Tau Epsiilon Phi 1990

My fraternity brothers 1990.
Life, uncomplicated.

A Weekend With The Boys

I'm taking the weekend off and I'm going to my Alma Mater, The University of Maryland College Park. The weekend plan seemed to come out of nowhere, but actual was made possible by Facebook.
Beginning in August, someone from my college mentioned this weekend as the TERP reunion weekend on Facebook and due to speed of information dispersal over the net, over 100 guys that I went to school replied, excitement grew and the party is going to be tremendous. It's going to be a great time.

As a solo urologist, I have some challenges to overcome so that I can go. One, I had to get coverage. This was easy and I arranged it with a local urologist whom I cover on a prn basis.

The next challenge is how to balance being in touch with being away. I plan to use voicemail and email as my predominate means of communicating; text message as well.

The next challenge is family. This was more difficult than office coverage and well, costly.

See ya next week.

How to do an Operational Manual for a Practitioner's Office

You really ought to do a "how to" type guide for things you and your staff "do" in your business.  Basically, what you ought to have is an operational manual.    An operational manual is very important for a business to have as it can enable the business to continue to function after you or any particular staff member has left the business.  A good one essentially makes the business larger than any one particular individual, including you.  But you don't have to do it all in one day, or even one week, month, year, or decade.

The concept of "Operational Manual" can be intimidating.  When I think of one, I see a huge binder with thousands of pages of documents that makes for the most boring reading material ever.  Of course, after you've worked on your manual for several years, it'll hopefully look just like the boring one I just described.

You could and should do your manual piecemeal: a little at a time.  And you may wish to include the staff in the process.  Since they are the ones that do most of the actual work that is detailed in the manual, the staff are probably the people most qualified to write it.  I had my technician write down for me the exact steps that she takes when she does a semen analysis.  I then reviewed the steps with her and found ways that could make her more efficient and accurate.  Conversely I discovered--through her--methods to improve the process of semen analysis; the same with urine analysis.  Writing the operational manual with my MA/tech has been an educational process for both of us. 

In my offices, we have documented the processes for digital back-up & recovery, disaster plans, instrument prep and sterilization, specimen collection and handling, phone triage and etiquette, scheduling procedures, copay collection and even how to use the credit card processor.

My operational manual has been a work in progress that started one day in February 2006 as I sat in the The Smithtown Library and planned my new practice.  Over the past 2 1/2 years, I have added to it, subtracted from it, revised parts of it, and learned from it.  The manual has a paper form, but really it has been converted to more of a digital format.  The original document still resides on the shared drive on my office computer but now I keep copies of all the documents and all the newer documents on my Google documents site.  This way, I can revise them from anywhere, at any time.  In addition, with Google documents, you can give staff "collaborator" priveledges and you can adjust settings on the documents site so that it will notify you whenever a change was made by the collaborator.  I don't do this, but you could and I can see the benefits of it.

Also, you can also buy an operational manual from a commercial site, such as the MGMA.  But I don't recommend this because the process of writing the manual is what makes you, your staff, and your practice better.

So start today and after several years, you'll have created something pretty impressive.
Let me know how it goes.      

Solo vs Group: The Pros and Cons

For me, solo practice has been just the cure for what ailed me in my professional life. Several years ago, I suffered from low morale, poor outcomes, and desperation. I felt that I had had made a drastic mistake in my career choice and was in a mental prison. I was part of a group, an excellent group, in fact, and I had nice and competent partners. I was making some money and was living comfortably. Yet I was miserable. Perhaps I did not truly know how unhappy I was then, because I had no basis of comparison and know template for what how a good fit was supposed to feel. For me, solo practice is simply more compatible with my core values.

Solo practice has some advantages over group practice. . .for the right person. As a solo practitioner, you run the show. You must have knowledge in some basic business principles, such as accounting, marketing, human resource management, information technology, quality control, and business strategy. Or you better acquire this skill set quickly. Oh, yeh, and you have to be a good doctor as well. . .and be home for your family. . .and make time for your one outside interest, such as tennis. So as you can see, solo practice can be very demanding.

