ImproMed Quarterly Newsletter - SLIDELEGEND.COM

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Develop and implement a Senior Care Program. • Improve staff training and knowledge. How likely is a practice .... rec
ImproMed Quarterly Newsletter Summer 2016

Table of Contents Featured Articles ..................... 1 Three Mistakes That Limit Managers’ Productivity The Dog Days of Summer .............. 5 Marketing Your Practice ........ 7 Boosting Reminder Compliance Customer Spotlight ................ 9 Cedar Valley Veterinary Center What’s New .......................... 10 The Latest ImproMed Infinity Update is Now Available Training Corner ................... 11 Inventory Counts Made Easy Tech Support ......................... 12 Should I Transfer Patient or Record?

Three Mistakes That Limit Managers’ Productivity By Amanda L. Donnelly, DVM, MBA Do you have a to-do list a mile long or feel like you can never finish all your work? Do you find it challenging trying to balance completing daily tasks and also work towards achieving business goals? You’re not alone. Many veterinary managers struggle to meet the demands of running a busy practice. Here are three strategies that will help you increase your productivity and job satisfaction.

#1

Learn How to Decrease Employee Interruptions

Do you have days where it seems like every time you turn around an employee tells you about an issue or problem that needs to be resolved? As a result, your to-do list becomes longer and longer. As if the demands of the job aren’t hard enough with respect to patient care and client satisfaction, now you have more problems to solve and job tasks to complete. Sound familiar? If so, then you may be taking on responsibility to handle problems that could be resolved by your team. Wouldn’t it be less stressful and a more productive work environment if the entire healthcare team was empowered to handle the majority of issues that

Practice efficiency improves when employees are adequately trained and capable of making decisions. arise on a daily basis? If you answered “yes” to this question, you’ll benefit from taking steps to empower your team and coach them to problem-solve. To decrease employee interruptions, begin by assessing the problem-solving capabilities of your team. For two weeks, write down every time an employee interrupts you. Your list might include scenarios such as: • The client service representatives (CSR) complain that the doctors and technicians always get mad at them about how they schedule surgeries or appointments. • An employee comes to you saying she can’t work two of her shifts next month. • Your technician supervisor tells you someone called in sick and you have to scramble to figure out who to call in or how to solve the workflow problem. • A technician tells you a piece of equipment isn’t working properly. • Employees grumble there isn’t enough space for inventory items or that the treatment area/ pharmacy/food room is disorganized. • A CSR reports Mrs. Taylor is angry about her bill and wants you to call her. • One technician reports that another technician “has made rude remarks to me.” • Your groomer stops by to let you know an employee isn’t happy about his work schedule.

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After compiling your list, consider the following questions. Do all your employees continually come to you with complaints, conflicts to be resolved and issues to be addressed by management? Or is it just a few team members that always come to you with problems? What kind of issues or problems do employees complain about or ask for assistance in

resolving? Could team members have come up with solutions to address the problem on their own, and why don’t they? As you answer these questions, you may realize some team members lack training or confidence in their abilities to problem-solve. You may identify employees who are complainers or like to gossip. And in many cases your list will reveal you’re interrupted because you haven’t sufficiently delegated job responsibilities and given employees the direction they need to take action on their own. For the above list of interruptions, here are some appropriate action steps to create a more empowered team: • Meet with the technical team about desired scheduling and front office training on appropriate scheduling. • Implement clear hospital policies for requests for time off and how to get shifts covered. • Assign equipment maintenance to a technician. • Empower team members to organize their work areas. • Train team members on handling angry clients. • Meet with team members on handling co-worker conflict. • Discuss how to eliminate gossip from the culture.

In addition to improving managers’ productivity, practice efficiency improves when employees are adequately trained and capable of making decisions without always having to first seek approval. Team members that can quickly respond to a variety of situations and client demands are invaluable, since every time an employee has to seek out a manager to make a decision, efficiency suffers. With increases in efficiency, practice productivity increases as well. Efficient, well-trained teams are capable of seeing more patients, performing more procedures and scheduling more surgeries.

