A little this and that

With the holidays and all, I’m too distracted to have many original thoughts.  Here’s a mish mash of things to ponder.

Human Googles (aka hoogles)

I am constantly getting messages from LinkedIn contacts which are not original content, but instead links to other blogs or ads masquerading as whitepapers.  I have started referring to these people as human googles.  We can call them "hoogles" for short I suppose.  It’s easy to be a hoogle.  Just troll the Internet, find a blog you think might vaguely interest a segment of your LinkedIn contact list, and send them a link which they will never use under the guise that it is useful and informative information.  

Instead of impersonating an Internet spider and filling my inbox with hooglegrams, why not mix it up and surprise me with an original thought, opinion, or viewpoint.  It’s not easy to think of something original, and sometimes it turns out badly.  But when it works, the gift is appreciated.  And you’ll find the process of working through an original blog post is very stimulating and can help you work through issues you’re having at work. 

Most of my blog posts are of original content, not because I think I’m smarter than anyone else, but because I have a question or issue I’m interested in and which I think medical practices might be interested in as well. 

1%

When I see 1%, I now think of the Wall Street protesters.  Wow, the power of marketing.  My personal 1% isn’t so good.  I was 1% short of passing my AAPC CPC exam.  Arrgghh.  After working through my “what if” period, I scheduled to retake it in late January.  I can’t really think of any profound life lesson to blog about, but instead I’m just happy to be so close to passing, and mad at myself not studying harder. 

Hoolgegram Alert

Warning:  I’m going to refer you to a couple awesome blog posts from this past week.  You’re forewarned.

I found a couple very interesting blog posts this week on HISTalk.com.   The first one is  here: John Gomez.    John Gomez, formerly of Allscripts and Eclipsys writes an interesting piece on the health of the EMR sector.  Though I didn’t’ work with him, my time at Eclipsys overlapped with John’s, and he had loads of respect within the company, so I think what he says in this post is most interesting.

The second post may be found here: Bobbie Byrne  Bobbie Byrne,VP/CIO at Edward Hospital, Naperville, Illinois, writes about her hospital’s selection of Epic for acute and ambulatory settings..   She is also a former Eclipsys employee.

Straight ahead, 

Bob

Conditional thumbs up for the AAPC CPC

Last Saturday I sat through the 5 hour and 40 minute AAPC CPC certification exam.  Yep, “ugh” would be the appropriate reply.  But I actually enjoyed it in some perverse way, probably because I did it for me, not because I had to.  I didn't need to go through this ordeal; I'm not a biller or coder.  However, I felt I needed to really dig deeper into coding in order to feel more confident when working with the business side of medical practices.  I can compare the experience to running in Iowa winters when it’s sub-zero and ice forms on your nose.  It’s really miserable at the time, but the payoff is running a Sunbelt marathon in March. 

The Certified Professional Coder (CPC) credential is bestowed by the American Academy of Professional Coders(www.aapc.com) to those individuals who, through an exam, demonstrate proficiency with the CPT, ICD, and HCPCS coding systems. 

To prepare for the exam, I purchased the AAPC "Official CPC Certification Study Guide", three of their online prep exams, and attended the local AAPC chapter exam review class.  Overall, I think these were good preparation tools and would recommend them for anyone interested in preparing for the CPC exam.  One note of caution, however.  I was disappointed to find a surprising number of grammatical and editing errors in the study guide.  I was able to catch these issues but those who are new to medical coding may be confused by them. The Study Guide’s review questions and the online review exams were spot on with regards to the real test, as well they should be since they were prepared by the same group that produced the certification exam.  So props to AAPC on that.

I selected the CPC over a competing coder certification, the CCS administered by the AHIMA (www.ahima.org), because I was not looking for a career certification.  I wanted a short, focused learning path.  And for that purpose, I can recommend the CPC.  For career coders or billers, you’ll need to determine for yourself which certification makes sense.  And there are lots of opinions out there on the topic.  For doctors and office managers, I do think that if you have a biller who is light on experience, or an office staffer who will transition to billing/coding, the CPC Study Guide and online practice exams would be excellent training tools.