Personally, I enjoy all the business and medical aspects of solo practice,but here is the best part of it. Only solo practice really allows you to pursue ALL of your entrepreneurial dreams and goals. Only solo practice allows you to have hope in a future for you that is brighter than today. And that is truly the best reason for going solo.

Group practice is good too. As part of group you will simply make more money than as a solo doctor,at least at the beginning of your career. You'll have partners for emotional and professional support, and you'll more easily be able to leave the job behind you when not on call. In fact, you'll view it as just a job; not bad! You can focus simply on doctoring and pursue outside interests more easily. Perhaps you have a passion for wine and reading about military history and you play tennis. In group practice, you'll have time for it all.

So the bottom line is that there are many trade offs in the solo-group dichotomy. By defining your core values you can then get a better insight into what will be a better long term fit for you.

Goos luck,

The IU.

No ID, No I See: Some good reasons to require photo IDs from your patients

I have a strict policy in my urology office:

No ID, No I See!

I have developed the policy over the years because,well, I've been screwed on several occasions. Here are some good reasons why you may wish to adopt the No ID No I See Policy.

1. Fraudulent Health Insurance Cards: In this case, the best situation will be that you only deliver free care. However, I have had instances where insurers have paid me only to demand refunds. Then I have to go after the patient. Good luck tracking them down!
2. False Names: Drug seekers can use a fake name to get narcotics from you and dead beats can elude collection attempts with a fake name.
3. Bad Checks: See above, and yes I have had patients give me bogus checks.
4. Wrong address: This makes collections difficult if you have no proof of address.
5. The Photo: I find the photos helpful in jogging my memory of the patient and their story.

So in my office, NO ID, NO I SEE!

The Independent Urologist Blog To The Rescue

I just had a patient call. He claimed to be a patient of mine when I was employed by another group. He told my staff that he just left the hospital and has a kidney stone. He said he was a self-pay, did not ask for the fee, and said he'd be right over. He did give his name.

When my staff told me about it, my own mental alarms began to sound. First of all, the name he gave me was a name I remembered from my past and it was the name of one of my old, arch-enemy drug seekers. Four or 5 years ago, this guy got me good with several 2 and 3AM phone calls for refills or new narcotics prescriptions and a feeling as if I had been victimized.

As per our usual custom with ER patients, we called the hospital, the one in which this man reported having spent the prior evening, and the hospital in turn reported having no record of his visit.

Now my alarm bell was sounding in full force.

Several minutes later he showed up. . .and my staff recognized his face. They called me and I recognized him as well. I had seen him within the past year or so. While I have trouble with names, I rarely forget a face. I remembered this man as someone whose behavior prompted me to write a blog post about drug seekers. But I could not recall his name now.

My staff began to rifle through our new patient records, but we have way too many new patients to locate one by shear memory. We needed a time reference as to when he was here as a patient.

So I used to blog search feature on Google blogger, typed in "drug seeker", found the post and the date posted, went to that date in the book and voila, I recognized the name. Moments later I had his medical record opened and found that the drug seeker in March was the very same person as the man who was standing now in my waiting room.

Everything was crystal clear.

Needless to say, I sent him away empty handed.

GALL !!!

How to use email to imrove your bottom line.

While using email for medical type communication may be risky, email should be used in your office as it is a very powerful form of communication between your office and your patients. On top of that, you can use it to improve your bottom line.

Email is a cheap, actually free method to communicate with people. All that you need, lest you be considered a spammer, is to get the patient's permission, and that is easy to obtain. Just ask for it.

I have an email sign up form mixed in with the new patient demographic form, the ABN form, and the HIPAA form. Basically the email form explains what for and why I like to use email, and what types of information is not email appropriate, ie for protected health information. The majority of my patients sign it readily. In the past year or so I've added about 700 names to the list.

I use email to keep my patients informed about my practice. I think it works well for things such as:

• Out-of-the-office alerts, eg vacations
  
• Changes to office hours, such as Saturday or Evening hours
• Events, such as the opening of another office or a prosate cancer walk, etc.
  
