The main reason for the sudden scarcity is due to many nurses getting ready for retirement.  In Brooklyn and Queens, 19% of the nurses are over the age of 55 and will be ready to retire over the next ten years.  New York City alone will need about 60,000 more nurses over the next ten years if it wants to sustain a quality health care system.   

Another problem is the nursing education system.  Qualified applicants are being denied entry into nursing programs across the country due to limited classroom space and insufficient number of faculty.  The College of Staten Island in Staten Island only accepted 125 out of 400 applicants.  While the rejection pool includes unqualified students, a good number of worthy prospects still remains. 

Senator Gillibrand has plans to circumvent this potential disaster.  To increase nursing faculty, she plans to offer 100% loan repayment to nurses who complete a nursing program and choose to come back and teach at nursing institutions.  In addition, she plans to give out grants to nursing education programs so that they can accept more students.  Lastly, she wants to incentivise nurses to insert themselves into poorer areas of New York. 

President Obama has already helped Senator Gillibrand’s third task; part of Obama’s stimulus package included a $300 million grant to the National Health Service Corps, an organization that recruits nurses.

Click here to read the entire article: New York’s Nursing Shortage (Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand)

At the 2008 Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity’s (AHDI) Annual Convention and Expo, students, educators, and supervisors in the medical transcription industry gathered to discuss their experiences with different technologies and software.  The goal of these focus groups was to obtain an end user perspective for new innovations such as speech recognition technology (SRT), natural language processing, data tagging, and abstracting.  Below are some of the key points from Laura Bryan’s article that were gained from the discussions.

• There is too much variation across the industry in regards to the sophistication of technology.
• Not many medical transcriptionists were familiar with data tagging and natural language processing, while a majority either worked or had knowledge of SRT.
• Transcription training programs currently do not have a curriculum for these new technologies and do not plan on integrating them.
• Hence, new education programs must be developed to introduce the software to prospective transcriptionists
• In this economy, transcriptionists worry about the information costs, such as training expenses, associated with transferring over to new technology systems. 
• With regards to grammar, punctuation, and style, professionals who transcribe using traditional methods are held to higher standards than transcriptionists using SRT.
• According to experienced SRT transcriptionists, the notion that transcribing with SRT is easier and does not require much knowledge or expertise is not true.
• Transcriptionists who have used SRT before complain about the lack of quality, immense variability, and the tedious implementation process with SRT programs currently available on the market.

The Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI) recently announced their new partnership with Personify association management software (AMS).  The AMS system allows companies to store data such as member names and addresses on their websites.  The upgrade will allow AHDI to better track its data and improve its online store. 

Along with a new homepage, there will be several exciting features to the website.  Innovations such as breadcrumbs, which allow users to easily navigate through a website, will be installed.  The online shopping cart will be easier to use and include the widely popular ‘wish list’ feature commonly seen on other retail stores’ websites. 

While excited for the upcoming switch, AHDI cautions its members that it will take time to get the site up and running.  Therefore, the site will not be available from July1-9.  The website will still be able to be viewed, but order requests and purchase processing will be disabled.  Members can feel free to call AHDI at 1-800-982-2182 if they are in need of these services between the blackout dates.

Click here on July 10 to view AHDI’s new website: Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI)

MTSOs and documentation specialists are starting to work together to try to increase turnaround times and better manage data.  AHDI and MTIA want to compile research to establish uniform turnaround time guidelines.  With these guidelines in place, medical practices could pay premiums to medical transcription services that provide faster turnaround times.  The hope is that these new guidelines will increase the quality of the medical transcription industry. 

A quality assurance (QA) program is also in the works, which would monitor documentation accuracy and vastly improve transcription performance.  The QA program, along with outlining document formatting standards across the industry, would also improve patient safety. 

In addition, the two organizations want to continue educating medical transcription business owners on the privacy and security protections to prevent medical transcription service owners from having to pay fines for violating patients’ rights to privacy. 

Lastly, the two partners intend to invest in speech recognition technology to bring the industry into the future of efficient transcription.  At the 2009 MTIA Annual Conference  industry stakeholders got together to review data collected about the incorporation of a speech recognition system. 

In just two short years, AHDI and MTIA have taken big steps toward innovation.  Instead of waiting for these advancements to happen naturally, the two organizations have taken on the challenges of improving transcription by themselves.  They are making drastic improvements and the medical transcription industry will soon see the impacts of their hard work.

The President assured Americans that the government will not force them to switch doctors or health insurance plans.  Also, private companies will still be able to choose different plans for their employees on their own.  However, critics argue that given a cheaper government option, most businesses will jump ship from private insurance companies. 

Health insurance companies feel threatened by the proposal, stating that a government program would put them out of business.  Obama responded to these concerns by admitting he wasn’t sure a government plan would be included in his final proposal. 

Additionally, Obama explained that the funding for his health care system would either come from lowering the amount that wealthy Americans can deduct on their taxes or from taxing health benefits. Regardless of how he accomplishes this, many wonder if Obama will be the first president to solve the problem of uninsured Americans. 

Little is known right now about how President Obama’s healthcare reform will affect healthcare vendors like medical billing and coding companies and/or temporary nurse staffing agencies. They will have to wait patiently to see how the President’s changes will affect them. 

