Benefits & Purchasing Tips for an EMR

Prescription drugs are the second most abused category of drugs. About 70 percent of Americans – approximately 191 million people – visit a health care provider, such as a primary care physician, at least once every 2 years. Thus, health care providers are in a unique position to prescribe needed medications. We have all heard stories, have known someone, or have seen the TV show, Intervention, as to how addicts easily obtain prescriptions from multiple physicians in order to abuse prescription drugs. But what is stopping a person from obtaining various prescriptions from multiple different physicians?

The healthcare industry and the President’s 10 year EHR incentive plan is trying to combat this issue by first having physicians implement an EMR system. An EMR means “Electronic Medical Record”, which is an electronic version of a patient’s paper chart. It is a comprehensive record of a patient’s prescriptions, medical history, test records and diagnostic images. EHR and EMR sound like the same term, but EHR means “Electronic Health Record” and is a comprehensive collection of a patient’s healthcare records that will eventually be accessible by any physician in the country via the National Health Information Network. A patient’s medical history becomes sharable national data. An EMR is the first step to achieving a national EHR system. By implementing a national, sharable system, physicians will have a clear and comprehensive view of a patients medical record which will in turn decrease the number of prescriptions given to a patient.

There are many EMR companies and products to research when purchasing an EMR. Consider the following points when evaluating an EMR for a medical practice.

Understand the needs of the practice

Given the wide range of EMR companies, products, and features, consider writing out a list of what the practice wants most of an EMR in order to evaluate the financial impact.

Study workflow

Document and make a detailed diagram of the tasks performed and who currently performs them at each stage of the patient’s visit in order to study the workflow in a paper environment.

Quantify the changes

Where and how will implementing an EMR save time and money?

Billing

Will implementing an EMR help generate additional revenue in the billing department by ensuring accurate coding?

Negotiate

EMR companies will negotiate on price due to increased competition. Haggle away.

Install and train

After investing a lot of money into the EMR system, make sure staff is trained properly in order to see increased revenue and an efficient work flow.

Eliminate paper charts

Don’t allow the practice to get stuck managing paper records and an expensive EMR simultaneously. Obtaining an EMR is a financial opportunity; don’t let it become a liability.

It will take time for the national EHR system to be fully operational but the necessary steps are being taken now to insure that one day it will be harder for patients to abuse prescription drugs.

New Mammogram Recommendations?

Dr. Mehmet Oz is everywhere. You can’t turn on the TV, read the newspaper, or even walk down the street without seeing his face or an advertisement about his TV show. Of course I am a fan of his on Facebook, along with 192,647 others. America has been undeniably tuning into the healthcare industry recently with the upcoming healthcare reform bill. Since healthcare is such a hot topic right now, the media has been coving a story on early mammogram detection. Yesterday Dr. Oz posed the question via his Facebook page, “So what do you all think of the new recommendations that women not get mammograms until age 50, instead of age 40?” Amazingly, 2,629 people responded. Most people were outraged that the government and insurance agencies could even be suggesting this. For years the American Cancer Society has been preaching early detection, with women receiving mammograms at age 40 and self breast examinations. For the government and insurance agencies to say now that there is no supportive evidence of early detection being beneficial just boils down to money since it costs more money for women to be undergoing the mammograms at an early age.

 Below is a statement from Otis W. Brawley, M.D., chief medical officer, American Cancer Society.

 “The American Cancer Society continues to recommend annual screening using mammography and clinical breast examination for all women beginning at age 40. Our experts make this recommendation having reviewed virtually all the same data reviewed by the USPSTF, but also additional data that the USPSTF did not consider. When recommendations are based on judgments about the balance of risks and benefits, reasonable experts can look at the same data and reach different conclusions.

