The Journal of medical practice management : MPM
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Dress, accessories, and grooming are hugely important factors in the medical practice employee's professional image. But what, exactly, is professional when it comes to one's image, and how, specifically, can one convey professionalism to others? This article offers eight very specific strategies the medical practice employee can use to polish his or her professional image. ⋯ It offers tips for being professional yet expressing one's individuality. Finally, this article reveals the classic signs when lack of professional attire is hurting one's career and provides specific tips for practice managers and administrators and the medical practice staff.
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Missed appointments are a significant problem in a healthcare system. They can cause problems for both the practice and the patient. ⋯ Interview results revealed women had more complicated and emotional reasons behind missed appointments, such as embarrassment, than those identified in the quantitative survey. Interview data revealed that cognitive barriers may be the more likely reason behind missed appointments than structural barriers such as transportation and lack of childcare.
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Marketing your practice through free public seminars is an excellent way to build your practice and your reputation in the community. But how do you do this without throwing away your time and money or, worse, making a total fool of yourself? It's all a simple matter of knowing: (1) how to get people to come; (2) where to hold your seminar; (3) what to present; (4) how to present; and (5) how to convert attendees to loyal patients.
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The "need to improve" your practice is an ongoing process with your staff members. The goal is to exceed the expectations of the patient. The 13 ideas presented in this article can be incorporated into your busy practice with a minimal amount of effort and can greatly improve the way patients feel about your practice.
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Medical facilities must streamline their processes if they want to maintain quality care while reducing costs. In 2005, Benedictine Hospital's struggle to operate more productively, efficiently, and profitably dissipated when it streamlined the administrative process of billing patients for chemotherapy treatments. ⋯ Over the last two decades, The Hudson Valley Technology Development Center (HVTDC) has worked primarily with manufacturing- and technology-based companies to help them adopt new business practices in order to grow and to work more efficiently, effectively, and profitably by streamlining daily operations. In recent years, HVTDC has chosen to introduce the long-established and widely proven principles of lean manufacturing to medical facilities.