Study Reveals E-Prescribing Increases Medication Adherence

Are you still filling out paper prescriptions at your clinic? Study findings released this month by Surescripts, the nation’s largest e-prescription network (the network used by our VelociDoc EMR), show that you could be seeing higher first-fill adherence rates (i.e. new prescriptions that were picked up by the patient) if you switch to e-prescribing.

Surescripts worked with pharmacies and pharmacy benefits managers to analyze de-identified data sets that represented 40 million prescription records. They compared electronic prescriptions with paper, phone, and faxed prescriptions to determine if there is a measurable difference in first-fill adherence rates. What they found was a 10 percent increase in first-fill adherence when physicians used e-prescribing.

The graphic below illustrates an overly-simplified snapshot of their findings:

The study attributes this increase to two key factors:

1) Unlike paper prescriptions that don’t always make it to the pharmacy, electronic prescriptions are sent immediately from the doctor’s office to the pharmacy.

2) Patients experience less “sticker shock” because physicians are able to pull up a patient’s insurance information during the visit, so patients are not surprised by the cost of the medication when they arrive at the pharmacy.

According to the study, “the World Health Organization estimates that as many as 50 percent of patients do not adhere fully to their medication treatment.” Imagine the healthcare savings the U.S. could experience if we are better able to get our patients to adhere to medication therapy.

If you’re still filling out prescriptions by hand, maybe it’s time to make the switch to e-prescribing.

For more details on the study, click here.

For information on Practice Velocity’s VelociDoc EMR, which is integrated with Surescripts e-prescribing, click here.

Save the Date: Cirque du Velocity at UCAOA Las Vegas

Planning on attending the spring UCAOA convention in Las Vegas? You might want to mark your calendar for Practice Velocity’s Cirque du Velocity dinner party event that will be held on Wednesday evening during the conference. More details will be forthcoming.

End of 2011, but Not End of Meaningful Use

Now that 2011 is over, have you put meaningful use behind you? If so, you’re making a costly mistake. According to the January Urgent Care News story “EMR Experts: Start EMR Today and Still Get $44K,” 2011 was just the beginning for meaningful use. Physicians who qualify for the program still have a chance to get full stimulus dollars – that’s up to $44K per physician for the Medicare program. Be sure to check out the article for more information.

Here are some important dates for the Medicare program to remember as you head into 2012:

• October 1, 2012: This is the last date for you to begin meaningful use of an EMR and still be eligible for the full $44,000 from Medicare.  Since it takes several months to up to speed for full meaningful use, however, we would recommend that you start using your EMR no later than mid-summer, 2012.

• December 31, 2011: This was the date the reporting year ended for the Medicare program in 2011. That means if you were planning on attesting for 2011, you must have completed your 90-day reporting period by December 31, 2011.

• February 29, 2012: Even though the deadline to complete your 90-day reporting period was December 31, 2011, you actually have until February 29, 2012, to register and attest to receive payment for 2011.
  
  ALSO....
  
  CMS allows 60 days after December 31, 2011, for all pending claims to be processed, so February 29, 2012, is also your deadline for submitting pending Medicare Part B claims from calendar year 2011.
  Remember: the Medicare program incentive payments are based on 75 percent of Part B allowed charges from visits that occurred in 2011. If you did not meet the $24,000 threshold in Part B allowed charges by the end of the 2011 calendar year, CMS expects to issue incentive payments in April 2012 for 75 percent of your Part B charges from 2011.

The Medicaid program is handled by individual states, so you must contact your state Medicaid agency for more information on your specific Medicaid program.

For more information on both programs, visit www.cms.gov/ehrincentiveprograms. 

