Summer 2005
Taming the Paperwork Tiger
by Rick Rowland
Ah, paperwork. There are bills to pay, notes to take and schedules to keep. We have to keep track of our clients, when they come in, how much they paid, how much they owe and what service we provided. We need to track our expenses and gift certificates and taxes and quarterly or yearly income. We need to know when our clients' birthdays occur, be aware if they have any special needs, archive their SOAP notes and track their history with us.
Some of us are organized with filing cabinets, clean desks, in/out trays and the like. The rest of us, well, you've seen our desks! Enter databases. Databases take all this information and make it easy for us to make sense of it all. They can calculate our income and taxes, make it easy to schedule and show us what we've spent. You've probably created databases without knowing it. If you've made a list of names and phone numbers you've created a database.
So, how do you get your hands on one of these things? Some folks make their own databases and some buy ones that are pre-made. If you want to create your own database you should get yourself a book on relational database theory as well. Databases work the way they do based on key fields and the like. . . . Okay, wake up! That's the only techie thing I'm going to say! Unfortunately, unless you grasp this concept you'll end up making a simple "flat" database. A relational database makes it easy to see data in a variety of formats, such as how many sessions one client has, the total amount of money that client has spent and a list of services or products the client has purchased.
Sound like too much work? Then you should consider purchasing a preconstructed database. Here again you have a few choices. You can buy a generic database that you try to fit to your business or you can buy one created for your business. Quickbooks® by Intuit, Inc. aspires to be a generic solution for any business. It's super feature-rich and not all that expensive, but there is a pretty sharp learning curve associated with it and it may be way more than you need.
That leaves us with the ones designed for your business. There are at least a dozen products designed for healthcare practices with a few of those for particular practices, such as massage therapy. Some have been around for a long time and a new one seems to appear every few years. These range in price from very affordable to pretty intimidating, so it's worth your while to check them all out. Always look for features you need, affordability and the reputation of the company. You don't want to get stuck with a product that's new to the market and find out a year down the road that they're out of business.
Classroom Caper
TOPIC: Paperwork Management
Objective: Learners identify the tasks involved in effectively managing paperwork.
Procedure: As a class, review the following 8 categories involved in managing a practice. List the items in each category and the related management tasks.
Option: After listing items, input the information into a computer and run reports.
- Client Manager: The client information you need (e.g., name, address, DOB, contact information including emergency contact, gender, medical history including therapies and drugs, reason for visit, goal, referred by whom). Suggest the learners ultimately have a form to hand out to clients on their first visit with their name and other information you've gathered (e.g., via a telephone call or written referral) already on the form.
Approximate Time: 30-90 minutes (the longer time if demonstrating software).
- Printing: The ability to print client information (e.g., labels, envelopes, all or subset of client information such as all clients with birthdays in June, or who hasn't had a session in over 90 days).
Approximate Time: 10-45 minutes.
- Charges: A list of fees (service items, description and price). Note to instructor: Demonstrate how to create packages and how to use them; explain how changing a price does not effect earlier invoices.
Approximate Time: 20-30 minutes.
- Sessions: Clarify the fundamental information needed such as what should be on an invoice (e.g., client name and address, date, charges, service description, therapist's name, any extra charges such as travel, discounts); client notes; SOAP notes; summary of session; and payment information (e.g., partial payment, method of payment, gift certificate, tips).
Approximate Time: 20-90 minutes.
- Expenses: Common information such as date, receipt number, company, type of expense and amount of expense.
Approximate Time: 20-45 minutes.
- Gift Certificates: Brainstorm ideas on how to manage them (ways to number them, the ability to track redeemed and unredeemed certificates); impart the essential information needed (e.g., who purchased, name and contact information of recipient, date purchased, amount, service/product purchased, date redeemed); convey that it is income even if a gift certificate is never redeemed; explain how to redeem as a payment.
Approximate Time: 20-45 minutes.
- Therapist Manager: Determine information needed if more than one therapist is in the practice (e.g., therapists' availability, specialties, tax or ID numbers). Assign a therapist to each session, indicate amount paid to therapist for session, indicate amount of tip for therapist, keep track of each therapist's income and tips for tax purposes)
Approximate Time: 20-45 minutes.
- Reports: List the types of reports that are helpful in managing a practice (e.g., income, expenses, referrals, gift certificates, therapists). Discuss important features such as the ability to view the entire history for a single client or a month's work.
Approximate Time: 20-60 minutes.
Discussion: What types of forms will you need in your practice? How do you plan on keeping track of your information? What are the paperwork management differences in starting a practice versus managing an established practice? What are the advantages and disadvantages of managing paperwork electronically?
