Here are 10 articles to improve profits and quality at your spine practice.
1. Performing Complex Spine Surgery in Your ASC: 5 Essential Business Considerations. Performing complex spine surgeries in an ASC provides both financial and quality of care benefits to the facility, its surgeons and, most importantly, to its patients. ASCs offer flexibility of scheduling, on-time starts, low infection rates, reduced costs and high overall satisfaction with patient outcomes. Hospitals who partner with ASCs are able to decompress their OR schedules when these highly technical elective surgeries are performed in the ASC setting.
Read more of "Performing Complex Spine Surgery in Your ASC: 5 Essential Business Considerations."
2. Improving Reimbursements for Spine Surgeons: 6 Tips for Communicating With Coders. Incorrect coding can lead to several difficulties within a practice, including denied claims, practice audits and decreased revenues. Wendy Owens-Frierson, CHM, CHI, CPC CPC-I, a billing product manager with Avisena, says many coding mistakes can be avoided by employing clear communication techniques between the physicians and coders. Ms. Owens-Frierson offers six tips to spine surgeons for improving communication with their coders.
Read more of "Improving Reimbursements for Spine Surgeons: 6 Tips for Communicating With Coders."
3. 3 Best Practices for Recruiting Physicians to Your Spine Center. Keeping the same staff members at your ASC helps demonstrate to patients and physicians that the nurses, technicians and other staff members are happy working at the facility, which can attract outside physicians to the center.
Read more of "3 Best Practices for Recruiting Physicians to Your Spine Center."
4. Challenges in Spine Practice management: Q&A With Laser Spine Institute Executive Director Lester Morales. From marketing responsibilities to patient and physician satisfaction, the many responsibilities connected to managing spine practices present constant challenges to today's practice administrators. Lester Morales, executive director of the Laser Spine Institute in Scottsdale, Ariz., discusses the challenges associated with his job and best practices for finding solutions to the everyday challenges of running a practice.
Read more of "Challenges in Spine Practice management: Q&A With Laser Spine Institute Executive Director Lester Morales."
5. 3 Marketing Strategies for Spine Practices. When Marion R. McMillan, MD, of Synergy Spine Center in Seneca, S.C., began performing endoscopic spine surgery, he wanted to make sure potential patients in the area knew about his new service. In order to reach the widest audience, Dr. McMillan tried different marketing techniques with long-term and short-term effects for increasing the number of patient visits.
Read more of "3 Marketing Strategies for Spine Practices."
6. 6 Best Practices for Implementing an Effective Infection Control Program. Infection control is gaining widespread attention in all healthcare settings, including ASCs. Incorporating an infection control program is essential to minimizing the incidence of infection and patient revisits. Denise Kesler, director of Athens (Ga.) Orthopedic Ambulatory Surgery Center, says the facility established a monitoring policy where staff members in each department, such as the OR, are selected to secretly monitor their co-workers compliance to hand hygiene protocols.
Read more of "6 Best Practices for Implementing an Effective Infection Control Program."
7. 5 Key Strategies of National Expansion of Spine Practices. Since opening its doors in Tampa, Fla., in 2005, Laser Spine Institute has expanded the Tampa location twice and built two new facilities, one in Scottsdale, Ariz., and one in King of Prussia, Pa. Jimmy St. Louis, Chief Corporate Operations Officer of Laser Spine Institute, says the practice's success can be partially attributed to patient satisfaction with the minimally invasive techniques used by LSI physicians and the marketing techniques the practice employs to aggressively expand its reach.
Read more of "5 Key Strategies for National Expansion of Spine Practices."
8. iPad-based Radiology Interface for Orthopedic and Spine Surgeons: Virtual Viewbox From Musculoskeletal Imaging Consultants. Virtual Viewbox was designed to help meet the specific radiology interface needs of orthopedic and spine surgeons. Surgeons can view images, reports with annotated key images and participate in interactive online consultations with their radiologist using a portable HIPAA/HITECH compliant device that can be carried into the examination room or the operating room.
Read more of "iPad-based Radiology Interface for Orthopedic and Spine Surgeons: Virtual Viewbox From Musculoskeletal Imaging Consultants."
9. MRI and Radiation Avoidance in Osseous Lesions of the Spine-MS. In an environment of increasing concern regarding the long-term effect of ionizing radiation exposure particularly in young patients a reappraisal of imaging algorithms for spinal evaluation is taking place. MRI has long been a mainstay for the assessment of soft tissue spinal pathology involving the discs or ligaments with CT, plain radiography and nuclear studies maintaining a prominent role in osseous evaluation.
Read more of "MRI and Radiation Avoidance in Osseous Lesions of the Spine-MS."
10. 6 Ways to Avoid Denied Claims for Spine Procedures. Mona Kaul, chief coding and compliance officer of GENASCIS, which provides revenue cycle services and supporting technologies for surgery centers, discusses the following six ways ASCs can better avoid denied claims on spine procedures.
Read more of "6 Ways to Avoid Denied Claims for Spine Procedures."