Get Free Advertising by Being a Healthcare Expert

One of the tips I offer in my urgent care marketing video “How to Get Free Advertising” is to build good relationships with your local media by offering to be a local expert for any stories they might be doing on healthcare-related issues. Doing media interviews in which you offer your expert insights on a healthcare story, such as the importance of flu vaccinations, is great, unbiased exposure for your urgent care center. Not only will the local community start to view you as a healthcare expert, they will associate your urgent care center with expert healthcare providers. That kind of trust cannot be built through a TV or radio ad.

Shawna Ziegler, a nurse at Park Plaza Urgent Care in Omaha, Nebraska, took time out of her busy schedule to do a timely, relevant media interview about the dangers of falling on ice. In this TV news segment, Ziegler talks about the kinds of injuries she’s seen at Park Plaza Urgent Care and provides her expert advice on what people should do if they slip and fall on ice. Her appearance on the news segment created public awareness of Park Plaza Urgent Care and showed the public that the staff at Park Plaza is knowledgeable and capable of handling this type of injury.

Dr. Douglas Blevins of Optimus Urgent Care in Greensboro, N.C., spoke to his local media about when it’s appropriate to visit an urgent care center versus a primary care doctor. The TV segment also included an interview with a patient at his urgent care center who spoke positively about her experiences at Optimus Urgent Care. This is a great testimonial for Dr. Blevins’ urgent care center because the patient offers her candid opinion to the reporter, not the urgent care’s marketing director. We’ve all seen marketing testimonials before, and we all know to take them with a grain of salt. The public will put far more trust in a testimonial provided through an unbiased media interview than a marketing video on your urgent care’s website.

You might think you don’t have time to do media interviews, and you’re partially right. You should certainly be selective of which interviews you agree to take. While you can’t control the angle the reporter takes with the story, you can at least ask the reporter what the story is about to attempt to ensure that the story won’t misrepresent you or your urgent care clinic. You don’t need to worry too much about this, as local news stations generally avoid conflict with local companies because they are part of your community and may want you to advertise with the station in the future. And remember: even if you turn an interview down, be polite and maintain that positive relationship with the reporter. If they are doing a story like the ones Ziegler and Blevins assisted with, you’ll want them to turn to you as a healthcare expert.

Do You Need an MBA for Startup Billing?

I saw an ad for a biller today. It read, "______ Urgent Care (a recent startup) is seeking a Billing Director to support our central billing office and multi clinic operation. Complete revenue cycle knowledge a must. MBA preferred...."

Interesting! This urgent care decided to save money by doing their own billing. But now they realize that they need serious expertise--so much so that they are willing to hire an MBA (at $60-80,000) to manage their revenue cycle.

Early on with Practice Velocity, we actually encouraged startups to do their own billing, but we rapidly realized that this was a mistake. Doctors had their spouses do it part time. Others hired someone who had "done billing" for a doctor's office, but then learned the hard way that the person had simply entered charges from a superbill in a physician office. This so-called "biller" had no significant knowledge of the entire billing cycle, from contracting/credentialing, coding, electronic billing, electronic remittance, clearinghouse exception reports, denials, non-contractual discounts, audits, compliance, payor downcoding, and much more. A simple mistake in just one aspect of the billing cycle can cost a center 10% or more, and costly mistakes are inevitable when a novice is doing the billing.

Startups often decide to do their own billing to "keep control" and "save money." But what they quickly discover is that they don't have control of systematization, rather they own their own chaos. And the supposed money "savings" were overwhelmed by the losses incurred by the ineptatude of the novice biller.

This center has realized the truth: you do need a very high level person to manage the extreme complexities of revenue cycle management. However, few MBAs have any medical billing expertise, and crackerjack billers are hard to find and are just as expensive as an MBA. Our own urgent care centers struggled for more than 10 years until we were finally able to solve the problem with the appropriate expertise and finances. Finding and funding the necessary expertise for successful revenue cycle management with an internal billing department is a classic conundrum--you need true expert billers for financial success, but until you have financial success, you can't afford true expert billers.