• New additions to the office,such as doctors, staff members, etc
• New procedures or diagnostic tests that are offered, such as urodynamics
  
• Newsletter distribution
• Warnings; for example to keep hydrated during a heat wave to avoid kidney stones, etc
• When I have updates to the website that I'd like to share with patients
• New policies/procedures in the office, such as e-prescribing, changes in insurance pars, online booking, online contact forms, etc

And others.

So how does this add to the profits I see. Easy. Every time I send an email to my patient base, I get a spike in new and follow-up patient business. Think about the psychology of people. You may have done a vasectomy on someone 2 years ago. He has since forgotten your name and even that he had a vasectomy and he probably does not know what a urologist does, aside for vasectomies. When his wife mentions to him that she has been suffering from incontinence, unless you are fresh in his mind and he has been informed about what you do in addition to vasectomies, he will be unlikely to refer his wife to you. For another example, let's say our vasectomy patient sees blood in his urine and gets flank pain and decides that he needs a urologist. Would it not be nice if he remembered you and called you instead of someone else? It may make the difference of who he calles if he had just received a recent email about a new doctor you hired or on an update to the website via his email.

And again, email communication costs nothing.

So try it out and just remember to BCC your patients instead of CC'ing them, for privacy reasons and unsubscribe people who request it.

Good luck and have fun.

The IU

A cool trick for getting someone a copy of an insurance card

Here's the scenario: you are tryingto book a patient for a procedure at a hospital or surgery center and they request a copy of the patient's insurance card. With a paper chart, you'd have to locate the chart, xerox a xerox of the original, and then fax the xerox of the xerox. Well, you can imagine that the card is basically worthless when it arrives at its destination.

Here's a better way. All you need is a business card scanner and associated software.

1. someone asks for the insurance card, ie hospital
2. pull up the card image in card scan
3. alt print screen to take a picture of the computer screen
4. open ms word blank document
5. paste
6. save as
7. efax
8. drink coffee

Total time: 2 minutes.

Want a web presence? It's easy.

A urologist friend called me the other day. He's from Jersey and he wanted some advice. Comcast, his ISP, wants to sell him on a package that involves website design, website maintenance, and SEO (though my friend did not actually know what SEO stood for). Comcast wanted $200 per month for the Website and SEO + $50 per month for website "maintenance". Actually the price could and would vary based on the number of clicks and hits, etc, to is site. Total cost per year: ~$2700.

Now here is The IU DIY way:

1. Go to www.godaddy.com or 1and1.com and register domain name, ~ $2 to $7 per year
2. Google.com-->blogger-->create blog
3. Point domain name to blog (easy to do)
   
4. Write post #1: Something like this, "Hi I'm here and I do x,y,z."
5. Go to page layout, then add gadget, then add stuff to the sidebar like phone number, contact information, bio, even a form (available on Google documents)
6. Write something else, like "Hello,still here and I still do x, y,z" as post #2
   
7. Get a google adwords account-->start an ad campaign-->pick some key words, for example x,y,z--->bid on the cost per click (CPC--google can help determine how much the key word phrases cost)-->set daily or monthly max budget-->give AMEX card
8. Write something more provocative for post #3, like "insurance companies suck" or "working in the ER is cool. . .and bloody" or "The lawyer who deposed me was H-O-T hot!", & have the post picked up on KevinMD then see your readership start to flourish.
   
9. Have fun-->feel pride in the new skill set that you have acquired, and make money.
   

Total cost: ~$5 per year + whatever your adword campaign costs, not to exceed your own pre-determined max budget.

Or just hire some 13 year old kid to do it for you!

Have fun.

The IU.

The case against an answering service.

Have you ever called a doctor, perhaps for yourself or your child, and experienced the following:

Ring ring ring. . .ring ring ring...ring ring ring. . ."please hold". . .hold hold hold. . .hold hold hold. . .hold hold hold. . .hold hold hold.

"Hello, doctors' service."

"Yes I need to talk to the doctor, my child has 107 fever."

"What is your number, he'll call you back."

First of all, what is this "Doctors' service"? Dr Who? Can it be any more impersonal? And second of all I find the whole thing so annoying as a patient.

