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Six ways to build the practice ‘brain bank’
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1. Develop a new employee orientation/onboarding program.
Go beyond the completion of human resources paperwork. An orientation/onboarding program provides new employees with a broad understanding of your organization’s vision, culture and overall practice operations. An effective orientation plan includes items such as:
• a welcome lunch with a small group of staff and at least one physician;
• meeting with the manager to get an overview of current and planned projects;
• meeting with the managing partner to learn about mission, vision and goals of the practice;
• visiting the practice website, reading every page and repeat this again in 2 weeks;
• observing workflow in the clinic for 1 day; and
• meeting with a buddy or a go-to person who is paired with the new employee for 60 days to 90 days.
2. Subscribe to multiple publications.
These include mainstream business journals, practice management publications and coding resources from organizations such as your specialty society, the AMA and national coding organizations. Make reading these publications part of each employee’s job, and assign staff to present at staff meetings what they’ve learned and how it impacts the practice.
3. Take advantage of free webinars, e-books and resources.
There is no shortage of free content to teach your team how to collect efficiently, improve leadership, reduce risk and use the right codes. However, you must make it clear to the team that you value reading and webinar attendance, and that it’s okay to do this during work hours.
Many employees believe that learning is something they must do after their primary tasks are complete. Which of course, leads many of them to never “have time” to learn. Create a learning culture by forwarding resources or suggesting they register for webinars. Ask those who’ve learned something new to debrief the team in monthly staff meetings.
4. Put employee training in the budget.
If you do not budget for training, it is much easier to think you “cannot afford it” when staff ask to go. Set aside money every year to build your brain bank.
Identify which roles and how many employees require training each year. The billing team, manager and at least one physician and mid-level provider must receive ongoing education about coding updates, reimbursement guidelines, CMS changes and more every year.
Make sure you budget also for at least one person from every step of the revenue cycle — front desk, biller, coder and patient collector — to attend a revenue cycle, billing or customer service course. Look at the offerings from state and national specialty societies, hospitals, trade groups (such as the Medical Group Management Association) and the American Academy of Professional Coders (AAPC). Include travel expenses and a few thousand “extra” dollars in the budget for training courses that come up during the year.
5. Schedule ongoing, vendor-led computer training throughout the year.
Just because the EHR or practice management system has been implemented does not mean training should cease. Employees absorb only a fraction of what they learn in a training course. In many practices we visit, staff use less than 50% of available features. Ongoing reinforcement training is essential for optimizing technology investments and staff productivity.
Don’t confuse one employee showing another “how to use the computer” with training. Most practice staff are not capable of comprehensive training, so schedule vendor-led sessions. Some practices also develop an internal trainer or “super user.” This employee receives additional skills training and becomes the internal expert and trainer (the “super user”) to whom employees go for questions and coaching.
6. Send staff to off-site courses.
Webinars are helpful, but these are not a replacement for in-person learning. Sending staff to off-site training enables them to connect with others in their position and learn how other practices operate. Your team will make connections with peers they can contact with questions and challenges in the future. An annual conference or society education course for key office staff is a worthwhile expense.
Cheryl Toth , MBA, is the director of marketing for KarenZupko&Associates Inc., a consulting and education firm that has been helping physicians increase revenue, optimize efficiency, reduce risk and improve the patient experience for more than 30 years. Based in Tucson, Arizona, she is a former consultant for the firm.