Staff

We asked physicians, consultants, and staffers to share some of their best ideas on how to boost staff morale for $100 or less. Here are 20 of our favorites.

Medical practices are often fraught with poor policies and time sucks that undermine staff performance. Here's what to look for - and what to do about it.

Tight staffing and lower reimbursement have made patient volume - and effective patient flow - an imperative. You'll need to be innovative to squeeze more patients into your doctors' day.

When an employee calls in sick, the pressure's on. Here are some ways to avoid chaos and keep patients happy when you are short-staffed.

To stay safe and weed out the billing and collections problems stifling your practice's revenue stream, our experts recommend a "bottom-to-top" assessment of your entire billing operation.

There's nothing more disruptive than hiring someone who doesn't work out. Here are some tried-and-true tips to head off disaster.

You've probably heard of state and regional Health Information Exchanges, but what the heck are they, exactly, and can they be of any use to your practice?

Is staff mediocrity costing you money? Here's how to fix it.

It isn't easy for practices to become accredited as a patient centered medical home. To help you assess your readiness and make the transition, here are a few guidelines to get you started.

You might feel more justified than most in taking out your frustration on others, but be careful - the emotional hangovers you might create can often have a long-lasting effect on your practice.

Are you ready to make social media platforms part of your practice? Make sure you put reasonable constraints in place.

Do you know what a good accountant should be doing for you and your practice? If you don't, you could be losing money and opportunity. Here's how to make sure everything adds up when it comes to your financial counsel.

What yardstick should you use to measure your practice against those of your colleagues?

Medical practices have been slow to embrace the "customer comes first" mentality that defines corporate America - an operational oversight they can no longer ignore.

Noteworthy items from February 2011

You love your nonphysician providers and want your patients to love them, too. But patients may be uneasy about not getting to see their doctor each time they visit. Managing expectations and carefully introducing other providers is the key.

Good tech support staff is crucial to achieving successful EHR implementation and other priorities like interoperability. Here’s how to find the health IT support you need.

In-house referrals have the longest tenure and highest satisfaction of all newly hired employees.

Psychiatrist Doug Bey on how his staff helped him and his practice survive and thrive after his two heart attacks.

The future of the direct-pay practice model is bright. Here's how it works, the affect on patients, and where it fits with models promoted by healthcare reform.

Today's practice managers must plan proactively for the new year - finding new ways to cut costs and improve efficiencies.

The cost of staffing can consume as much as 30 percent of operating expenses for a medical practice. However, don't be tempted to cut staff. Instead, invest in your staff so you get and keep highly motivated, productive people on your team.

According to our 2010 Physician Compensation Survey, group size can be a big factor in how much you earn. Find out how your income stacks up to that of your peers.

Taking the time to develop accurate and current job descriptions, schedule annual performance reviews, and make yourself available to employees, will reap rewards for both you as a manager and your practice.

In her MGMA session on the internal checks and balances practices should implement to prevent fraud and embezzlement, Susan F. Childs noted that 75 percent of businesses have a risk of theft or embezzlement. Is your practice at risk? Find out how to assess your practice procedures and prevent theft in your practice.

Workplace negativity can drag down a practice and its staff, hurting both patient care and the bottom line. So what can you do to boost staff morale and encourage teamwork at your office?

With a growing shortage of primary-care physicians, NPs are fast becoming the resource of choice

Chances are you are going to get audited in the next few years. But don’t panic - use our audit guide to get your practice prepared instead.

Effectively controlling costs in a medical practice essentially means controlling personnel costs.

The federal government’s commitment to encourage more health information technology means there is a need for some 50,000 health IT workers in the next five years. One organization answering that call is the Oregon Institute of Technology, which just launched a health informatics degree program.