I have learned over the years that doctor's answering services are no longer an essential element to practice. I am going to make the case, a balanced case, against answering services for doctors.

1. Barriers: Services place barriers between you and established as well as new patients, neither of which is good for the practice. In addition, answering services place barriers between you and referring doctors; never a good thing.
   
2. Control: Unless you own the service, you have no control over the voice at the end of the line.
3. Impersonal: Services tend to be bland, rather than unique. You are looking for unique.
4. Obsolete: With current technological alternatives, there simply is no longer a need.
5. Annoying: I find them annoying, since they only take messages. This gets me to my next critique:
6. Purposeless: Most of them only take messages and either contact the doctor immediately or send a message to the office next business day, but they don't actually do anything. (some top-end services do function as extensions of your business)
   
7. A Waste of Time: How many times have you called a service and it has taken 5, 10, or even 20 minutes just to get through. No thanks.
   
8. Expensive: Price varies per package, but it can really add up. Plus, you still need all your other communication tools.
   

Here are some of the positive elements of a service:

1. Professional: Many people, especially baby boomers and older, equate doctors with answering services and find it "unprofessional" for a doctor not to have one.
2. Barriers: Sometimes I think it would be nice to have a barrier placed between me and, for example, an irate patient or one who simply decides at midnight to cancel an appointment.
   
3. Reliable: You will never miss a phone call with a service.
4. Human: Sometimes it is nice to have a human element or to give the appearance that you have a big staff.
5. Cost effective: Some of the better services can function as an extension of your own staff and behave in a seamless manner that gives the impression that you are larger than you are in reality at a price that is affordable, though not cheap.
   

So, as in anything, there are pros and cons to having an answering service. But for us small guys who are tech savvy, I don't see the utility of an answering service.

At least not a standard one and at least not yet.

The IU.

Keeping Track of Your Patients? Here's a method.

Another re-print of a previous post, with some modifications. Now that I have ~2000 patients, how am I supposed to keep track of them all? Here is part of how I do it.

Have you ever sent a patient for a test or study only to have them not have it done? Have you ever had a patient lost to follow-up? Do you ever lose sleep at night worrying about what positive cytology result is floating around in the ether, unknown to you or your patient, waiting to give the patient--and you--a problem? I used to, but no longer. And that is because when I went solo I was able to really analyze in a comprehensive way how patients get lost to follow-up and why they don't comply with orders and then my staff and I developed a system to counteract this problem. We call it The No Worries Log, and here is how it works.

When I finish seeing a patient and have formulated my plan, I tell my staff to enter my orders into the outbound referral section of my practice management software. This section is really designed for something else; to keep tabs on referrals from a primary care doc to a specialist, but I have customized it easily to fit my own needs as a specialist and a rapidly growing solo practice doc. For example, if I order a CT scan without contrast and a cytology on patient Richard Cockworthy, I tell my staff and they enter it like this: CT I-, cytology. If I send patient John Smith to a surgeon to rule-out a hernia, we log that as hernia ref to Dr J. You can accomplish the same thing with a log book and paper and pencil or with an Excel Spreedsheet, but that results in lots of wasted time and effort due to data entry duplication. Since our patient's data is already in the PM software program, there are no issues regarding repeat data entry, and the date of the log entry is automatically noted by the program. Once a week my staff goes though the list and checks off all the labs that have returned and I have signed. We then contact the non-compliant patients and gently prod them to get the tests that were ordered. Of course, we document these phone calls in the medical record.

The patients think its magic; they think that we are omniscient. We are not! They really think we are on top of things. We are! It's easy. We are simply using our existing software to its fullest extent.

This way I sleep well at night with the knowledge that I have minimized my liability risk by maximizing my power over a patient's non-compliance. It also makes for outstanding patient care and does not cost anything extra. Moreover, I can check the log from my laptop computer, while in bed at home, using a secure VPN connection, and can call the non-compliant patients from my Vonage office line that happens to be plugged in to my router at home. The caller ID that the patients sees says Dr Schoor's office.

Technology. It's wonderful!

After the Open

Corona Park at Sunset.

A good day, made possible bacause I am my own boss.

Think about it.

