Monday, October 27, 2014

SUCCESS---A MENTAL CHALLENGE

Gordon MacDonald, pastor and author for over 40 years and Pastor Emeritus of Grace Chapel in Lexington, Massachusetts, writes of ways to improve one’s life by changing two things:  (1) your Thought Processes and (2) your Expectations.  The health of both these qualities are vital to success in life.

Those who have not been taught how to think or who have allowed their mind to grow lazy often live lives according to the thoughts and opinions of others, existing by following rules, regulations, and apps with no original thought or creativity intruding on their routine.  Such individuals are in a proverbial rut---how sad.  Instead, the successful person dares to pursue new knowledge, seeks ways to stimulate the mind and grow thought processes, moves on well thought-out plans, and takes calculated risks.  Success most often follows such efforts.

The second aspect MacDonald discusses, Expectations, means raising the bar, increasing your expectations.  An old story tells of a man who went to a fortune teller to learn about his future.  She told him, “You will be poor and miserable until you’re fifty.”  “What happens then?”  he asked.  Her answer:  “By then you’ll be used to being poor, and misery will cease.”  Message from this little tale:  only by raising expectations, ridding oneself of apathy and negativism, will a person move higher up the success ladder.  Raise your expectations to experience new challenges, increased enthusiasm, renewed commitment, and higher energy levels.  Greater success will follow.

Monday, October 20, 2014

HOW MANY “ACTIVE” PATIENTS DO YOU HAVE IN YOUR PRACTICE?

When I ask dental consulting clients that question, I typically get a puzzled look, a shoulder shrug, or a rough “guess-timate”. However, monitoring the number of active patients is to the health of your practice as important as monitoring blood pressure is to the health of a person. The effectiveness of your Recare System, key to practice growth, production, and profitability, is predicated on the number of active patients.
An active patient in General Dental Practice may be defined as one who has received treatment or hygiene care within the past 24 months, NOT including single visit emergencies. In Pediatric Dental Practice, an active patient may be defined as one seen for treatment or recare within the past 12 to 18 months, NOT including emergencies seen for a single appointment. Your computer system should have the capability of generating an active patient count upon demand, and that number should be on the monthly report you, the dentist, receive from your business staff.
If a practice has 2000 active patients, each of whom should be seen for hygiene care every six months, one can calculate:
  • 2000 active patients, each seen every 6 months = 333 recare patients/month       
  • Actual average = 160 recares/month = 48% effective system            
  • Goal = 70-80% effective Recare System            
  • 70% effective system with 2000 active patients = 233 recare appointments/month
AN EYE OPENER: Multiply the additional 73 recare patients per month given in this example by your average recare fee (with or without X-rays or other additional procedures) to calculate the additional production in a month. WOW!!!
 

Monday, October 13, 2014

HOW RECENT REGULATIONS AFFECT ELECTRONIC STORAGE OF PATIENT DATA AND USE OF PATIENTS’ CREDIT/DEBIT CARDS FOR PAYMENT OF FEES

Among countless compliance standards that are now on the “MUST DO” list for dental practices, three standards/regulations rank near the top of the list for all covered practices.  “Covered” refers to all practices that store or transmit any patient data electronically, including filing third party claims and payment information; that is, the vast majority of practices in the U.S.  Two of these regulations involve HIPAA standards and one involves standards set by the payment card industry to protect debit and credit card information.

The HIPAA standards include (1) the Risk Analysis and (2) the Security Management Process.  The Risk Analysis standard requires all covered dental practices to actively assess vulnerabilities and risks to the confidentiality of protected health information held by the practice.  The Security Management Process requires covered practices to act on that assessment of risk by implementing security measures which bring the practice to a point of compliance that reduces risks and vulnerabilities to a “reasonable level”.

Basically, these two standards mean covered practices must conduct an assessment of risk and then put measures into place to respond to perceived privacy threats.  The risk assessment should include evaluation of privacy protection when speaking with patients in the office; when corresponding with patients by telephone, email, or posted mail; when transmitting patient health data to another health care entity; and when storing patient data electronically via your office computer system and on mobile devices.

Additionally, the risk assessment must include evaluation of your computer operating system’s ability to protect against hacking attacks, viruses, and such.  It is your responsibility to keep your computer system current so that it is sufficiently supported by the vendor to avoid data loss, viruses, crashes, etc.  Reminder:  as of April 2014, Microsoft no longer offers technical support for Windows XP operating system.  Therefore, if your practice still uses Windows XP, plan immediate replacement with a new system that receives regular software updates and technical support.

The third standard has to do with payment card protection, involving measures that must be implemented to protect patients’ payment card (credit or debit) data.  These measures include protection of payment card data at the time it is given by a patient to pay for services in your office and when the data is stored and transmitted electronically by your office computer system.

For more information on the HIPAA regulations, go to:  ADA.org/8753.aspx or the Office of Civil Rights at hhs.gov/ocr/privacy.  For additional information on the Payment Card Industry Security Standards, visit:  pcisecuritystandards.org.

Friday, October 10, 2014

IMPLANT DENTISTRY---A BIT OF HISTORY


Sweden---1965.  An anatomy professor/orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Per-Ingvar Branemark, placed the first titanium dental implant in a patient who volunteered for the procedure.  The implant far exceeded expectations, leading Dr. Branemark to coin the term “osseointegration” to describe the physiological processes that allowed the adherence of bone to titanium.

Dr. Branemark had researched bone healing and regeneration since 1952 in order to understand the effects of orthopedic surgeries on his patients.  By 1965, his research led him to become the pioneer in implantology and earned him the title, “father of modern dental implantology”.  Now at age 85, this hero of modern dentistry has seen his research and techniques impact untold numbers of patients worldwide.

Monday, October 6, 2014

STOLEN MOBILE DEVICES


Theft of mobile devices continues to increase, and a number of health care facilities have had or will have to pay significant fines to the federal government for violation of HIPAA’s Security Rule.  Encryption of all computers and mobile devices is imperative to avoid risks to the security of patients’ stored health and payment information.


HIPAA Privacy and Security rules include multiple requirements to meet standards of security meant to reduce risk and vulnerability of protected health information.  You and your staff must be knowledgeable about these requirements and the ways to meet compliance.  The Office for Civil Rights (OCR), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), has six educational programs on HIPAA compliance, one of which focuses on mobile device security.  Available to health care professionals, the programs include free CE credits.  For additional information about the programs and ordering specifics, visit: Helping Entities Implement Privacy and Security Protections - Medscape Programs.

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

PATIENT INFORMATION STORED ON MOBILE DEVICES


Most dental practices now keep patient information on desktop computers and various mobile devices such as laptops, tablets or smart phones.  Protecting electronically stored patient data is mandatory in order to be in compliance with the Security Rule of HIPAA.

Consider the following precautions.  Enable encryption that came with your mobile device or purchase and install an encryption program.  Keep the device locked, accessible only by password.  A program to allow remote wiping or disabling should be installed to be used in case of loss or theft of the device.  Use no file-sharing applications.  Make certain Wi-Fi transmissions are used only with an encrypted network connection.  Use extreme care to delete stored patient health or payment information before discarding or reusing any mobile device, preferably seeking advice concerning deletion from an expert.

For additional information on security of mobile devices go to:  healthit.gov/providers-professionals/how-can-you-protect-and-secure-health-information-when-using-mobile-device.