A recent article in Outpatient Surgery Magazine on increasing room turnover speed offered an appropriate lesson for clinics and medical and dental practices. In emergency room and operating room settings, the ability to keep room turnover moving at a fast pace allows more patients to be seen and makes the most efficient use of physician […]

Google has launched a new service dubbed Helpouts that has the potential to become a useful tool for doctors, dental practices, clinics, hospital departments and other healthcare providers. In what might be called an expert version of Hangouts, Google’s popular video chat phenomenon; Helpouts offers secure, pay-per-use video consultations with vetted experts in fields ranging […]

A shortage of primary care physicians, growing competition from retail clinics and  increased economic pressures have many family practices exploring the potential of the medical home model to make more efficient use of medical practice resources. Adding to their burden is increased government regulation, particularly new HIPAA compliance regulations and documentation and reporting requirements associated […]

Smartphone technology has revolutionized the way physicians, dentists, hospitals and clinics communicate with each other, their office staffs and their patients. Short Message Service (SMS) text messaging has made medical communication more efficient and more personal, adding value to patient care and strengthening the link between patients and their healthcare providers. But text messaging also […]

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 contains several mandates, but for medical answering service companies and clients, the one that resonates most specifies that provides for the correct and confidential handling of what the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) terms individually identifiable health information. As HHS notes, identifiable information can […]

One rude phone call from an angry or dissatisfied patient can instantly destroy medical office staff morale. Training your staff to diffuse patient anger and handle rude phone calls tactfully can help keep your medical office functioning smoothly and improve patient relations. Even if certain people are tasked with answering the phone, you should consider […]

Working as a medical receptionist is a tough job. Receptionists can feel squeezed between physician needs and patient demands. When patients call their doctor’s office, it is often difficult for them to understand why the receptionist cannot immediately get them in for an appointment or connect them to their doctor or his nurse or reveal […]

In the push toward patient-centered care, “patient engagement has emerged as a key strategy for not just treating chronic conditions but also providing better, more collaborative and more efficient healthcare,” Brian Eastwood, senior editor of CIO.com, notes in a recent article on new methods medical practitioners are using to improve patient engagement. As we tweeted […]

With the government promising vigorous auditing to ensure compliance with new revisions to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), physician practices and medical clinics are reviewing their information security policies and procedures to ensure that they meet the new requirements. As we noted in our previous post, at the annual Medical Group Management […]

At last week’s annual conference of the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) in San Diego, strategies for achieving and maintaining compliance with the Omnibus Rule of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) were a hot topic. With implementation of new federal privacy and security requirements on September 23, HIPAA compliance issues dominated many discussions. […]