Practice Management

As more insurance companies eliminate their individual provider portals and move eligibility and benefit verification to platforms such as Availity, practices need to make sure staff understand an important distinction:

You may have an office manager who is exceptional at running the business of your practice. She understands your billing, scheduling, systems, finances and daily operations. She is organized, dependable and knows the practice inside and out.

Healthcare spending is a lingering political issue both because it has become a significant fraction of total GDP and also because of perceived inequities. Here, I consider various theories as to why costs have increased, the data that support or refute them, and the prospects of future cost control due to improved technologies.

My husband severely lacerated his thumb this week, including tendon involvement. What began with an urgent care visit quickly turned into a trip to the Emergency Department and treatment by a hand surgeon.

Last week’s Pro Tip discussed communicating and documenting general non-compliance. Today let’s specifically discuss what should be happening when high-risk patients miss appointments.

In keeping with our Pro Tip theme from the last two weeks I thought it appropriate to dive further into the fact that not every doctor-patient relationship is going to work. Repeated failure to follow medically necessary treatment, chronic no-shows, abusive or belligerent behavior toward the doctor or staff, or a complete breakdown in the doctor-patient relationship may eventually make continued care inappropriate.

Very recently I have seen multiple practices in different states receiving retrospective Anthem refund requests for previously paid custom orthotics (L3000), including claims from 2024 and 2025.

One of the most valuable lessons from Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink has little to do with medicine—and everything to do with how patients feel about their doctor.

You can recommend the right treatment, prescribe the right medication, order the right testing and schedule the necessary follow-up—but you can’t make the patient comply.

In 2024, after a decade of assisting athletes, industrial workers, and fitness enthusiasts rehabilitate from injuries in a cramped leased space or onsite, Danielle York used an SBA loan to increase the scope of her services, to upscale her square footage, and to expand her impact in Modesto, CA. Danielle used the funds to make the space flow and feel the way she wanted. Large machines such as an infrared sauna and a cryotherapy chamber were purchased to improve patient outcomes. Working capital funded a marketing campaign to spread the word about her new location.