“With its new recommendations, the USPSTF is essentially telling women that mammography at age 40 to 49 saves lives; just not enough of them. The task force says screening women in their 40s would reduce their risk of death from breast cancer by 15 percent, just as it does for women in their 50s. But because women in their 40s are at lower risk of the disease than women 50 and above, the USPSTF says the actual number of lives saved is not enough to recommend widespread screening. The most recent data show us that approximately 17 percent of breast cancer deaths occurred in women who were diagnosed in their 40s, and 22 percent occurred in women diagnosed in their 50s. Breast cancer is a serious health problem facing adult women, and mammography is part of our solution beginning at age 40 for average risk women. “

To read the full statement: american cancer society

6 Mistakes of Brochure Creation

Every practice or business needs a brochure. Some brochures, if not done correctly, can become ineffective if not put together properly. There are 6 common mistakes to avoid when creating a brochure.

1. Objectives not being clearly stated. What is the main objective of the brochure? Clearly define the goals you want and what type of call to action that you want achieved by the patient or client.

2. Using generic templates. Not all brochures are created equal. In this day and age of visual stimulation, people can easily tell if a template was used.

3. Choosing the wrong brochure size. Decide what you are using your brochure for, how you plan on using the brochure to market, and then decide what size will work best for your needs. Do not base this off of content.

4. Not putting the heart of the practice or business into the brochure. People want to make a connection and to establish a relationship.

5. Copying the competition’s brochures. One of the main goals of marketing is to get noticed and differentiate the practice or business from the competition. Following suit with how the competition’s brochures look is defeating the purpose.

6. Visually pleasing isn’t everything. Just because your brochure is visually pleasing does not mean it will succeed. At the base of any brochure is content and calls to action.

Medical Practice Branding

What is a Brand?

Wikipedia defines a Brand as, “a name or trademark connected with a product or producer.”

Why should a medical practice care about branding?

A medical practice’s brand is the entire experience a patient has with the physician and staff during the entire relationship. From the moment a patient walks through the door, it is up to the practice as a whole to convey the branded message of the practice. Branding is done primarily through communication of the practice’s values, making a promise, and by differentiating the practice in a positive and consistent way. Delivering on the promise consistently forces the practice to strive to improve. To improve on differentiating a practice, focus on the quality of the experience and the relationship versus the clinical quality of care. Patients can judge experiences and not the clinical aspect of care.

6 Ways to Enhance your Google Search

Most people search Google the same way. They type keywords into the search bar and click, Search Google. If they don’t find what they are looking for, they change some words around and search again. Sound familiar?

Let’s use ‘physician marketing’ as our search term as we learn how to enhance searching through Google.

1. Using double quotes around your keyword to search explicitly for a phrase is called Explicit Phrase. Example, “physician marketing”.
2. If you want to exclude a certain keyword that might come up in your search, such as keyword advertising, simply use the hyphen in front of the excluded word. Example, physician marketing-advertising
3. To look for a specific term on a website, use “site:somesite.com”  Example, “physician marketing” site:euthenia-marketing.com
4. To look for a specific document type, such as PowerPoint, use “filetype:”  Example, “physician marketing” filetype:pptx
5. If you want your search to include synonyms or similar words, use “~”   Example, “physician marketing” ~professional
6. This or That. If you are looking for one or more terms to search, use OR, which needs to be in capital letters. Example, physician marketing OR advertising

How much money should a business set aside for marketing?

While on LinkedIn the other day, I went to the Answers section to see if I could help out my fellow members by answering questions that other people have. I came across one question asking, “How much money should I put into my marketing budget?” My first thought was that this person is going about this all wrong. How can you determine a marketing budget without knowing the goals of the business and the resources that are available to that business? There are a couple approaches to formulating a marketing budget.

The objective and task budget is where a business does not predetermine a dollar amount. They define goals first. Second, they define strategies and tasks, and then look at the costs associated to implement the marketing plan. Add up the total cost and the business has a marketing budget. One of the drawbacks of this type of approach is that the budget may actually end up being larger than anticipated.

Another approach to determining a marketing budget is by using return on investment (ROI). In this method, businesses start by establishing the financial goals they want to get from the marketing efforts. Then, determine a reasonable return on investment and work backwards. Let’s use an example. If a business is looking to have a goal of $500,000 in revenue, and use a reasonable return on investment of 4:1, then the marketing budget should be $125,000.

