The following excerpt is from an article found on Healthcare Finance News. It was written by James Larson and Nancy Henry. Just like focusing on providing quality care to patients is critical to a health care practice, bottom line management can make the difference between successful claims handling and a battle of denials and errors. Time and again we hear clients express frustration that collections are down, and more often than not it’s due to time spent dealing with inefficiencies and mistakes in the back office.

The following excerpt is from our recent whitepaper, "Practice Management for Your Anesthesiology Practice." Today’s medical practices have a wealth of software solutions at their disposal to help them better manage their workflow and billing. Specialty organizations such as anesthesiology practices are no exception to this in that a “wealth” of software solutions are available, including many “one-size-fits-all” practice management applications that may be in use by anesthesiology practices, but which are not ideally geared toward anesthesiology and all of its billing nuances. For that reason, anesthesiology practice managers or owners will want to implement the most appropriate application for that particular specialty.

Twitter just celebrated a birthday. Nine years after its launch in 2006, it is hard to ignore the influence this social media pioneer has on most industries, including healthcare. Twitter boasts over 300 million active users and millions of tweets a day. A small handful of these tweeters is what marketing gurus call influencers. In other words, people follow them to see the latest trends and get the news that matters. Consider 10 powerful Twitter influencers in the healthcare market.

The following excerpt is from an article found on Healthcare IT News. It was written by Jack McCarthy. The transition to electronic health records is essential in modernizing healthcare – yet, in practice, meaningful use has made it painful and progress thus far has been intermittent. Indeed, the proposed rules for the third stage of meaningful use, particularly the requirements for greater participation of doctors and hospitals, is now coming under even more fire than the program has seen in the past.

The following excerpt is from an article found on Healthcare Finance News. It was written by Susan Morse. With implementation of ICD-10 less than three months away, revenue cycle teams are breathing a little more easily since the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ announcement of a year’s grace period in which claims will not be denied because they’re not specific enough.

Like all other people of science, physicians are accustomed to dealing with cold, hard facts. They cannot provide the best care possible to patients if they don’t understand the numbers behind the treatments, such as success rates of one procedure over another or how long it typically takes for a patient to progress from one stage of illness to becoming completely healed. Statistics also shed light on local demographics of patients as well as the business conditions under which physicians do their work. With that in mind, here are 10 statistics that every physician needs to know.

The more streamlined the financial processes are at your medical practice, the more time and attention your team can spend on diagnosing and healing patients. A financially strong medical organization does a better job at retaining talented employees, as they won’t have the same level of anxiety as they would if they worked at a facility that is not doing so well. Patients can tell the difference too, between thriving practices and those that could use some help in managing their revenue cycle. This is where revenue cycle management software comes in. It helps you gain better control over claims and billing and will let you generate customized reports so you can stay on top of crucial data.

As the owner or executive in charge of a medical organization, you know all too well how easy it is to procrastinate when it comes to training staff to use a new protocol or to become familiar with new software. It seems like there will never be an ideal opportunity to disrupt your schedule to set aside time for each member of the team to learn a new way of doing things. This is especially important when it comes to dealing with the upcoming mandated change from the International Classification of Diseases code version 9 to ICD-10. After multiple delays and offering a few extensions to give medical organizations more time to get ready for the transition, the U.S. government has now settled on a deadline of October 1, 2015 to make the change.

Are your patients generally happy to see you, notwithstanding those who are in pain or have anxiety about whatever is bringing them in to see you that day? Successful medical practices can be identified in part by whether they take the time to pay attention to their patients’ wants and needs and whether they will go out of their way to provide the best possible patient experience. With that in mind, here are five things your patients love to see. If they don’t match up with what you’re currently offering at your practice, you might want to make some adjustments and improve patient morale accordingly.

The following excerpt is from an article found on Forbes. It was written by Louis Goodman and Tim Norbeck. Of all of the oppressing new regulations, etc. foisted on physicians and their medical practices today, few capture more angst than the forced implementation of the ICD-10 codes (International Statistical Classification of Diseases) scheduled for October, 2015.