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Needless to say, healthcare has seen several drastic changes over the last year or so. A need for more contactless office procedures. A sharp rise in the use of telemedicine. A surge in digital payments. A crackdown on Information Blocking violations. However, another change in the last year that has not received nearly as much attention is increased financial responsibility for patients. And this economic trend has made patient portals more crucial than ever.

Welcome to the second installment of our two-part blog series on building a high performing team. In Part 1, we took a look at the impact psychological safety has on your team and covered methods for building it within your practice. However, creating an environment that fosters psychological safety is only the beginning. In this blog, we will conclude by following up with a discussion of how understanding the values of your practice and setting the right level of expectations can help you create a more effective team.

There is far more to successfully running a practice than just EHR and Practice Management solutions. While there are many management and leadership studies out there, far too few of them actually deal with the nuances that leaders deal with at practices day to day. Your practice is also a business, and like a business it needs an effective team.

Encounters with difficult patients, while often unpleasant, are something providers and staff have to learn to deal with as part of their jobs. And, sadly, they tend to pop up fairly regularly. In fact, one study found that 30 percent of patient encounters were rated as “difficult” by responding physician practices. These sorts of negative interactions can be frustrating and demoralizing for everyone at your practice. However, with the right methods, you can reduce the stress caused by difficult patients and improve the outcomes of these uncomfortable situations.

As many of our readers are already aware, Nextech is going virtual with its Seventh Annual User Conference, EDGE 2021 (registration is now closed). After much preparation, this year's meeting will feature over fifty sessions focused on improving the performance of your specialty practice in an immersive virtual environment. Our experts will discuss ways to improve operational efficiency, increase profitability and grow your business in addition to covering the latest regulatory changes and industry trends.

Inventory management is crucial to the success of any specialty practice. Not having enough items on hand risks losses in sales when your supply fails to meet patient demand for certain items. Of course, having too much inventory in stock can also cost you as unsold items expire on the shelf. If you are not implementing and maintaining best practices for inventory management, you leave your practice vulnerable to financial risk and related inefficiencies.

While the HIPAA Right of Access rule was first passed into law as part of the 2013 HIPAA Omnibus Rule, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has been cracking down hard on violators of this rule in recent years. This provision requires covered entities to provide patients with a copy of their medical records in the form and format requested, or another agreed upon form, within 30 days of the initial request. If the covered entity is unable to fulfill the request in that timeframe, they may notify the patient in writing that they will need a 30-day extension. This notification must also notify the requestor of the date on which the records will be provided and only one extension is permitted.

Patient demand for better online and digital payment options has been increasing for years. In 2017, a survey found that 68 percent of patients want their healthcare providers to offer digital payments options. Two year later, in 2019, another study found that 81 percent of consumers wanted their healthcare providers to offer more online payment options.