1. Performing Complex Spine Surgery in Your ASC: 5 Essential Business Considerations. Performing complex spine surgeries in an ASC provides both financial and quality of care benefits to the facility, its surgeons and, most importantly, to its patients. ASCs offer flexibility of scheduling, on-time starts, low infection rates, reduced costs and high overall satisfaction with patient outcomes. Hospitals who partner with ASCs are able to decompress their OR schedules when these highly technical elective surgeries are performed in the ASC setting.
Read more of "Performing Complex Spine Surgery in Your ASC: 5 Essential Business Considerations."
2. Improving Reimbursements for Spine Surgeons: 6 Tips for Communicating With Coders. Incorrect coding can lead to several difficulties within a practice, including denied claims, practice audits and decreased revenues. Wendy Owens-Frierson, CHM, CHI, CPC CPC-I, a billing product manager with Avisena, says many coding mistakes can be avoided by employing clear communication techniques between the physicians and coders. Ms. Owens-Frierson offers six tips to spine surgeons for improving communication with their coders.
Read more of "Improving Reimbursements for Spine Surgeons: 6 Tips for Communicating With Coders."
3. 3 Best Practices for Recruiting Physicians to Your Spine Center. Keeping the same staff members at your ASC helps demonstrate to patients and physicians that the nurses, technicians and other staff members are happy working at the facility, which can attract outside physicians to the center.
Read more of "3 Best Practices for Recruiting Physicians to Your Spine Center."
4. Challenges in Spine Practice management: Q&A With Laser Spine Institute Executive Director Lester Morales. From marketing responsibilities to patient and physician satisfaction, the many responsibilities connected to managing spine practices present constant challenges to today's practice administrators. Lester Morales, executive director of the Laser Spine Institute in Scottsdale, Ariz., discusses the challenges associated with his job and best practices for finding solutions to the everyday challenges of running a practice.
Read more of "Challenges in Spine Practice management: Q&A With Laser Spine Institute Executive Director Lester Morales."
5. 3 Marketing Strategies for Spine Practices. When Marion R. McMillan, MD, of Synergy Spine Center in Seneca, S.C., began performing endoscopic spine surgery, he wanted to make sure potential patients in the area knew about his new service. In order to reach the widest audience, Dr. McMillan tried different marketing techniques with long-term and short-term effects for increasing the number of patient visits.
Read more of "3 Marketing Strategies for Spine Practices."
6. 6 Best Practices for Implementing an Effective Infection Control Program. Infection control is gaining widespread attention in all healthcare settings, including ASCs. Incorporating an infection control program is essential to minimizing the incidence of infection and patient revisits. Denise Kesler, director of Athens (Ga.) Orthopedic Ambulatory Surgery Center, says the facility established a monitoring policy where staff members in each department, such as the OR, are selected to secretly monitor their co-workers compliance to hand hygiene protocols.
Read more of "6 Best Practices for Implementing an Effective Infection Control Program."
7. 5 Key Strategies of National Expansion of Spine Practices. Since opening its doors in Tampa, Fla., in 2005, Laser Spine Institute has expanded the Tampa location twice and built two new facilities, one in Scottsdale, Ariz., and one in King of Prussia, Pa. Jimmy St. Louis, Chief Corporate Operations Officer of Laser Spine Institute, says the practice's success can be partially attributed to patient satisfaction with the minimally invasive techniques used by LSI physicians and the marketing techniques the practice employs to aggressively expand its reach.
Read more of "5 Key Strategies for National Expansion of Spine Practices."
8. iPad-based Radiology Interface for Orthopedic and Spine Surgeons: Virtual Viewbox From Musculoskeletal Imaging Consultants. Virtual Viewbox was designed to help meet the specific radiology interface needs of orthopedic and spine surgeons. Surgeons can view images, reports with annotated key images and participate in interactive online consultations with their radiologist using a portable HIPAA/HITECH compliant device that can be carried into the examination room or the operating room.
Read more of "iPad-based Radiology Interface for Orthopedic and Spine Surgeons: Virtual Viewbox From Musculoskeletal Imaging Consultants."
9. MRI and Radiation Avoidance in Osseous Lesions of the Spine-MS. In an environment of increasing concern regarding the long-term effect of ionizing radiation exposure particularly in young patients a reappraisal of imaging algorithms for spinal evaluation is taking place. MRI has long been a mainstay for the assessment of soft tissue spinal pathology involving the discs or ligaments with CT, plain radiography and nuclear studies maintaining a prominent role in osseous evaluation.
Read more of "MRI and Radiation Avoidance in Osseous Lesions of the Spine-MS."
10. 6 Ways to Avoid Denied Claims for Spine Procedures. Mona Kaul, chief coding and compliance officer of GENASCIS, which provides revenue cycle services and supporting technologies for surgery centers, discusses the following six ways ASCs can better avoid denied claims on spine procedures.
Read more of "6 Ways to Avoid Denied Claims for Spine Procedures."