How to talk on the phone while watching a tennis match and not piss people off!

Solo practitoners face challenges that are unique to our breed. Coverage is always an issue and we must continuously balance self-time with availability.

Yesterday I spent the day at The US Open watching tennis. My office remained open and staffed and the phones, as always, went answered. My staff are non-medical types and will never answer medical questions. They simply take messages, prepare e-scripts for me to finalize, schedule patients, and track down claims. When doctors or patients need to speak with me, my staff knows to contact me immediately. But when I am court side at the US Open, cell phone etiquette often makes doctoring problematic.

Here's how I did it:

• Phone set to silent mode
• Staff sends text messages with pertinent information
• Blue tooth in ear enables talking on the phone in an inconspicuous manner
• Text messages back to staff with instructions on how to respond

Easy stuff. When I become the USTA touring urologist (Billie Jean, if you are reading this post, consider it my application for the job), I'll get an i-phone so I can be even more connected, yet more remote.

Fun.

Why a Professional EMR is better

A very smart urologist makes a good argument for a commercial EMR.

In his words:



I commend you for using the home-grown medical documentation system with Word. Advantages of a fully integrated EMR from a "vendor" are numerous. Here are a few: 1. FULL integration instead of piecemeal programs to do multiple tasks. 2. No need to redundantly enter pt demographics / name when you start a new encounter. 3. Electronic charge capture and being able to document within one program and send the charges to the PM side. 4. ONE page summary of just your A&P automatically generated and faxed to PCPs. 5. FULLY INTEGRATED eRx module, instead of having to use a separate system OUTSIDE of the "EMR". 6. Ability to completely mine your EMR database. For instance, I can find all male pts with LUTS over the age of 65 who have not had in-office microwave who also don't have bladder or prostate cancer and who are not on anticoagulants, as well as post an automatic pop up reminder into every one of those pt's electronic charts. 7. Intra-office messaging and integrated patient messaging. 8. Full document management system built-in to handle all incoming and outbound faxes. 9. Auto-documentation of any/all documents generated out of the EMR, including date, time, who generated the doc, and how it was output, including which printer. Accountability and transparency! 10. Requirement to change password according to HIPAA best-practice policies. Word documents are easily hacked. 11. Ability to standardize training and have a program to teach new employees / new hires. I can go on, but you get the idea. To me the price paid for a commercial EMR is completely worth it.

I agree with the above. I do have several caveats.

• Upfront costs: This is the least of my concerns
  
• Ongoing costs: every 6 months the vendors get you for upgrades, maintanenance, etc. All these are very necessary, but you are a captive audience since changing vendors is almost impossible
  
• Necessity: do you need all the functionality mentioned. Only you can answer that question. I would suspect that if you have a predominantly insurance based practice in a market place where you can use the data to find leverage, than yes. In my case, with a large cash base and no leverage to negotiate, I am not certain it would help.

But thanks for the back and forth.

The DIY EMR: Revisiting an earlier post.

This post was previously published by The IU, but due to recent contacts from readers, I thought I re-post it.

Here are some features of MS Word 2007 that make it so attractive for a homegrown EMR:

• Insert signature line: once inserted, you can sign it with the stylus. The program then locks the document to prevent any changes.
• Built in PDR conversion tool: No need to buy acrobat. PDF is a great format for an EMR for a variety of reasons.
• Insert inbedded files: The user can easily insert inbedded files, like bitmaps, with things such as illustrations, photos, notes, etc.
• Change tracking: This feature is also on older Word versions. Allows the user to make changes with cross-outs, rather than erases. Makes for good transparency, ie spoliation accusation resistant.
• Can easily create templates and record macros.
• Phrase finishing: user can train program to complete phrases and sentences. Useful when documenting encounters quickly.
• User friendly: very little training required.
• Ubiquitous: Is pre-installed on most computers, and is compatatble with google documents and MAC OS.
• Inexpensive.

In other words, it is an excellent tool for the homegrown EMR. AND, from what I've seen from many vendor sold EMR's, the basic platform that they use in their products. Kevin's right: why pay so much more?

Inspirational!

