Don’t assume everyone’s seeking a raise or promotion. Some of your employees may want to earn increased compensation and move up in the company ranks, but others may be content with their current jobs and want reassurance that their positions are secure.

Open up a dialogue with your employees about their current goals, career aspirations and long-term plans. Knowing what your staffers want from their jobs is key to keeping them happy now and in the future.

Be Present
Don’t manage solely from out-of-sight. If you communicate primarily via email or instant messenger with your subordinates, they may come to feel detached and lose the manager-staffer relationship that boosts employee satisfaction.

Research published in the Harvard Business Review pinpointed that employees have an innate desire to bond with others that they seek to fulfill through work. Fostering a culture of direct communication and relationship-building boosts employees’ dedication to their employer by addressing that “bonding desire.”

You don’t have to become best friends with your staffers. Just make time to speak with and know them. Drop by your employees’ desks and schedule face-to-face meetings when possible. Make your presence felt in person – it makes a difference.

How do you keep your employees happy?

Will ‘big data’ change the way health care is delivered? All signs are pointing to the healthcare industry serving as big data’s next big frontier, which could lead to a more connected and complete healthcare experience.

Health care has been traditionally delivered by one doctor examining one patient at a time, with whatever information has been made available at the moment of the appointment or session. So how can big data revolutionize the way your practice interacts with patients?

More Decisive Doctors
Big data can facilitate better clinical decision-making for physicians, seeing as it gives them access to a much larger volume of medical data. Not to mention, big data will help healthcare providers and other professionals at your practice make sense of amorphous medical journal data, x-ray images and doctor’s notes.

Imagine your practice as it is now, but with access to thousands of patient records at your fingertips. This can enhance decisiveness, allowing you to foresee precursors to certain medical conditions, particularly when dealing with low frequency symptoms and diagnoses.

Personalized Care
Naturally, this access to data translates to personalized medicine. The greater specificity of data allows your practice to zero in directly on a patient’s entire health history, without relying on hypotheticals or using other patients with similar conditions or prognoses as examples.

The goal is for healthcare providers at your practice to digitally analyze every patient’s individual chemistry. “Big data actually enables personalized medicine,” said IT consultant Shahid Shah in a recent eWeek.com article. “[Meaning] you need sophisticated data management.

Big data allows for a true departure from health care’s ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach, allowing your practice to mold approaches depending on individual patient situations.

Remember Watson?
In the very near future, computers like IBM’s Watson will facilitate the relationships between humans and big data, simplifying pattern recognition within datasets and facilitating collaboration in every field.

A 2011 Tech Trends report by IBM subsidiary DeveloperWorks reveals Watson’s advanced data analytics capacities could revolutionize health care, according to data collected from 4,000 IT professionals from 93 countries and 25 industries.

VP of IBM startups and ISVs, Mike Riegel, agrees, telling eWeek that “data analytics will have a profound impact on health care moving forward as it represents an important way to finally make sense of the volume of health care data.”

If last year’s HHS Medicare Shared Savings Program initiative to provide incentives for accountable care organizations (ACOs) based on health outcomes is an indication of the industry’s changing business model, then data-analytics tools like Watson become even more important for measuring performance.

Tech-Savvy Patients
Patients strapped with smart phones, tablets and laptops could also speed things along. Innovative companies like 23andMe, Fitbit and PatientsLikeMe are encouraging people to share their medical data, which would help move medical care along tremendously.

However, the key is to get run-of-the-mill patients to share their medical information voluntarily. Considering patient privacy concerns, how can your practice incentivize voluntary disclosure of patient information in situations where benefits to the individual aren’t very clear?

Although this is a modern issue, it should be treated in the traditional, patient-doctor phase of medical care. Physicians are very influential during the nuclear phase of this relationship, and explaining the benefits of data collection to their patients – especially patients who trust your practice after years of visits – can help move big data initiatives along tremendously.

So what’s the incentive? It’s inherent. Without better health, patients won’t be able to cash in on life’s other incentives.

How is your practice preparing for the big data takeover?