Patient communication is one of the most important metrics that modern practices can examine to understand patient satisfaction. That’s because the patient experience is deeply tied to how easy and convenient it is to communicate with your practice. 96% of patient complaints are related to poor service, with only 4% actually related to quality care. The number one driver of these poor service complaints is poor communication. That can mean anything from cumbersome phone trees, long wait times on the phone, unanswered emails, or constantly forgotten portal passwords.

Thanksgiving is upon us once more… and you probably have no idea how much danger we are all in.

Physician burnout is turning out to be one of those problems that never seems to go away. According to the Physicians Foundation’s 2018 Survey of America’s Physicians, medical professionals across the country continue to suffer the negative emotional and psychological effects of issues such as low morale, high pessimism (especially regarding the future of healthcare) and job dissatisfaction. Nearly 78 percent of physicians surveyed declared feelings of burnout “sometimes/often/always.” Unfortunately, many of America’s healthcare providers are overextended, overworked and struggling to maintain compliance while bogged down by an ever-increasing amount of required paperwork.

Bringing a new physician into your practice often starts long before his or her first day at work. First you had to actively recruit for the position. After compiling the initial pool of candidates, you then had to take time to conduct interviews and attend meetups before making the final selection. Then came salary negotiations, the final employment agreement and believe it or not, that was just the beginning. The onboarding of a new physician is often a multi-week process that includes verification of credentials, acquisition of ID numbers for items such as his or her medical license, DEA license, NPI, Medicare, etc. Then comes the process of applying for and obtaining necessary privileges and credentials for the practice’s accepted insurance plans as well as any relevant hospitals or ambulatory service centers.

Halloween is just around the corner, and October started out with some pretty scary stuff. 2019 has already been a particularly terrifying year when it comes to ransomware attacks. Depending on how long you have been following this blog, you may recall the so-called “Ransomware Explosion” of 2016. At that time, five healthcare organizations were hit by ransomware attacks in a single month and the FBI reported a record 321 attacks in a period of only nine months, totaling $57 million in ransom payments.

On October 12, 2019, ophthalmologists from around the country will gather in San Francisco to learn, network and share best practices at the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) conference. This event is an excellent way for ophthalmologists to learn about the latest trends and considerations in our industry. Here are three exciting topics and discussion areas you’re sure to see at the show this year:

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid services (CMS), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) jointly released the official ICD-10 code changes for fiscal year (FY) 2020. This is the fourth such update to occur since ICD-10 was first officially implemented in the U.S. back in October of 2015. These code changes will go into immediate effect as of Tuesday, October 1, 2019. However, it is important to note that any claims with earlier service dates (on or before September 30, 2019) must continue to use the codes from FY2019.

In mid-August, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released its 2020 Quality Payment Program Proposed Rule Overview. This document outlines changes to Quality Payment Program (QPP) policies that will take effect in the upcoming 2020 year, as well as proposed changes for 2021. It is also a summarization of the far more detailed (and roughly 1700 page long) CY 2020 Revisions to Payment Policies document. One section that is likely to be of the most interest to healthcare providers deals with new modifications to the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS). In this article, we will be looking at these MIPS 2020 changes, particularly those that are of concern to specialty healthcare practices in fields such as dermatology, ophthalmology, plastics/aesthetics and orthopedics.