That is why we took our seasoned billers from our urgent care centers and turned them into a billing company (PV Billing) to help centers focus on providing excellent medical care and growing their business while we took care of the revenue cycle management.

It has been extremely gratifying to see more than 100 successful startups use PV Billing as a tool for success. We have been delighted to see so many startups rapidly open a second -- some even a third -- urgent care centers within two to three years.

Our motto at PV Billing is simply this: "You take care of patients; we'll take care of the rest." It is great to see it work so well for so many.

Week in Review: Urgent Care Awareness Week

It was very heartening to see urgent cares across the country join the public awareness efforts of Urgent CareAwareness Week over the last few days, including sharing links to UCAOA’s website www.urgentcarecenter.org, offering discounted flu shots, posting urgent care factoids on Facebook, and submitting press releases to their local media. Educating the public, including primary care physicians and EDs, is crucial to ensure the important role urgent care plays in our nation’s healthcare is fully understood.

Urgent Care Awareness Week concludes on Sunday, so as Practice Velocity’s contribution to such an important awareness campaign, I’d like to offer a recap of the five 2-minute videos we shared throughout the week. Each video offers a tip on how to maximize your urgent care’s marketing efforts. We hope they help you get your message out there.

UrgentCare Marketing Tip #1: How to Make Facebook Work for You

Are you getting the engagement you expected on your urgent care’s Facebook page? If not, you might be making these common mistakes. Watch tip #1 to learn how to make sure your Facebook page is not boring.

UrgentCare Marketing Tip #2: How to Get Involved in Your Community

It might seem like you have no time to get involved in your community, but the truth is that it’s not only possible to get involved, it’s also crucial if you want your patients to feel you are approachable and trustworthy. Watch tip #2 to learn how to get started.

UrgentCare Marketing Tip #3: How to Get Free Advertising

Did you know you might be passing up free advertising for your urgent care? It’s hard to believe, but many urgent cares are doing just that. Watch tip #3 to learn how to make sure you’re not missing out on quality exposure for your practice.

Urgent Care Marketing Tip #4: How to Get YourBillboard Noticed

So you’re spending thousands of dollars on a billboard for your urgent care. Are people even noticing it? Watch tip #4 to learn how to design a billboard that’s going to grab the public’s attention.

Urgent Care Marketing Tip #5: How to Be a “Guerrilla” Marketer

The public is inundated with marketing messages everywhere they go. Are your marketing messages reaching them? Watch tip #5 to learn how to be a “guerrilla” marketer without resorting to tactics that are shocking or in poor taste.

Great Marketing Tips from Dr. Stern for Urgent Care Awareness Week

Are you participating in the fourth annual Urgent Care Awareness Week next week? If so, Practice Velocity wants to collaborate with you. We want to showcase your efforts to reach out to your local communities. Send us your photos, news clippings, videos, etc., and we’ll post them to our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/practicevelocity.com.

You can submit via email to Mika Doyle, Communications Coordinator, at mdoyle@practicevelocity.com.

In addition to helping you get your Urgent Care Awareness Week message out, Practice Velocity will be offering daily videos starting on Monday that feature urgent care marketing tips and ideas to help you amp up your marketing campaigns. There are several ways you can access them:

•  Daily email blasts (Click here to subscribe)
• Daily on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/practicevelocity
• Daily on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/practicevelocity
• A Friday digest on Practice Velocity’s blog at http://www.urgentcareblog.practicevelocity.com

If you don’t know about Urgent Care Awareness Week, it’s not too late to participate. This nationwide campaign facilitated by UCAOA is November 14-18 and is aimed at increasing public awareness of the urgent care industry and the role it can play in the nation’s healthcare. UCAOA is encouraging urgent cares to get involved by using their turnkey kit to reach out to their local communities and legislators. Be sure to check out their kit and try to pick at least one method of getting involved.

And don’t forget to “Like” our Facebook page so you don’t miss all of the great Urgent Care Awareness Week posts we’ll be sharing.