Physician's Practice - November 2008 - (Page 60)

TECHNOLOGY of frustration: “I’m afraid I’m going to kill somebody!” “The scary thing was there were a couple of other people that had left from the department, and they, too, were saying very similar things,” says Carvin. “So the organization was able to see that and say, ‘We need to completely revamp how we’re treating and training these pharmacy people.’” Another product Nobscot offers is FirstDays, which helps employees with the initial experience of coming into a medical practice. “When someone’s getting ready to start a new job, they’re excited and Although programs like WebExit and FirstDays may be overkill for small practices, Carvin believes the principles behind the programs are sound. “You don’t necessarily need to have a full blown system like ours, but if an organization is trying to make sure their employees are acclimating or if they are having some issues with employee turnover, you really want to find out why,” says Carvin. “A technology solution could be a simple solution or it could be more complex, depending upon the size and complexity of your organization.” “One thing I run into is employing people with enough capabilities and the ability to develop quickly enough to handle the technology that is involved in the ofﬁce.” The other frustration for Ayo is making sure those employees will stick around. “It’s really troublesome because you start talking about $15-per-hour employees who you’re then going to spend $15,000 upfront just to give them the technical training,” he says. “MAs, LPNs, and receptionists in medical ofﬁces seem to bounce around quite a bit. We just can’t afford to have that because primary care is a high-volume, low-margin business.” Not only does SuccessFactors allow the kind of record keeping, time and attendance tracking, and database management as other individual programs, the software also coordinates long-term practice goals with short-term employee goal setting and provides a complete performance review and employee evaluation module. There is a legal function within the program that reviews employee evaluations for any questionable or potentially problematic language. Another function allows the supervisor to “rewrite” an employee’s evaluation with the touch of a button — a slider can make the tone of the evaluation more or less positive, according to the supervisor’s requirements. Ayo believes this can be particularly useful for new employees. “My ofﬁce manager is fairly new to a managerial role, especially to HR. Having a tool that provides evaluations to the subordinates is great, especially for those who don’t have great ‘soft’ management skills.” RETENTION MATTERS “MAs, LPNs, and receptionists in medical offices seem to bounce around quite a bit. We just can’t afford to have that because primary care is a highvolume, low-margin business.” THINKING BIG James Ayo, practice owner enthusiastic and have a whole set of expectations of what they think it’s going to be like,” says Carvin. “Then they get on the job and they have to sort of acclimate and sometimes readjust those expectations to settle into the position.” FirstDays was born out of the feedback from WebExit, which indicated that many employees were struggling during the ﬁrst year of employment. Either they weren’t acclimating to the practice or simply weren’t learning the things they needed to succeed. FirstDays creates a Web survey for new employees at a predetermined interval after they start — 30 or 90 days, for example — and asks for honest feedback as to how the new employee feels in the job. Is the position measuring up to their expectations? Are they receiving the resources that they need to be successful? Are they receiving the training they need? 60 | PHYSICIANS PRACTICE | NOVEMBER 2008 James Ayo thinks that what is good for the largest organizations is good enough for the one-physician primarycare practice that he and his wife run in Farragut, Tenn. Ayo takes care of the business side while his wife, a doctor, tends to the clinical. With a background in business and engineering, and a strong foundation in the Six Sigma management approach pioneered by General Electric, Ayo immediately began searching for technology solutions for managing their small practice. Not only does the practice barcode its entire inventory, including pharmaceutical samples, it also employs the SuccessFactors software, a total HR software package for medical practices. “The issue I have in this industry is that in primary care there’s this huge transition from a classic paper ofﬁce into a very highly technical and paperless ofﬁce,” says Ayo. • Robert Anthony, a former associate editor for Physicians Practice, has written for the healthcare and practice management industries for six years. His work has appeared in Physicians Practice, edge, Humana’s YourPractice, and Publisher’s Weekly. He is based in Baltimore, Md., and can be reached via editor@physicianspractice.com. WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM http://WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Physician's Practice - November 2008

Physician's Practice - November 2008 Contents Death of Solo Practice Just a Myth Letters HSAy What? Noteworthy Finding Lost Revenue: The Search for Billing and Coding Gold Getting More: Our Annual Physician Compensation Survey ’Tis the Season to be Neutral Ask the Experts Evaluating Paperless Labs HR in a Box? The Guide Coding Third-Party Audits on the Rise Branding the Cash-Only Practice Intra-Office Tug-of-Wars Stickin‘ Up For Yourself Classifieds Advertiser Index

Physician's Practice - November 2008

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