To read the entire Wall Street Journal Blog article, click here: Separating Fact from Fiction on Health-Care Reform

To view a clip of the town hall meeting, click here: President Obama Defends Right to Choose Best Care

For a full transcript of the meeting, click here: Questions for the President: Prescription for America

From July 29-August 1, Nikki Flores and Stephanie Chmielecki will represent PRN Funding in booth #127.  Medical transcription service owners interested in a unique way of financing their business should stop by PRN Funding’s booth during exhibiting hours (10:00am-4:00pm) on July 30 as well as breakfast and lunch on July 31.

With years of experience in the medical transcription industry, PRN Funding has a precise understanding of the unique challenges within the medical transcription industry. PRN Funding offers financial resources to these companies by purchasing their accounts receivable–a process known as ‘factoring’, which provides the cash needed to sustain and grow a healthcare business.

LinkedIn’s base of over 42 million people in 170 industries from all over the world is expanding by the second.  In fact, according to LinkedIn, one account is created every second.  But is LinkedIn becoming the next Facebook for business people? The Haley Marketing Group believes it is a powerful tool that can positively impact your medical staffing business.  Below are some of their tips for success.

1. Maximize your network- Build a big network of former clients, prospective candidates, colleagues at former employers, alumni from schools you went to, and members of other groups you join.
2. Use the company search- Find important executives who work at specific firms or recruit with LinkedIn by connecting with current or former employees in specific job functions.
3. Use the people search tool- This feature allows you to search for candidates based on specific keywords they have listed in their profile.
4. Use the group search tool- Find organizations and networking groups of people who are relevant to the types of prospects you are looking to hire. (Insert info about the “Temporary Nurse Staffing” Group here, and include the link.)
5. Build your credibility- Ask for recommendations, share relevant articles with groups you join, and answer questions. 
6. Keep people informed- Going to a trade show? Make sure you let people know when you are attending an event.
7. Track your competition- Use the company search to see how they are utilizing LinkedIn.

According to the National Small Business Association, 59% of America’s small businesses depended on credit cards for their daily operations in April (up 15% from last year).  Although small business credit accounts for roughly 11% of the revenue for Visa and MasterCard, as reported by David Robertson of The Nilson Report, the credit card industry cannot afford to take risks with struggling companies.

As mentioned in a previous factoring blog post, New Credit Card Reform Law Excludes Small Business Cardholders, President Obama’s recent credit card reform plan does not include small business cards.  However, there has been a congressional push to extend the reforms to small businesses, which limit extreme fees and interest rate hikes, but it will be a stretch when considering the delinquency rate among small businesses recently exceeded 12% (2% higher than the consumer delinquency rate).

The recent small business credit card changes are quickly affecting business owners’ ability to operate.  According to an article from The New York Times entitled “A Credit Squeeze for Small-Business Owners”, Floridian Jeannie Macone, who owns a home décor business, saw her interest rate jump to over 30% as well as her credit limit plummet to a measly $5,000.

Even though small business credit card financing is becoming harder to obtain, there is still one viable funding option available to small business owners trying to grow– Factoring.  Instead of waiting weeks or months to be paid by their customers, medical staffing and medical billing start-up companies could sell their receivables to a factoring firm and receive cash immediately.

What’s more, since banks are decreasing credit lines and raising the interest rates for small business credit cards, they will be looking for a new way to finance their business. So keep in mind that factoring brokers and cash flow consultants have an excellent opportunity right now to find new business and earn factoring commissions.  

Accounting for about 17% of the U.S.’s GDP, the healthcare industry is growing at an alarming rate.  The reason for the sudden influx in the system is the 78 million baby boomers who are now approaching retirement.  Getting older means increased frequency in doctor visits, and medical billing companies are being called in as a result.

Because of this, doctors will need more time to deal with patient care and less time to handle the business side of their practices.  Instead of hiring full-time employees to take care of the billing, practices can save money in these harsh economic times by outsourcing this service to subcontractors.  Submitting claims, tracking denials, and making collections calls can be very time-consuming tasks. So many doctors will outsource the billing aspect of their business to a medical billing company.

Cyndee Weston, executive director of the American Medical Billing Association, reports that over the last 3 years, membership has increased 33%, from 900 members in 2006 to over 1,200 members currently.  “Health care providers have been slower to embrace the outsourcing of their billing, but with the downturned economy they’re trying to save money just like everyone else.  Billing is costly, especially when claims aren’t paid the first time.”

Click here to read the entire article: With doctors’ workloads increasing, medical billing becomes growth industry

1. Devalues your services.
2. Makes people think you were overpriced.
3. Assumes price elasticity exists.
4. Assumes price is the most important buying criteria.
5. It will be almost impossible for you to raise your prices once the economy picks up again.

 Here are some of their suggestions to implement as alternatives to price decreases:

Bundle - offer a discount on a group of services.

Volume discounts - offering a discount for volume purchases does not damage your profitability.

Unbundle - give your clients the option to pick and choose the services they require and are willing to purchase.

Payment plans - offering better payment terms can be a great way to win business without cutting prices.

Prepayment discount - if your customer has the cash to pay upfront, offer a 10% discount on your services.

Increase your value - instead of cutting fees, find ways to deliver higher value services.

Throw in a little extra - give your clients a few “surprise” freebies to enhance your value and differentiate your services.