As an administrator, your scope of responsibility ranges from human resources and staffing to managing financial matters and thinking about your own career success.
The MGMA-ACMPE Information Center and Service Center offer answers and resources to your practice management questions, but we’ve collected your top questions in a new book, Experts Answer 95 New Practice Management Questions. We’ve answered three for you:
Q:What are the best financial ratios and reports I should use to monitor the financial health of my practice?
A: Practices considered “better-performing” by the MGMA Performance and Practices of Successful Medical Groups: 2011 Report Based on 2010 Data typically generate the following reports monthly and annually to evaluate financial performance
Financial reports:
Practice management reports:
Collections system summary analysis
Untracked encounter forms report
Unbilled revenue report
Billing summary
Procedures analysis
Managed care plan profitability (capitation analysis)
Q: I am interviewing for a group practice administrator position and would like some advice on evaluating the employment agreement they offered. What should I look for?
A: Signing an employment agreement is a good way to avoid surprises down the road and to start your position with a clear understanding of expectations, both from you and your direct supervisor. The major elements in the agreement should include:
Terms of employment
These confirm the position title, start date, period covered by the employment agreement, hours and reporting structure.
Duties and responsibilities
Make sure there is a list of position responsibilities. Pay special attention to any items that were not discussed in the interview or items discussed in the interview that were not included on the list. Consider adding duties or responsibilities that would fit the position and your skill set.
Compensation
Review any promises (bonuses, raises) made in the interview or offer process that are not included in the agreement.
Change of control and termination
Discuss termination arrangements in case the practice merges or is bought by a hospital and the administrator’s position is eliminated. This includes any severance pay and continuation of benefits.
Q: How long do I need to retain medical records, especially if we convert to an EHR?
A: The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) recommends that adult patient records be retained for 10 years beyond the most recent encounter and that pediatric records be retained up to the age of maturity plus the statute of limitations. The AHIMA website provides state-specific information on records retention.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) also has information about records retention for specific documents.
If you move to an EHR system, paper records can be destroyed. Electronic records should be retained for the length of time specified for paper records. Cloud computing and web-based software, instead of a hardware-based system at the practice, are a good option for storing space-heavy files, such as images.
For more answers to your practice management questions, read Experts Answer 95 New Practice Management Questions.
What are your top practice management questions? Respond in the comments section below.
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Written by Madeline Hyden, MGMA-ACMPE web content writer/editor
For the third year, we've published the State of Medical Practice in MGMA Connexion. It's an overview of issues and industry perspectives that will shape medical practice this year. The Association collected information from healthcare professionals about the ways in which EHRs increase revenue, as well as what affects your compensation and practice collections, among others.
Here are three of the 12 practice management trends:
- Collections vs. compensation: Setting matters
Your practice’s ownership may directly affect your physicians’ pay. Collections for professional charges (i.e., patient visits, procedures) are higher in physician-owned practices than in hospital owned practices, according to the MGMA Physician Compensation and Production Survey: 2011 Report Based on 2010 Data. Since physician compensation in a physician-owned practice is the total revenue amount after all expenses are paid, physicians’ salaries are directly related to productivity and efficiency, which may not be the case in a hospital-owned setting.
Level of administrative complexity, responsibility reflected in compensation
The responsibilities of practice management professionals vary based on experience, location, size of organization and specialty, even among professionals with the same title. The MGMA Management Compensation Survey: 2011 Report Based on 2010 Data outlines compensation for administrative positions and shows variation by administrative complexity, specialty and size of organization, among other factors. For example, the data show that leaders with a CEO title who managed practices with more than 25 full-time equivalent (FTE) physicians saw their median compensation increase by $16,508 from 2009 to 2010, while CEOs in practices with fewer FTE physicians saw a decrease in compensation from 2009 to 2010.
Try out our member-only Management Compensation Finder tool to determine median compensation for your particular position using data from the MGMA Management Compensation Survey Report.
To see graphs depicting the distinction between physician-owned and hospital-owned practices, view this article online in virtual Connexion.
More from the In Practice blog: Weakness, shmeakness – strengths are all that matter to good leaders
- EHRs: Increase revenue, replace paper chartsTransitioning to EHR system from a paper chart system requires an overhaul of staff skill sets, the redesign of workflow and may also necessitate the addition of new information technology personnel. Many organizations fear that the added cost of setting up an EHR and the lost productivity during implementation will be a bigger detriment to their organization than the benefits it will gain from adopting EHRs.Fortunately, according to the MGMA 2011 Electronic Health Records Module, medical groups that use EHRs reported higher productivity and financial performance than those that still use paper records.
More from the In Practice blog: Simplify your EHR implementation
To read the full list of State of Medical Practice trends, as well as online exclusive content, visit virtual Connexion.
Have you subscribed to our new blog platform yet? Follow these instructions to add comments and receive new blog posts in your email inbox.
Written by Madeline Hyden, MGMA-ACMPE Web content writer/editor
The In Practice Blog is moving to a different platform on Friday, Jan. 13, that will allow readers to ask questions, give feedback and start conversations with other users on every blog post. Yes, after two years of not being able to post comments on the blog because of Spam problems, we're going fully interactive again!
New blog features include:
- A place on each blog post to leave comments and feedback
- "Collections" of posts with the same topic all on one page
- An archiving system to view past blog posts by year or month
- Better access to mgma.com
We will continue to provide the ability to email posts, directly add a blog link to your social media pages and subscribe to all blog posts through an RSS feed or your email inbox.
How does this affect you?
Adding comments to posts and signing up for an e-mail subscription now requires a free account. With an account, you will have more interactive abilities within the blog, as well as access to restricted articles, tools and downloads on mgma.com. Current Association members already have an account and will simply need to log-in to subscribe and comment.
Below are the steps required to subscribe to the In Practice blog:
Association members1) Log in to your account.
2) Once you're logged in, navigate to the blog and select "Subscribe" in the upper right-hand column of the page.
3) A message, "You are subscribed to the blog", will appear and you will now receive all new blog posts via email.
Association non-membersSubscribing to and commenting on blog posts requires a free account. Complete the following steps to register for an account:
1) From the blog select "log in" in the upper right-hand column of the page.
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4) Once your registration is complete, return to the blog and again select "Subscribe" in the upper right-hand column of the page. You will now receive all new blog posts via email and will be able to comment on all blog posts.
Keep in mind that by registering with the Association you may receive emails in addition to new blog posts. However, you can select one of the opt-out links embedded in the text of the email, or navigate to the My Profile page and select My Communication Preferences in the left-hand navigation column, to maintain your blog subscription but block unwanted email.
We look forward to hearing from you in the new comments section, and please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.