Expert Tips to Remain Productive During COVID-19

Stay-at-home orders and mandates to delay elective procedures have significantly reduced patient volume at your practice. To justify paying your staff, you need to quickly find ways for them to remain productive during COVID-19.

Between pandemic stress and less work to do, your staff could easily settle into an unproductive rut. But there are ways to not only remain productive during COVID-19 downtime but also have a positive impact on your practice, asserts healthcare compliance attorney, Jennifer Searfoss, Esq, CPOM, CHCI, CMCS.

There are many things you can do now that you’ve been putting off for when you had just a little bit of down time. To help you focus your efforts, Searfoss gives the following suggestions.

Perform Technology Upgrades

Finding time to upgrade your office technology is an ongoing challenge. You can’t bump staff off their systems during peek office hours, and unexpected glitches almost always arise. With fewer patients coming into the office, now is a great time to get to those technology upgrades that you’ve had on the back burner. At-home staff can even train remotely. Consider focusing on these areas:

Upgrade your EMR. Take some time to back up your EMR data, download and install your updates, and work through the glitches. Then train your staff on any new features while the practice traffic is light.
Refine your templates. Scan through your E/M coding templates and make modifications that will speed up or make your documentation time more efficient. Learn the new method to select a code based on time or medical decision making.
Update Operating Systems. Out-of-date operating systems pose a security risk, but system upgrades are often a huge drain on practice productivity. Now’s the perfect time to upgrade those laptops with all of the pending software updates.

Seize Training Opportunities

With so many training and continuing education opportunities available online, your staff can put this slow time to use to boost their expertise and better your practice. Some fields include:

Compliance. Have your staff get up to date on their compliance training. HIPAA compliance and workplace violence are always top issues, as is emergency preparedness which you’re in the middle of right now.
Continuing Education. There are a lot of online classes available, and many are offering specials during the COVID-19 pandemic. The CDC offers continuing education programs on a broad range of topics such as prescribing opioids, infection prevention, vaccine handling and storage, and more. HC Training Leader provides AAPC CEUs for numerous coding and billing online trainings. If there is an associated fee, maybe you could pay for some of these classes right now, suggests Searfoss.
Certification. With a reduced work staff you need to cross train, but certifications deficiencies create a challenge. You can give staff time to get licensed so that they can expand their services such as providing telehealth services. Supporting coders and billers in getting certified provides the long-term practice benefit of having increased reimbursement rates.

Get Financial and Compliance Tasks in Order

Staying on top of your practice’s finances and compliance are an ongoing challenge. In the midst of less patient volume, now is a great time to get caught up so you come out ahead when business returns to normal. Here are some suggestions:

Accounts Receivable. This is the perfect time to tackle the AR that you’ve been putting off. Review your denied claims, figure out what needs to be resubmitted, and do so.

Credentialing. Study and review your credentialing processes, complete any unfinished paperwork, and make any follow-up phone calls you need to catch up on.
Clean Fee Schedules. Take the time to clean your fee schedules so they are accurate and up to date.

Improve Your Practice

There are several other ways you can utilize this lag in patient volume. Look at this down time as a way to improve your practice and an opportunity to be productive. Some growth areas you can focus on include:

Devise prevention programs. Whether you aim to create a practice-based obesity prevention program or a Medicare Diabetes Prevention Program, it takes planning. Figure out what type of preventive program will suit your practice and get the gears in motion.
Spring clean. You’ve probably already been (repeatedly) sanitizing your practice. How about your file cabinets? Catch up on scanning, copying, filing, and storing medical records. Get insurance contracts up to date, revisit vendor contracts, organize and inventory office and medical supplies, or purge outdated magazines, handouts, and toys from the waiting room.
Update policies. Now is a great time to review and update your practice policies such as for no shows and departmental procedures for instance for patient termination.

For all those times you’ve wished you had a little bit of extra time to take care off things that have been piling up, “Now’s the perfect opportunity to do that and