VisualCV

Engaged to provide organizational support for a remote coding team.

Accomplishments:

• Established a practice cloud to house mission-critical documents, personnel folders, the daily schedule for 10 days out and numerous other uses.
• Upgraded PM system and moved it offsite
• Negotiated and installed Electronic Medical Record
• Introduced the bariatric service line to two new communities
• Installed a patient portal for online billpay, electronic registration, electronic payment plans and referral portal for incoming and outgoing referrals
• Ramped up a failing IT system by locking it down, installing a superior firewall, establishing protocols and required HIPAA documentation
• Started a texting pilot for bariatric patients sending them encouraging and helpful messages 7 days before and 7 days after their procedure
• Initiated a program to identify and audit charts, and input registry data for bariatric surgeries in preparation for accreditation site visit
  

Responsible for managing, recruiting, improving and financially stabilizing hospital-sponsored physician groups including hospitalists, primary care, cardiology, gastroenterology, rheumatology, wound care, occupational medicine, and indigent medicine, as well as the Physician Billing Office.

Accomplishments:

1. Reduced Accounts Receivable from over $6M to less than $1M by:
   • retraining staff,
   • implementing pre-visit co-pay collection and TOS collection for deductibles and co-insurance,
   • introducing online bill pay and electronic payment plans,
   • leveraging hospital information for financial status changes and new payer source,
   • ascertaining charity care balances, and
   • establishing best practices and benchmarks for the Physician Billing Office.
2. Re-engineered largest primary care practice resulting in:
   
   • increasing provider productivity and satisfaction,
   • reducing phone and fax volumes,
   • establishing HIPAA-compliant workflow, and
   • resolving long-standing PM issues.
3. Built foundation for medical home concept by:
   • establishing provider/nurse teams,
   • implementing color-coded chart system for prioritizing provider tasks,
   • establishing a protocol for same day visits, and
   • initiating a virtual receptionist program to ensure all care-related phone calls are answered by a live person.
4. Administratively operationalized the hospitalist program by:
   
   • developing a framework for hospitalist scheduling, communication, billing, compensation, and workflow,
   • establishing the standard of administrative presence at morning report for problem-solving and team building.

Financial and operational responsibility for physician-owned practice with 15 providers in orthopedics and plastic surgery, 4 clinic sites, MRI Center, Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC) and $15M annual revenue.

Accomplishments:

1. Created front-end collection program, hired and trained two financial counselors to work with patients creating payment plans prior to scheduling tests and surgery.
2. Established a budget, implemented a payables strategy to average out payroll and expenses, launched an overhead reduction program to evaluate all variable costs, and restructured purchasing program using purchase order numbers.
3. Integrated two solo physicians into the practice, and transitioned two physicians out of the practice, managing bank accounts, retirement plans, billing and staffing plans.
4. Designed work flow, cabinetry and finishes for 13,000 square foot 2-floor facility ($885K) and coordinated the move of the central office and Seattle clinic over a weekend.
5. Formed new management team and established a standard for communication, promoting consistency and chain of command in the practice.

Responsibility for operational and financial management of hospital-owned practices including family medicine, internal medicine, behavioral health, OB/GYN, general surgery, orthopedics, wound care program, Coumadin clinic, diabetes wellness (nutrition, foot/nail clinic, group education visits) as well as hospital imaging and cardiac rehabilitation and rehabilitation (PT, OT, ST.)  Partnered with VP of Medical Affairs to recruit physicians (locums, contract and permanent) and allied health professionals (x-ray, physical therapy, and RNs.)

Accomplishments:

1. Improved Patient Satisfaction scores 4.6% by establishing RN Advocate program to  address patient concerns and medical questions; co-chairing Patient Council and organizing monthly speakers of interest and addressing community concerns; personally handling patient complaints and consulting with physicians on resolutions; co-producing quarterly health newsletters for patients, and speaking at numerous functions and community events about clinic changes and ideas behind Family Medicine Center.
2. Addressed access problems of a rural retirement town where new patients were moving to the area faster than doctors could being recruited.  A clinic information line was established for new patients to hear which doctors were available and make a choice, connecting the patient directly to the scheduler.  This strategy resulted in a 32% reduction in patient phone calls related to scheduling.
3. Designed, furnished, and developed new protocols for a patient-centric 12,000 square foot Family Medicine Center.  Patient-centered concepts included confidential check-ins, front-loaded patient areas, healing colors, sights and sounds, patient-friendly finishes and personalized signage.
4. Initiated "train the trainer" sessions for volunteers to teach patients how to use Personal Health Record (PHR) software.
5. Established staff education curriculum and "learn and earn" retention staffing model to encourage staff to continue to grow professionally and financially.

Operational responsibility for 2-site, 14-provider cardiology practice with ancillary lab comprised of nuclear medicine, echocardiography, peripheral vascular testing and treadmill testing.

Accomplishments:

1. Increased referrals to ancillary lab by 51% by launching a marketing campaign targeted at local primary care physician practices and their scheduling staff.
2. Evaluated and negotiated for practice management computer system, managed the training process, and facilitated the implementation and go-live.
3. Developed the practice's first website and introduced the idea of a single home page for patients, referrers and staff to enter individual portals; introduced the use of surveymonkey.com for patient satisfaction.
4. Established a process for screening patients for sleep disorders in conjunction with the Cardiac Catheterization/Sleep Laboratory in the same building.
5. Started an extern training program with two vocational colleges.
6. Built practice infrastructure including management team, job descriptions, personnel handbook, annual evaluations, monthly staff meetings, and work processes and protocols.

Operational responsibility for 85+ provider group at 14 sites.  Specialties included family practice, internal medicine, pediatrics, OB/GYN, geriatrics, rheumatology, cardiology, gastroenterology, hospitalists, and urgent care.  Additional responsibilities included IT Department, Quality Improvement Department, Central Laboratory and Central Billing Office.

Accomplishments:

1. Re-engineered Central Billing Office, increasing net collections from 86% to 98% while reducing cost of billing center to 4.5% of revenue.  Expanded scope of existing department to include charge posting, automated CPT/ICD-9 matching, customer service call center, evening check posting crew, collections, electronic remittance, quality assurance program and patient satisfaction program.
2. Took organization from an externally-supported IT model, to a 4-person department supporting 300 users, effectively reducing IT expense per user, improving stability of system and better positioning the group for growth.
3. Initiated and taught a Supervisor's education program to educate middle managers about HR, team-building and leadership.
4. Created the practice's first website, staff intranet and online payment portal.
5. Established and managed the practice's first Urgent Care, managing mandatory physician scheduling and teaching residents CPT/ICD-9 coding and encounter form completion.
6. Expanded Site Administrator forum to include group problem-solving, cross-mentoring and  benchmarking.

8-physician general surgery group which merged with Triad Surgical Associates in 1999 to become Central Carolina Surgery.

7-physician nuerology practice with EEG, EMG, NCV, massage therapy and biofeedback therapy.