Ball Girl. 2008 US Open

Urologist vs Professional Tennis Player: Revisted

Someone on the way up and someone on the way down

Congratulations to the victor!

Once again, the US Open comes to NY and I love it. I go every year, both to the qualifiers and to the main draw. It is my favorite time to be in NY.

Personally, I think the qualifiers is better than the main draw, at least the first week of the main draw. Aside for the lack of crowds, you get very excellent tennis matches with lots of drama. You see players on the way up, and some on the way down. Most are never-wills. You also get to sit and talk to coaches and parents and player entourages in a way that is simply impossible during the main draw. You can learn some things and see that life is tough all over!

Players in the qualifiers must win 3 matches to make the main draw. Winning only once or twice during this week results in a big fat zero payout. If theplayers win all 3 matches, they make the main draw. Just being in the main draw, even with a first round loss, is worth a couple grand. Most, if not all qualifiers will lose in the first round. So 16 players will work for a solid week--and work very hard--and make only 3 or so grand. Factoring the cost of travel, lodging, coaching, food, clothing, rackets, stringing,etc. . .they don't do so well. The remaining 112 players, those that lost during the Q week, do even worse. They make nothing.

The 2 players in the picture up top are Victor Estrella and Xavier Malisse. Victor, the player on the left, was the victor. He is a young Brazilian on the way up. Xavier, the other player, was a former top 50 player who was considered a real contender at one time. He was a media darling as well, in his younger days, and had long hair and a flamboyant persona. Unfortunately, his career did not turn out as he, and others, had hoped it would, and he has been struggling. I guess his short hair is a symbol of his new-found-focus. Perhaps it is to little to late. I wish him well.

I did peruse the draw and roster of competitors from this years tournament and I did not recognize any players from this year that played last year. Maybe that is good sign and means that all of last years players made the main draw this year.

I doubt it.

I did recognize one name in the Q-tournament draw, Nicholas Massu. He is a former Olympic Tennis Gold Medal winner in 2004 and top men's player. I wonder what happened to him.

In urology, most of my own colleagues are still practicing and most urologists in my area can report higher incomes than last year because of a stregic merger of competing groups. I don't know of a single urologist that has left practice in Long Island due to the competition or external factors such as rising costs of living.

Recently Medicare has not been paying in a timely fashion. I know of one urologist that sees 95% Medicare patients. He has only received $1700 in reimbursements in 2008. For the rest of us urologists who see a mix of patients from a mix of payers, 3 days of work brings in considerably more money than the majority of qualifiers earn in a similar work week.

During Q-week, I watched the qualifiers struggle. I witnesses intense happiness with victory and devastation upon defeat. I saw several players at the end of their careers; no doubt faced with the question that I faced several years ago; "what next."

For me, as I watched the qualifiers compete, I felt comfort in my own situation. I am my own boss and my outlook is positive. I call my own shots. My wins are mine alone, as are my losses.

I think I am better off as urologist than a professional tennis player, aside for the fact that I really not very good at tennis. As a pragmatist, I know my earning potential, even with the current reimbursement landscape, is better than for 99.999% of tennis players.

So for now, I practice urology by day and play tennis by night.

And go to The US Open every August. . .the best show in NY.

What do you do with all those radiology CD-ROMs?

In the past, doctors, especially surgeons, would request radiologic images on films and would review them on light boxes in their offices. However, in the past 5-7 years, actual films have become somewhat of a rarity. Instead, CT scans and other images can be viewed either over a secure internet connection or via a CD-ROM that contains the images and the software necessary to view them. Personally I have found this changed approach to the viewing of radiological studies as a huge plus, with one exception.

What are we supposed to do with all the CD-ROMs that patients hand to us?

When I had paper charts, I used to simply staple the jacket that contained the disk to the patient's file. This worked ok. But now I have electronc charts. So now what?

Here's how I do it now.

1. Place the disk in the drive
2. Go to My Computer and open it up
   
3. Right click on the icon for the image viewer in the DVD-CD reader
4. Click Explore to open the files on the CD-ROM
5. Select ALL, then Copy
6. Create and label a new folder in the pertinent patient's folder
7. Paste the files into the new folder

And now you have the images saved and you can shred the CD-ROM.