#2

Have an Organized Plan to Achieve Hospital Goals

One of the biggest challenges for managers is allocating time to work on business goals. Tasks related to day-to-day operations and human resource management can easily fill the schedule, leaving no time for desired project work. Here are two strategies to improve managers’ productivity for working on hospital goals. The first is to define clear goals and priorities with the practice owner. Managers have limited time so it’s important to agree on which goals should be a primary focus. Part of the goal-setting process includes deciding upon a reasonable number of goals. The leadership team may have ten different great ideas or projects, but is it realistic to accomplish that many goals in a year? People who have too many goals at once easily become distracted or overwhelmed trying to juggle so many action plans. This leads to the second strategy of organizing work for goals that require significant time or steps to complete. Managers may feel overwhelmed at times thinking about how to achieve their goals. A common

problem is that the stated goal may be too broad. To achieve success, multiple action steps to complete the goal need to be organized and prioritized. Consider the following goals: • Improve client service for the hospital. • Increase revenues by 10%. • Launch a Facebook page with consistent postings. • Develop and implement a Senior Care Program. • Improve staff training and knowledge. How likely is a practice manager to achieve any of the above goals without an organized plan? Think about all the required action steps to accomplish broad goals. Then prioritize the steps. Don’t forget to identify necessary resources to attain goals such as acquiring knowledge or assistance from other people. After drafting an outline for achieving a goal, determine reasonable timelines for each action step. Remember that people often underestimate the time it takes to complete tasks. And don’t worry about how long it might take to reach goals. Isn’t it better to take three months to accomplish a goal than to not attain the goal at all?

People who have too many goals at once easily become distracted or overwhelmed trying to juggle so many action plans. 3

#3

Create a Personal Development Plan

Practice managers typically complete employee reviews for the team, which may include individual development plans to improve job performance. But what about reviews and development plans for managers? How can they improve productivity and job satisfaction without undergoing the same review process as the rest of the team? Practice owners may be remiss in recognizing the need and value in having the same review process for their managers as they do for all employees. This can lead to lower levels of engagement for managers.

weaknesses with the practice owner. Discuss your interests and identify areas where you could use more training. Then agree upon a few goals and action steps to achieve your goals. By committing to continual learning and fostering feedback with the practice owner, managers can enhance their productivity and employee engagement, both of which contribute to the success of the business.

If you’re a manager who doesn’t meet regularly with your boss to review your job performance and professional development, then take charge and set up a meeting now to discuss this topic. In addition to asking for a formal review process, draft a professional development plan for the next year. To create this plan, evaluate your job performance strengths and

Did you know? Natural disasters are bound to happen. Is your practice prepared for a natural disaster, power outage, fire or failed hardware? If not, ImproMed is here to help. Our Disaster Recovery Plan whitepaper is filled with suggestions to help your practice prepare for and quickly recover from these unforeseen circumstances. 4

The Dog Days of Summer

Workflow Best Practices to Tackle the Busy Season The summer busy season brings in a wide array of patient visits. More time spent outdoors equals more tick and heartworm prevention, vaccination and wellness visits, and even increased emergency visits for the infamous bee sting or snake bite. This appointment influx usually means you and your staff are overwhelmed, rushing from one appointment to the next and still playing catch-up at the end of the day. At a time when every minute counts, here are some ways to improve your daily workflow, saving you precious time, getting you back to better patient care, and helping you regain some sanity!

Automate your reminders and scheduling processes Reminders are a critical part of any successful practice, but if you are spending hours each day manually printing and sending reminders, calling clients to remind them of appointments, or scheduling new appointments over the phone, you are performing daunting tasks that could be done more efficiently using today’s technology. With Henry Schein Rapport, you can take advantage of automated postal, email, text and voice reminders, online scheduling, and automated appointment confirmations that integrate directly into your ImproMed Infinity® software. You’ll be able to schedule and confirm your daily appointments in half the time with minimal work on your part.

Easily track patients

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How many times do clients call in to check the status of their patients after surgery? They are often placed on hold while staff members try to reach the doctor to determine the pet’s status and whereabouts. Five minutes are spent handling the client request, making that client sit on hold and other clients wait to be checked in.

The Clinic Census module in your ImproMed software can track all patient activity throughout the day, from check-in to checkout. This allows all staff members to see the status and location of all patients at any point during the day, from any computer screen. Medical records and invoicing can be accessed quickly and easily to review and add any notes about the call your staff had with the client. Now, you can handle status requests more quickly than before.

