Boo!

Happy Halloween!

I don't seem to have time to update between doorbell rings. I appear to be popular!

You made an appointment for a reason, right?

I have been having some frusterations with patients recently. Recently, our office has been having no-shows left and right. It might be summer. Or possibly miraculous cures. I don't know. Well, it's probably not a cure as the patients usually call within the week asking to be fit into the schedule for the following day.

Ha!

How am I supposed to run a smooth office with people not showing up?
Or more importantly how do I get into the mood for client retention when I want to sic Jean-Claude on our patients!

Catch 22

Let's talk about the "famous" modifier 22! I wish I had a dollar for the many times have I had an excited doctor call me up and say "well, I did a lot of extra work on this case; we can use the modifier 22 and bill for more money!" Yes, you can go off to a coding class, and they will tell you about the wonderful modifier 22... Even the sales reps for some of the surgical supplies/equipment companies openly discuss this mystical modifier in the hospital hallways! The reality is, it will not get you more money... at best it will hold up your claim for three times the normal processing time... and then cause the insurance companies to start auditing your operative notes!
What have you experienced?

Can't Hardly Wait

Let me tell ya, I can hardly wait to take off this weekend for the MGMA conference! One more day...

Billing Question

Have you thought about charging patients a monthly finance charge for late paying accounts? If you notified them upfront, had them sign a finance document, explaining that if the account was not paid in full 30 days from the DOS or 30 days after insurance paid their full amount, they would be subject to finance charges. Do you think you would get faster payment? Or just mad patients?

Money In, Money Out

We made an appointment for one of our patients that is deaf. Shortly after that, we received a call from an interpreter stating that he would be coming to the office with the patient, and we were to be paying his bill. He needed a billing address to send us his bill. Now we have a physician that is fluent in sign language. Do we have to put up with this? If we have to really pay an interpreter, can we pick out one that is a little nicer? Could we have billed for our physicians interpreting skills? Who would we have billed?

Wasted Saturday?

Our company called a mandatory staff meeting on a Saturday to discuss all office operating procedures, company policies, patient relations, expectations of employees, OSHA< HIPAA, etc... The company's expense was high for this, over time, food, etc... but we felt it was necessary in order to address some problems we were having. We all arrived back to work Monday morning and within 30 minutes we had numerous violations of the policies that we discussed on Saturday. I wonder just what does it take for people to care about our company, patients, fellow employees and themselves? Is it the age generation or were we that bad also?

Dictation DIctation DICTATION!

Earlier this week I noticed a growing backlog in dictation from a certain doctor, let's call him Dr. Laggard. Dr. Laggard has, in the past, been known for chronically submitting his dictation late. I talking going on a week after the patients were seen. This frustrates me to no end and puts the practice in jeopardy.

Tuesday before I went home I checked in with him to 'gently' push him to catch up.
Do I even have to tell you nothing happened during business hours on Wednesday?
Last night I again reminded him to get with it. Do you ever feel like a broken record? I feel like I've tried everything from asking nicely to begging him. I think if it doesn't happen today I'll sic Jean-Claude, my Betta, on him!

Why MOM Rants

I need a place to let it all hang out. While I still enjoy my career as a MOM, there are just some days where I drive home wondering if what just happened was real. This happens a lot during a hiring time or after a week of pharm reps coming after me. That is why I created MOM rants, to let it out. I'd like to invite other office managers to commiserate with me and to feel free to speak what's on your mind.

Jean-Claude

By the way, this is Jean-Claude, my Betta.

He may look sweet and innocent,

but trust me, he can bite!

Let the ranting begin

Hello blogging world.

Last week, I had to call security to haul off a sales rep. I decided I needed a place to share my rants. I hope you'll join me here and feel free to let off some steam. Perhaps we'll even come up with some solutions to all that we put up with in the medical office.

Your friendly Medical Office Manager,
Ms. MOM

D for Doctor in the Yellow Pages?

We advertise in the yellow pages of both of our local phone directories. Have you noticed how the phone book people come up with more categories for you to place an ad?

As surgeons, we have, general surgery, our multiple specialties, as well as plain old physician to choose from. There are so many choices that I usually have a hard time choosing. A few years ago I just stuck with general and physician.

The next year after we cut back on our categories, I noticed that our competitor did the same thing. Now the phone book company no longer officers the large list of categories.

Do you really think patients choose their surgeons by opening up the phone book?