Alternatively, you can ignore the CD-ROMs since you are under no obligation to save them in your files. The radiologist is the one responsible for ensuring that the images remain available for the time period specified by state laws.

However, I find that when comparing old studies it is nice to have images saved in a location that allows for rapid and effortless recall.

The "Green" Consent: Consent Foms On-Demand

I have developed a simple method to get written informed consent from patients in way that completely eliminates paper waste and ink usage while simultaneously maximizing efficiency and the "wow" factor.

Here's how it works.
I composed 5 or 6 consent forms for the various procedures that I do in my office. These procedures include cystoscopy, prostate biopsy, testicular biopsies, and penile duplex scans. I developed the consent forms myself and worded them in English rather than legal-ese. Since I am neither crazy nor stupid, I did have them approved by an attorney.

I keep the consent forms in a directory called "CONSENTS." The documents are MS Word 2007 files. Word 2007 has a great feature: it enables documents to have multiple signature lines. In my consent forms, the documents have 2 signature lines. One line is for the patient to sign and the other line is for me to sign.

After the patient and I have our informed consent discussion, I copy and paste the consent form from the "CONSENTS" directory into the patient's folder. I then type in the patient's name and date and then here comes the cool part. I swivel the tablet PC so that I can use it like it's a piece of paper and I slide it across the desk to the patient. He/she then reads the document right on the Tablet PC and if he/she agrees and understands it, they sign it. Then I take the tablet back and sign it as well.
After my signature is completed, the document locks so that no further changes to it are possible.
Done.
5 goals have been thus accomplished:

1. A necessary legal consent form has been obtained.
2. The consent has been placed in the chart forever.
3. The process was done efficiently, inexpensively, and with considerable "cool" factor.
4. It was accomplished with off-the-shelf software.
5. Not a shred of paper was used!
   

I like it. How about you?

Want to negotiate with insurers? You better have these characteristics.

I had a conversation the other day with an expert on negotiating insurance contracts on behalf of doctors, groups, and hospitals. Here is what she told me:

"I am going to be brutally honest doc, because I don't want to just take your money, but you don't have a chance in hell."

Essentially, what anyone needs to successfully negotiate is leverage,which is what doctors in NY-metro just don't have. There are simply too many of us in every specialty. In fact, this woman told me that the panels are over filled already and that she spends most of her time just getting new doctors accepted into the plans under any terms. While it is not impossible to get a better-than-average contract, it is difficult. Essentially, you need to be special to do so. Here are some of the key elements as I interpreted them based on my conversation with the negotiator.

1. Unique: If you are the only one of your specialty in a 20 or so mile radius, you may have some leverage.
   
2. Efficient: If you can save the insurer money by operating at a lower cost to them, such as by doing in-office procedures, or with less errors due to an EMR, you may be able to make a case for the insurer to cut you a piece of the action in return.
3. Desirable: If you are one of few doctors who does something that people want or need and will pay more to the insurance company for it in the form of premiums or plan selection--then the insurer may cut you into the action as well.

Notice that large size is not on the list. Size can work for you if your group becomes so large that it controls the market place. In a larger market place, such as NY, reaching this critical size can be difficult if not impossible. In addition for most large groups, lets say a 50 person group or larger, operating expenses become so high that they can become unable to sacrifice a contract worth 20% of their revenue. They simply could not survive the acute loss of revenue. Well managed groups, ones that know their numbers inside and out, may be able to determine if they can play hardball with an insurer and survive for the year or so that is needed to recoup the lost patients that will follow the lost contract. So know your numbers!

Finally, if you do successfully negotiate, don't brag about it: that could cost you the contract. . .and more. Most plans make their "special" docs sign strict confidentiality agreements with draconian penalties for non-compliance. So the next time you hear a doctor in the lounge bragging about his great negotiating skills know that he is either crazy or full of crap.

Therefore, don't feel like you are the only schmuck on the block that takes whatever contract is offered you. If you live and practice in an over saturated market and don't have one of the big 3 characteristics in my list, you simply must sign on the line and work like a dog.

Good luck.

The IU.