Automate your inventory Managing inventory is a very important job, as it represents income potential for a practice. But the opportunity for human error is great, leading to inaccurate inventory counts, poor tracking, incorrect reporting, and more. While you will still need some staff members involved with inventory, your ImproMed software can automate many time-consuming inventory processes and minimize the chance for human error. This will allow you to accurately track the costs, discounts, and sale prices of each inventory item and reorder products when they reach their predetermined low point. You can also automatically add inventory charges to client invoices when they purchase products, minimizing missed charges.

Get rid of all that paper If you and your staff are still relying on paper files, you are probably spending hours each day just pulling and re-filing client files rather than putting that focus on your clients and patients. Utilizing electronic medical records (EMR) within your ImproMed software can free up your time by allowing you to store treatment histories, patient photos, notes, SOAPs, radiograph images, and more. Any information that you can store in a paper file can be better stored electronically in an EMR. Records can be accessed by anyone in the practice from any computer terminal with just a few mouse clicks, so time previously spent searching for, updating, and re-filing paper files can be devoted to seeing more patients.

We understand that every day in a veterinary practice can be chaotic, emotional and stressful, but cutting out just a few manual, time-consuming tasks will not only help you regain some sanity, but it will also help you create a better experience for your clients. Being able to keep your focus on your clients and patients is a top priority, so why not let your software give you the time to get back to that?

Marketing Your Practice

Boosting Reminder Compliance What’s your reminder compliance level? If you know the answer off the top of your head, you’re in good shape. Often we work with veterinary practices who have full appointment calendars and busy schedules, so they think their reminder compliance is high. But sometimes the numbers tell a different story. Analyzing the number of patients in the database, reminders sent, and appointments on the schedule can show opportunities to increase the ratio of reminders-to-appointments, which also increases revenue. We often find that at least 25 percent of patients in the database have no reminders attached to them, and of the patients that do have reminders, 50 percent are not responding. This can leave a great deal of potential revenue on the table. For example, a smaller practice with 6,000 patients may have as much as 1,500 patients in the database with no reminders attached, and another 2,250 have been sent reminders but haven’t responded. If the average cost of a veterinary visit is $160, recovering just 50% of that number would yield $300,000 in additional revenue each year. If we apply the same formula to a larger practice with 25,000 patients, bringing just half of those patients without reminders and non-responding patients back

into the practice could generate more than $1,000,000 in additional revenue each year. We can help you design a query that can identify patients without reminders and create a marketing plan to recapture those opportunities. Because we may not know what form of communication an inactive client prefers, it’s important to design a campaign that will cover multiple channels, such as email followed by a postcard, and provide an efficient and effective result. For patients that do have reminders attached to their medical records, it’s certainly tempting to forgo postal reminder cards in lieu of email reminders. Email reminders are quick, easy, and cost effective. But in reality, the email inboxes of your clients have become incredibly full with marketing promotions from a host of different companies, so email reminders from your practice can unfortunately be missed.

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When assisting our ImproMed Infinity customers with our Rapport client communications program, we’ve found that the following reminder formula typically yields the best results.

30 days ahead of service due date Send an email reminder. While Rapport does offer text reminders – and some clients will prefer to receive their reminders via this channel – email reminders allow your practice to include more information about the services due, as well as any special offers and promotions. (Rapport can automate these reminders so they are sent exactly 30 days ahead of the service due date, rather than running them once per month.)

15 days ahead of service due date For those who haven’t responded, send a follow-up email plus a reminder postcard. Postal reminders seem to generate better responses when they are used 15 days ahead of the date rather than 30, perhaps because there’s a greater sense of urgency. In addition, using automated reminder cards in conjunction with automated email reminders, spaced 30 and 15 days from the service due date, creates less of a burden on the front desk. Appointment requests come in consistently all month long rather than all at once.

Past the service due date For those who miss their service due date, we see the best results when clinics send postcards and email notifications at 15 days past the date, and a final email notification at 30 days past the due date. It may seem like a large number of email and postcard reminders are being sent at any given time. However, following this protocol actually decreases the number of reminders sent overall because response rates increase prior to service due dates.

