What is the future of O&P? If your office sees patients in Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, or Washington, you have an opportunity to secure the future of O&P. I’m not joking. You see, CMS is launching a new pilot project intended to “advance value-based primary care, especially in rural areas and among underserved populations.” I know…we are not primary care…But is there an opportunity for you to benefit? I think so.

Outcomes are more than just for patients. An “Outcome” is the effect or result of an event or process. They can be good or bad, desired or undesired, anticipated or unanticipated. What outcomes are you achieving in your practice management processes?

About a month ago, we held the first in-person Bootcamp since COVID. The response was fantastic, and the people all seemed to like the way we structured everything. A key takeaway was a tool to help identify the biggest challenge each person is facing and a process to help solve the challenge.

Do you use Microsoft Office Products in your practice? If you do, your company’s behaviors were probably part of the data they use to compile their annual workplace-productivity trends. They analyzed trillions of Microsoft 365 productivity signals, along with labor trends from the LinkedIn Economic Graph to spot trends that are probably impacting you!

Keeping your data safe can seem like a never-ending challenge. New breaches of health data seem to be announced almost daily, and organizations of all sizes — including the government — have fallen victim to data scams. 

But there is good news on the data security front, too. The migration of many systems to the cloud means that much responsibility for security is now handled by true experts who focus on that task —rather than practice owners and managers who are overseeing a lot of other important priorities. 

There are also a number of quick, easily implemented tactics for reducing many of the most common risks of data loss.

Most of us are in this profession because we are passionate about the care of people who need our services. That passion is a double-edged sword. It is great when it lights a fire under us to do our jobs well, but it is dangerous if it leads us into emotional decision-making. It is incumbent on us to take the time to understand why something happens in the practice rather than assuming we just know that it is due to some intellectual deficit of our co-worker!

Do you ever have conflict in your office when the administrative staff and the clinical staff disagree on who should do what and when? This is not unusual and is not limited to O&P practices. If you have taken nothing else from everything we have been saying at OPIE, I hope the concept of “People, Processes, and Tools as a three-legged stool” has stuck. Without all three working in harmony, your practice is going to be limited in what it can do.  The three distinct aspects of your practice must be working together.  No one thing will let you be great.

CEOs are encouraged to bust silos so often you’d think half their job is driving bulldozers over grain farms:

‘Employees must learn to work with different departments in cross-functional teams!’

‘Lack of awareness and understanding of other’s roles leads to inefficiencies and confusion!’

‘Lack of a “Mission-Focus” creates uncoordinated effort!’

All true, and that’s why the “no-silo dream” is a compelling one for executives. But there are a couple of problems with the dream: Your people are probably comfortable in their silos, and they’re often not working in an environment where they can easily get out of them.

If you read through my past blogs you will see a pattern emerge. I find there are five key principles of effective leadership that weave through the process. And because every article I read seems to have acronyms, I figure it’s time I try it. I think effective, strategic leadership allows you to “stack the deck” in your favor. So the word of the day to represent the key principles is STACT! Read on to find out what that means!

Do you ever have errors in your patient demographic data? Do you ever have a claim rejected because something was not submitted or was submitted incorrectly? Has a patient ever shown up for a delivery, but the device was not ready? Is there anything in your practice that you would like to do better?

I believe most leaders think they have a good understanding of what matters most to the staff, but do they? Acting on poorly understood priorities is not only ineffective, but it can backfire when leaders’ actions suggest that they don’t understand what their people are wrestling with. As someone once said, “Tone-deaf compassion is more dangerous and costly than none at all.”

Last week we talked about “An Ecosystem of Processes.” I reminded you that there are paid bounty hunters, hired by the federal government, whose job is to claw back monies paid to you for services rendered. Your best defense is a good offense and probably the most important thing you can do, after you have your processes of course, is to monitor your activities. It is far better that you find and fix issues before they become audits and fines.

This week I was at a medical practice conference where I had a couple of big takeaways. I think the most obvious one was how much the medical practice today depends on data to drive its day-to-day operations. The other, aligned with my blog last week, is how crucial the back of office staff is to keeping the practice afloat.

In O&P, the glory goes to the clinician. But if they only knew what the admins do to make sure the company gets paid for that glorious work! The administrative professionals that are running your practice have about a gazillion different tasks to perform between the time they learn about a new prescription/patient and when you deposit payment for the services you render. 

I just spent a week at the Academy meeting in Nashville. While it was awesome to see a bunch of people I haven’t seen for a while, there seemed to be a common thread of frustration with finding solid employees. To me, this begs the question of which comes first, the people or the process? Yes, it is a trick question. But which one leads to business continuity? It is funny to me that in a profession that requires meticulous documentation, the processes that drive multi-million dollar practices are often poorly documented.

I am at the Academy meeting and it is really nice to see so many people in person again. It is a great time to reflect on the memories we have made together and the good times and the not-so good times we have had. Everyone I’m talking to seems to be struggling with similar issues and staffing is chief among them. I want to resurface a blog I wrote about the importance of strategic hiring, even when faced with a really tough business environment. As tempting as it may be to fill the seat, the long-term impact of that impulse can be incredibly harmful to your practice. For every not-so-good time, there is a counter-balance, so be patient and make the most of the ride!

When things happen unexpectedly, we can get frantic and stressed if we are not careful. It is important that we stop, breathe, regain our composure, and tackle the challenges ahead. Some new research coming out of Stanford University suggests that post-pandemic time seems to pass more quickly because we have a fairly recent contrast with “lock-down” life.

How do you know if you are spending your energy on the right things? We have had a lot of change over the past couple of years and many of our seasoned practices have lost some of the institutional memory that made things work really well. In just a few short months, we are bringing back the BootCamp. You have asked for it, and I think it is time. Join me with Lesleigh Sisson, Erin Cameratta and Valerie Vastola as we help you implement some of the ideas in this week’s blog!

Who here loves chasing down compliant physician documentation? That is one of two issues that come up repeatedly when talking about frustrating parts of running an O&P practice. Read on the find the other and what you can do about it.

We all do it. Friendly banter, weekend stories, emerging relationships and other topics can be the subject of many “watercooler’ discussions. There can even be factual information shared with coworkers or patients. Casual conversations happen all the time. Is this harmless chitchat or gossip? Is there a difference and does it matter?