Operations

In the wake of a “reformed” healthcare system, here’s how to take steps now to get your practice ready for an influx of newly insured Americans.

Family physician Sarah Parrott offers a primer on managing angry patients the right way, instead of losing your cool.

A biopsy sample down the drain could have been a disaster. Urologist Neil Baum explains how his surgeon mentor used Baum’s mistake to teach him a valuable lesson.

This podcast series features conversations with two experts from the MGMA: Robert Bennett, a member of MGMA’s government affairs staff, who explains what parts of the law are likely to affect medical practices, and Dave Gans, vice president of practice management resources at MGMA, who details what practices can do now to get ready for reform. 

In this podcast, Robert Tennant, senior policy advisor for the Medical Group Management Association, explains the EHR meaningful use draft criteria.

Family-practice doc David Albenberg explains his move from traditional care to concierge medicine and offers tips for figuring out what number works for you.

Medical practices in America generate millions of tons of solid waste each year. We tell you how to use your purchasing power to buy products that you can reuse instead of replace.

As December comes to a close, you realize that your practice has survived another year.

Want to know how to boost your scores on those seemingly arbitrary online physician-rating sites? The sites aren’t going away, so you’ll need to know how to make the best of them.

An EMR purchase is a business decision like any other. It’s an expensive decision, true, and it requires change. But it’s still just a business decision. What questions should you really be asking yourself?

Some people find auto-dialing machines annoying, but they’re more efficient than having your staff call each of your next-day’s appointments to deliver a simple reminder. And they work just as well.

If you don’t have a policy on staff e-mail usage, you need one. Here’s why.

Now that you’ve decided which vendor will supply your new EMR (or practice management system, or other large IT purchase), it’s time to hammer out a deal. How do you negotiate the best terms for one of the biggest purchases your practice will ever make?

An unnecessary service charge here, a bloated maintenance contract there - you may be only dimly aware of how these small “nickel and dime” charges add up to big bucks.

Spirituality and medicine sometimes interact uncomfortably. Here’s how to be sensitive while meeting your religious patients’ clinical needs.

Few administrators experience daily upheavals in their practices, but most are presented with a major transition at some point during their career. Are you ready?

An internal medicine specialist was fleeced badly by the Mother of all Embezzlers. Don’t think it can’t happen to you until you read what happened to her.

Plastic surgeon Suzanne Kim Doud Galli on how an ordinary nose job turned into the worst case of her career.

A Los Angeles pediatrician thinks she doesn’t have enough time, but is lack of space her real problem?

Dealing with constant call is the bane of many small physician groups. But with the right planning, even solo physicians can share call just like their big-practice peers. Here’s how.

What are the secrets of success in an ever changing practice-management climate? Veteran administrators dish.

Internist Carol Kelly recalls what she did when there was supposedly “nothing to do” for her ALS patient.

The customer is always right, until he is wrong. In an age of consumerism, how do you say no without losing patients?

Is your IT guy too powerful? In a small office, just one staffer often holds the keys to the kingdom. What if he quits abruptly - or worse, holds you hostage?

Without the proper controls, your drug sample closet could be a dangerous and costly liability.