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Another way to increase response rates for the first set of postcard reminders is to add a photo of the patient. For clients who love their pets – and most of them do – this personal touch creates a reminder card that goes on the refrigerator rather than in the recycle bin. Once patient photos are part of the medical record in ImproMed Infinity, including them on reminder cards is easy to do.

Other marketing ideas The concept of combining emails and postcards for maximum results can also be applied to seasonal marketing campaigns, which are sent to all patients (or targeted to specific groups of patients) to drive clients and patients through the doors at specific times during the year, such as: • Dental month in February • Flea and tick prevention in March/April • Pet nutrition in January (tied to healthy weights) or summer (tied to outdoor activity) • Senior wellness in fall • Holiday cards in December (which can tie to wellness for the following year) In working with practices to create targeted marketing lists and create effective campaigns, we find the following formula most effective: • Send an email three to four weeks ahead of the season. • Send a postcard to clients who have not responded one week ahead of the season. • Send an email again to clients who have not responded at the start of the season.

For more information on maximizing your reminders, call our ImproMed client communications specialists at 855-980-9099.

Customer Spotlight

ImproMed Customer Spotlight Cedar Valley Veterinary Center The ImproMed Customer of the Month is nominated by ImproMed employees to recognize clients who are ambassadors for ImproMed. We recently recognized Cedar Valley Veterinary Center (CVVC) in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

feature they love to use is the integrated credit card solution. This has helped staff save time at checkout, which means more quality time spent with the client and patient.

For over 30 years, CVVC has been devoted to caring for animal friends in Cedar Falls, Waterloo, and Waverly. They currently have 2 full-time doctors, 1 part-time doctor, 2 CVTs, and 17 additional supporting staff members providing a full suite of veterinary services.

CVVC was particularly patient and understanding while helping ImproMed’s Development Team improve the current credit card integration. CVVC is always willing to participate in beta testing the latest ImproMed Infinity versions and provide the necessary feedback to make sure it is ready for release. In addition, they are always pleasant and energetic to work with – for ImproMed as well as their own clients.

One feature frequently used in their ImproMed Infinity software is the List Bar. They can simply right-click on a patient and easily access appointments, invoices, reservations, and more from any computer. Another

Ready to Update to Windows® 10? Is my ImproMed software compatible with Windows® 10? What happens if my workstation has already upgraded to Windows® 10 and my software isn’t compatible? We recommend holding off on installing major Windows® updates until they have been tested by our development team to ensure your software continues to run as expected. In regards to the latest Windows® 10 update we recommend reviewing the following table prior to updating to ensure your ImproMed software is compatible.

ImproMed Software Versions

Windows® 10 Compatible?

Advantage+ 30.335 – 30.400 Advantage+ 30.402 and higher DVM Manager 5.0 – 5.2 DVM Manager 5.2.5300 and higher ImproMed Infinity v3.5 – 5.1 ImproMed Infinity v5.2 and higher ImproMed Triple Crown v3.0

ImproMed Triple Crown v3.2 and higher Microsoft® will start moving Windows® 10 from an Optional update to a Recommended update. Please be aware that if your ImproMed software is not compatible with Windows® 10, you do have 30 days to return to your previous operating system. If that happens, we recommend reviewing the updates before installing them automatically.

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If you are ready to upgrade your ImproMed software to a compatible version, please contact our Customer Support team to schedule your upgrade.

What’s New from ImproMed

The Latest ImproMed Infinity Update is Now Available We are excited to inform you that ImproMed Infinity v5.2sr3 is now available. There are many new features with this version, including: • Search for patients based on their Rx number. • Clean up your inventory list with the new Inventory – Last Purchased Date report. • Clean up your product list with the new Product List – Last Sold Date report. • Create canned messages for Rapport’s Voice and Text Messages. • Email topics throughout ImproMed Infinity now pull in the patient information properly. • Lab field values print in medical record templates correctly. • Expiration dates for prescriptions now add one year to the date sold for prescriptions with a blank expiration date. For more information on the other enhancements and fixes included in this update, download the latest Release Notes. If you are ready to upgrade, please contact our Customer Support team to schedule your update at 800.925.7171.

