When you perform a Google search for "Medical Practice", or "Medical Practice (your town name)", you will typically see three types of search results. 1. Ads 2. Traditional organic search results 3. Local (Google Maps) results Ads are often very effective but cost you money every time someone clicks on one. Links from the traditional organic section can send visitors to your homepage, or to any of the other pages on your site that have been indexed by Google. Local results will send people to your Google+ Local page. This was formerly known as a Google Places page, but people will now see…

Taking the time to write a press release and then never seeing it printed can be frustrating. When it happens several times in a row, your tendency may be to devote your time to something else and forget press releases altogether. There are several reasons a press release may not be published. Perhaps you didn’t contact the right editor. Maybe the local news had other stories that demanded their attention. More often than not, it’s probably because your press release just wasn’t considered “newsworthy” so the editor whose desk it landed on didn’t find it…

Every dollar you spend marketing your Medical Practice business is a dollar you’re not taking home. It is also a dollar you are investing in hopes of making even more money on the investment down the road. But how do you know if you’re just aimlessly throwing money away each month or if your marketing efforts are truly bringing patients in the door? There are several things you can implement to measure your return on investment, commonly called ROI. ROI = (Net Revenue - Marketing Expenses / Marketing Expenses ) *100 In the healthcare marketing ROI formula above, net revenue equals…

“Bill me the balance. I’m good for it.” Just try that line next time you rent a car or check into a hotel. Yet every day, thousands of patients effectively say that very line to Medical Practice staff and physician clinics. Every day clinics in America lose millions of dollars due to nonpayment, collection costs, and the actual cost of billing patients after the fact. The process of billing patients for deductibles and other patient responsibility can be a long drawn out procedure resulting in significant costs, delays and write-offs. The traditional method of sending out…

A year ago I started doing marketing consulting as a supplement to my career as an Medical Practice marketer. Now I receive phone calls or e-mails almost every single day asking questions on everything from “Is this a good idea?” to “Can you help me understand this contract” to “Help! I’m stuck. What should I do next?” My favorite question, however, is “What’s the one thing I should focus my marketing efforts on right now?” I always know it’s going to be a longer phone call when I get that question because there is no…

When I first learned about Pintrest, I was really slow to jump on the bandwagon. I had just hired a new marketer for one of our locations, and she always had the cutest hairstyles and neatest articles of clothing. Each time I would compliment her on them she would say, “Thanks, I learned how to make this on Pintrest. You should check it out, but beware, it is addictive and can cost you lots of spare time.” … Spare time wasn’t something I had a lot of, and the last thing I really needed was a new social network to waste time on. Fast forward to this past Christmas. I’m…

Last year all practices covered by HIPAA were required to upgrade from Version 4010 to Version 5010 standards for electronic health care claims and other transactions. The Version 5010 upgrade paved the way for ICD-10 and offers valuable insights: • Early planning and preparation will smooth your transition to ICD-10. Practices that planned for the Version 5010 upgrade were well prepared and transitioned smoothly. For ICD-10, your office can start planning by developing a checklist of activities that will need to be completed and a timeline for accomplishing these tasks. • Communication and…

By: Nila Smith What allows a successful Medical Practice business to open multiple locations and have them be just as successful as the first? Their Policies and Procedures Manual, of course. Policies and procedures are the “formula for success” you have written on how to successfully run your Medical Practice. Let’s face it, from the first day you opened your Medical Practice, you spent a lot of time experimenting and learning some lessons the hard way (unless you’re one of the lucky few who attended the Medical Practice Success Summit before you opened your doors).

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the release of a rule that makes final a one-year proposed delay—from October 1, 2013, to October 1, 2014—in the compliance date for the industry's transition to ICD-10 codes. Secretary Sebelius first announced the proposed delay in April, as part of President Obama's commitment to reducing regulatory burden. The deadline for the transition to ICD-10 is October 1, 2014. Keep Up to Date on ICD-10 Please visit the ICD-10 website for the latest news and resources to help you prepare.

By: Candice Smith Negotiating insurance contracts. Coding charts. Working accounts. Waiting on payments. Sending statements. Working A/R. As the billing department supervisor for HealthCARE Express Billing, I am grateful for all of those things, as they mean our company is kept busy daily managing the billing cycle for several Medical Practice clinics. All of those duties revolve around the fee schedules created that dictate how much we can bill insurance companies. They also help us understand how much we are getting reimbursed from our payers, help us recognize our allowables, and are a…