Materials Required: Whiteboard or flipchart. Optional: Computer and software.
Source: Rick Rowland, landsoftware
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Product Highlight
Hands Heal, 3rd Edition
by Diana L. Thompson, LMP
Communication, Documentation and Insurance Billing for Manual Therapists, Third Edition
"Getting Organized" Word Search
In this month's puzzle there are 28 computer organization words and phrases hidden in this word search. Can you find them all?
You too can make fun word searches for your students using word search engines like DiscoverySchool's PuzzleMaker.
Mission Statement
Teacher's Aide is a cooperative venture among all of us who teach business: a support system to make our job easier, more effective and fun. This newsletter is a forum for exchanging creative techniques on teaching business as well as a resource for exercises, handouts, quotes and tools for use in class. We welcome contributions, so please send them today.
Special Promotion
landsoftware's Customer Pro-File Massage Therapy Software version 6.0 is an easy-to-use program that reduces your paperwork and saves you time and money! Highlights include: a full-featured scheduler which allows repeating schedules; day, week and month views; filtering; a client, session and event manager; multiple charge invoicing; day scheduler/to-do list; phone book; business management with a detailed financial, business expense and client report center; SOAP notes; gift certificate tracking; message pad; letter composition; printable client questionnaire; and birthday finder.
Sohnen-Moe Associates, Inc. and landsoftware would like to supply your school clinic with a FREE two-disk promo package for you to use in your school clinic or as a demonstration tool in your practice management classes. The retail value is $129. The first disk contains a Special School Version that includes all four fully functional versions of the programs for use in your school clinic.
The second disk is a demo disk that contains a 30-day trial version of all four programs. You can duplicate and distribute them to your students for class projects or give to your graduates to try for a month in their new practices.
When your students are ready to upgrade to the full version have them call us directly. They will receive $5 off of their purchase if they mention this promotion along with your school name.
By using this wonderful product in your clinic you are organizing and managing your clinic as well as familiarizing your students with a product that will ease their transition into private practice.
Call us at 800-786-4774. Offer ends 31-Aug-2005.
Computer Savvy Tips
Computer security is preventing outside influences, such as viruses and hackers, from fooling with your files, as well as protecting files from accidental damage. (If unprotected, in as little as five minutes from the moment your computer is connected to the Internet, you can expect it to be infected!) Research how the following tips can help secure your particular operating system, (e.g., Windows XP, Windows 2000, Mac OS X, Linux). The good news is, your computer may already include most of these features!
Anti-Virus Programs: Cleaning Out Viruses and Trojans
An infected computer often runs slowly, becomes plagued with pop-ups or crashes frequently. Here are some options to cure your computer:- Commercial anti-virus programs: Norton's Anti-Virus or McAfee
- Freeware programs (free download from the Web): Spybot or AdAware
- Take your computer to your local trusted computer shop
- Encryption: Coding Private Data
Encryption is the process of saving documents and other files which contain private information in coded form. Client information, for instance, should certainly be kept in encrypted form. You enter a (secret) password and the encryption program uses this password to scramble the bits of the document, or a whole drive; the document cannot be unscrambled without the password. Encryption can be applied at different levels: single files; multiple directories; and whole disks. - Backing Up: Data Loss Prevention
Data backup is making sure your information is safe even if there's a system crash or some other equipment failure. You can lose a document in lots of ways, such as accidentally deleting it; your hard drive failing for some reason; or you mess it up while moving it from one disk to another. There are several different ways of backing up: full backup; daily backup; specific backup; disaster backup; and automatic scheduled backup.
Firewalls: Protecting against Viruses and Trojans
A firewall is like a force field for your computer. Though Windows XP has a built-in firewall, it isn't necessarily enabled when you first get your computer. You can switch on the built-in firewall yourself by following the instructions on one of the following websites:- XP Home Edition
- XP Professional
- Windows 2000, unfortunately, does not include a software firewall at all. You can buy a firewall program from one of the vendors listed here.
- User Accounts: Access Control
Some operating systems such as Windows 2000/XP allow you to setup several "accounts" on the same computer. Each user is assigned a name and a password, so that he or she can have the computer set up differently. Some programs can be made available to everyone, as needed. Among these accounts, there is a pre-defined account called "Administrator." It is strongly suggested that this account is used only for system maintenance (e.g., installing programs, setting up firewalls, running anti-virus programs). A separate ordinary account should be created even for the principal user of the computer, with reduced privileges for general use.