I don't have my exam results back yet; it takes 7-10 days to get the results.  But I'm pretty confident I didn’t pass, which is ok.  Examinees are allowed two exam sessions for each paid registration.  And at my local chapter AAPC review class there were many people who had failed their first exam and were taking it a second time.  The way the exam is structured, the speed at which one answers questions is very important.  Given enough time, most of the questions can be answered by referring to the CPT, ICD and HCPCS coding books.  But with the time limit in place, it’s important to really know anatomy and guidelines so as not to waste time.

Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s a balmy 49 degrees here in Iowa and I need to take advantage of this heat wave and get in a run.  And next week I’ll probably be hitting the books again.

Learning from Target Clinic®

I have to admit that I have become fascinated with the story of Walmart, Target, Walgreens, and CVS making revised pushes into health services.  There are so many interesting questions surrounding it.  Over the next few weeks I’m going to address some of them.

For today, my question is: Can we learn anything from the health services websites of the big box retailers?

Let’s look at what we can learn from the online marketing efforts of Target Clinic®.  I think their page titled, “GuideTo a Great Visit” is awesome.  It’s all about the warm and fuzzy.  It features a couple pictures of young woman, and here are some excerpts from the text:

• Let’s get you back in the game

• Come on in to a Target Clinic®......get a game plan for your health

• …personalized summary of your visit will be printed…

• …you’ll have time to ask the provider questions.

• You’ll leave feeling confident about your treatment, how to best spend your time healing, and what, if any, medications to take.

• We’ll coach you back to health

 

Doesn’t this sound warm and inviting?  Go team!  And it hits on so many of the complaints we still hear from patients such as, “I can’t remember what the doctor told me”, “the doctor came and went so fast I didn’t get a chance to ask my question”, and “I’m not sure what I can and can’t do”. 

Notice all the “you”s?   Lots of “you” on this website, which, as marketers will tell you, is a good thing. 

Contrast these “you” statements to this excerpt from an actual website (I changed the name of the practice): “Clear Dermatology, Inc. physicians and staff are committed to providing quality dermatologic services in a safe and compassionate manner that enhances our patients’ lives and well-being.” 

This is their mission statement, and they lead with this prominently on their homepage.  Now, I don’t doubt that this mission statement is true and they have a heartfelt desire to abide by it.  But it feels cold to me.  I would save this for the break room wall, and make the homepage about the patient. 

Target Clinic® also uses photos effectively.  They don’t use lots of them, but the ones they have make you smile.  And that’s really what our websites are about, right?  Making the connection with the patient or potential patient. 

My next website example is so close to getting it right, it hurts when I view it.  I’m a fan of the website in general.  It’s fast, logical and aesthetically pleasing.  It has lots of useful features like downloadable forms, a bunch of online information references, and online bill pay capability.  Overall a great webpage.  Unfortunately, it’s also an example of pictures gone dull.

I’m not normally a fan of flash animation on medical practice websites because people tend to do it wrong.  But in this case the concept worked well.  The flash animation goes as follows (not real practice name):

• “Welcome to Sporting Orthopedics”, fade to picture of an empty room with sports rehab equipment.

• “Physician Led”, fade to picture of a framed print on a wall next to a window. 

• “Patient focused”, fade to picture of an empty exam room.

• “Outcomes Centered”, fade to picture of an empty waiting room.

 

So is everyone invisible?  I mean, the pictures are beautifully done, well lighted and well framed.  But it looks like test shots as we wait for everyone to come back from lunch.  What if it had gone like this instead:

 

• “Welcome to Sporting Orthopedics”, fade to picture of staff dutifully assisting patients in rehab room.

• “Physician Led”, fade to picture of white coated doctor talking with patient as they look at an x-ray image. 

• “Patient focused”, fade to picture of doctor watching therapist work with same patient.

• “Outcomes Centered”, fade to picture of smiling doctor, therapist and sweaty, uniform clad patient at sporting event.

 

Now that’s a story to make you smile.

So your homework is to browse the web and see what you can learn from the multimillion dollar marketing efforts of your well healed competition.

Straight ahead,

Bob