Physicians Practice - April 2008 - (Page 42)

ASK THE EXPERTS Finally, audit a minimum of 20 accounts per staff member worked during the past six months. Again, look for timeliness, accuracy, and results. Pull these ﬁles randomly so that the employees can’t work them before your review. Some uneven distribution of work is valid, as some payers, like workers’ compensation, take longer to work than others. Therefore, an employee may legitimately have as much work to do with half the accounts as a colleague. SHE’S PREGNANT. CAN I FIRE HER? office permanently staffed? May I, or when can I, safely terminate this employee? I have not been satisfied with her performance anyway. Q I am a solo physician and have just two employees. One of my employees is pregnant — apparently a high-risk pregnancy. She keeps calling me at the last minute to tell me that she isn’t feeling well and won’t be in that day, which leaves me stranded. I have told her that I need her to be present every working day. She suggested I hire a third employee to cover for her when she is out. I cannot do this financially. What options do I have to have my A Your risk, obviously, is in appearing to ﬁre someone because she is pregnant. If you weren’t happy with the employee, the time to deal with that was before the pregnancy. You don’t explain what your policy is for this employee during her maternity leave. Is the leave paid or unpaid? In a practice your size, you are not bound by the Family and Medical Leave Act that would otherwise require you to hold her job and determines the extent of leave, but you’d ideally agree to a set standard expectation. Also, how many days paid leave does the employee get under her standard employment contract? If she has already exceeded the number of paid days, you really have less of an issue. Take her up on her suggestion, with a slight variation. For her health, encourage her to stay home while you pay someone else to do her job. You still have just one salary to pay. Again, agree to how long after the birth you will hold the position for her and make sure your new hire understands the conditions of her employment. I don’t know enough about your employment agreement and tacitly understood agreements with this staffer to advise you in detail, but consider the areas discussed above and do be careful about ﬁring her. You might want to consult with an attorney should you choose to move in the direction of ﬁring her. IS IT WORTH BILLING THE NEW PHONE CODES? Q I see there are new CPT codes for phone calls. I never got paid for the old codes. Should I even bother billing these? A Sure. Word on the street is that some commercial payers are indeed paying for them. Moreover, if you never bill, the payers have an excuse to never pay. After all, “no one bills them anyway.” SPOUSE ROLE IN PRACTICE MANAGEMENT Q I am co-owner of a practice (50/50). Our office runs very well with the expert help of a wonderful office manager. I take a large part of the day-to-day operations, but my partner does not, though he takes part in any major decisions. Just lately his wife has decided she wants to come in and “volunteer.” She sits in on our provider meetings, and feels like it is OK to question our practice manager about things. It has become very uncomfortable. It has totally changed the mood of the office, and I am about to scream. How can we get her out of here without it turning into a huge fiasco? A I’ve heard lots of horror stories about spousal involvement in practices. In an undeﬁned role, it leaves the staff wondering who is in charge. You need to have a closed-door, open-hearted session with your partner. 42 | PHYSICIANS PRACTICE | APRIL 2008 WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM http://www.amazingcharts.com http://www.amazingcharts.com http://WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Physicians Practice - April 2008

Physicians Practice - April 2008 Contents The Bigger Picture: Medicare Decision Time Letters Physicians Practice Pearls: Outsource Your Pain Noteworthy Cover Story: Trial Lawyers Tell All Management: When It’s Time to Change Ask the Experts Technology: Do You Know Where Your Data Is? The Tech Doctor: Are Your Discarded PCs Really Clean? Billing & Collections: Playing Hardball The Administrator's Desk: Recruiting for Patient Satisfaction Start It Up: Finance - Mastering the Numbers Game Coding The Great Practice Makeover: Taking Care of Business Associates Classifieds Advertiser Index

Physicians Practice - April 2008

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