Of course there are more approaches to figuring out a marketing budget but some of these I do not suggest. On the fly marketing is when a business attends events or decides to try a new marketing technique as opportunities come up. Similarly, another approach is when businesses pre-assign a dollar amount for the year towards marketing and as marketing opportunities arise, it is then determined if they want to allocate that money to that opportunity, and some businesses do the all they can afford approach.

5 Key Tips to Successfully Deliver an Email Campaign

5 Key Tips to Successfully Deliver an Email Campaign

1. The subject line and the content need to match in order to not be categorized as spam right off the bat. The worst thing you can do is put together a clever and creative email to have it ultimately not be delivered. What a waste of time and energy.
2. Create an interesting subject line. Spend half of your time on writing the email and the other half of your time thinking of a catchy title. Think about your own email inbox. Will you open an email if the subject line does not catch your attention?
3. Think about the best day and time to send out your email depending upon who your target audience is. This may take some trial and error on your part by tracking your open ratios on different days and times. Start by sending out your email campaigns on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. On Monday morning’s people have many emails sitting in their inbox to go through. Don’t get lost in the mix. The same goes for Friday’s, especially in the afternoons. Most people are already thinking about their weekends, not on your email marketing efforts.
4. Do not forget a “Call to Action”. You are sending out an email for a reason. What is that reason? What do you want your target to do? Make sure your call to action is noticeable, meaning put it at the top of the email so that your target audience does not have to scroll down to figure out what they should be doing. Also, make sure it stands out and that it is clear and visible.
5. Have your email graphically pleasing. No one wants to read just plain old text. Graphics will grab the attention of our audience and will break up the monotony of the text. The graphics need to be relevant to the goal of your email.

Marketing Plans

MARKETING PLAN

Is a written document that details the necessary actions to acheive one or more marketing objectives. It can be for a product or a service, a brand or a product line.

NOT A MARKETING PLAN

Experimenting with different marketing ideas or concepts by “seeing what will work”.

How kind of marketing plan does your practice or business have? Does your business even have a marketing plan or budget?

Receptionists as Public Relations Representatives?

One of the key elements in marketing and patient retention that is usually overlooked is Internal Marketing. Most physician practices focus primarily on external marketing, which is getting the patients in the door. They may advertise via their website, the yellow pages, and community events. But ask yourself this very simple question… Would you hire your front desk staff as your public relations representative?

How does your front desk answer the phone? Are they friendly? Do they have a script or are they winging it? The front desk is vital in converting phone inquiries into kept appointments. You would be surprised at the number of physician offices that fail this very important task. There are very simple solutions to help the front desk staff gain a better understand of how and what their role is when answering the phones.

Once the appointment is set, we know the external marketing has worked, and the receptionist was successful in converting the phone lead. What’s next? What needs to be addressed next is how they are treated once through the door. Everyone should be treated the same, whether they are a patient, pharmaceutical drug representative, or any number of vendors that approach healthcare professionals. Everyone should be greeted with a smile and offered assistance. All too often this is forgotten. Over time we see receptionists becoming more of a gatekeeper, with an emphasis on keeping people out rather than being open to new people. Keep in mind you can never take back a first impression.

Specialty Medical Practice Marketing

There are a number of reasons why physician practices should market to the community and other referring physicians. Here is the main reason why specialty physician practices need to increase their marketing efforts.

The primary reason is COMPETITION, which I have touched upon in other blogs as well. A rise in the number of group practices is occurring as many of the physicians coming out of medical school attach themselves to already established medical practices. These group practices have the branding and resources to attract new physicians. These same groups tend to take a more aggressive approach to marketing due to the decreasing reimbursements year after year. They know in order to have a profitable business; outreach to the community and referring physicians is key. As a specialty practice, obtaining referrals from internal, family, and general physicians are increasingly harder to come by. Primary physicians are referring less and handling the ailments of their patients themselves. As new physicians enter the marketplace, they have a better understanding of how they need to run a business. Younger physicians see marketing as a necessity while the older doctors may feel it is unethical or unnecessary.

Medical practices need to keep in mind the 80-20 rule: 80% of the most lucrative cases are obtained by the top 20% of the practices. Specialty practice needs to stand out in light of its competition by marketing their brand.