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Upcoming Events Veterinary Technology Summit 2016 October 19 – 21, 2016 | Nashville, TN Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center www.vetsummit.com

Industry Trade Shows Join us at the ImproMed booth and see what’s new! AVMA August 6 – 8, 2016 | San Antonio, TX Booth 405 SWVS September 28 – October 2, 2016 Fort Worth, TX Booth 626

Training Corner

Inventory Counts Made Easy Every year most veterinary practices spend anywhere from 15 percent to 25 percent of gross income on inventory. However, many practices don’t have any sort of inventory system in place, which can cause loss of revenue when left unchecked. ImproMed Infinity wants to help make one small piece of inventory management, counting inventory, even easier. Open the Inventory module from your ImproMed Infinity desktop and click the View Inventory tab. Choose how you select your range of inventory: name, code, or category. Then select your items within the starting and ending drop-downs and click Refresh Grid. This gives you a list of your inventory items

including the base unit cost, quantity on hand, cost of inventory, and more at a glance. Use this inventory list to cross check against what you actually have on hand. If you need to change your quantity on hand in ImproMed Infinity, click Inventory Adjustment. From here you can make your adjustments just as if you were on the Adjustments tab. Once your counts are accurate, you are one step closer to having the correct cost of inventory within your veterinary practice. Please contact ImproMed’s Customer Support team for more training and/or tools to make inventory management easier.

Special Offers

Make inventory easy with the new Cubex-ImproMed Infinity integration The time has never been better to upgrade to the latest version of ImproMed Infinity. For a limited time, customers who upgrade to the latest version of ImproMed Infinity and implement Cubex Inventory Management Solutions will receive a $200 voucher for every $100 spent in monthly Cubex Solution subscription fees. This voucher can be used to pay for ImproMed hardware, software, or services as part of an upgrade project. Cubex’s interface with ImproMed Infinity practice management software now offers profile and charge capture automation creating a streamlined workflow that: • Eliminates manual input of patient information into Cubex.

• Creates a closed loop process that works seamlessly with ImproMed Infinity’s version 5.1 SR8 or higher.

• Links ImproMed Infinity invoice items creating patient profiles at the Cubex Solution.

• Integrates with Henry Schein Intelligent Inventory which includes automatic ordering, pricing updates and capability to receive order quantities in both ImproMed Infinity and Cubex.

• Automatically receives transactions performed within Cubex which greatly increases charge capture.

To learn more, contact Scott Kruse, 704-701-2363 or [email protected], or Patrick Curran, 800-925-7171 or [email protected].

Tech Support

Should I Transfer Patient or Record? ImproMed Infinity gives you the flexibility to transfer a patient and all of its records, or just the patient’s record, but do you know which should be used and when? We are here to help! We want you to be aware of your options so you can make the right decision for your situation.

Duplicate patient records exist

Let’s start by listing the most common reasons why transfers are needed:

ImproMed Infinity also contains a transfer log. The transfer log maintains a list of any type of transfer made. For example, if you transfer records from account 1A to account 3B, the log will show that. This is especially helpful when a transfer occurs, but the outcome isn’t what you expected or wanted. ImproMed’s Customer Support frequently uses this as a helpful tool to determine where records and patients may have gone.

• Ownership of the patient has changed from one client to another. • Duplicate patient records exist. Now, let’s discuss each of these and why you want to use transfer records or transfer patients.

Ownership of the patient has changed from one client to another Transferring a patient to a different owner is the most common reason to use Transfer Patient. Select the current client and patient and transfer before creating the patient within the new client’s account. This way you can move everything needed in one step. When you transfer a patient, you can choose to transfer open invoices, transfer current and future reservations and appointments, and authorize medical records to be released to the new owner. Once a patient is transferred it cannot be reversed, and any previous invoices (product history is included in the patient’s medical record), payments, or any notes on the client’s record relating to the patient is kept with the original client. All future payments and invoices will be under the new client’s record.

A Tradition of Excellence 800-925-7171 | www.impromed.com

When duplicate patient records exist, you can easily merge them using Transfer Records. Transfer records simply copies the records from one patient to another patient including the weight history and reminders.

Transferring patients and records can be confusing, but knowing which process to use makes the task easier. ImproMed’s Customer Support is always available to assist.