Quote of note:
From the Gastroenterology Administration Assembly e-Group 

"Children are welcome at our facility, but they must be accompanied by an adult at all times. The Joint Commission warned us a few years ago about children being left in the waiting room alone and being abducted. If an [adult patient] brings in three kids, they all go in the exam room. That soon changes the patient's [mind about] us babysitting while they are talking to the doctor. Make a policy and make it known to the patients; you will not have a problem, as it is for the safety of the children."

Education
 

• Education calendar
• Webinar: Getting Better Together: Shared Medical Appointments (SMAs)
• Seminar: Mastering Medical Practice Staffing and Revenue Optimization
• Seminar: The Critical Steps to Leverageing Evidence-based Management in Healthcare
• Seminar: Alignment Options in an Era of Accountable Care
• Seminar: EHR Selection and Implementation: Select and Implement the Best System for Your Practice
• Seminar: Mastering Patient Flow: Train Your Office for Success
• Seminar: EHR Optimization: Improving Your EHR System and Positioning Your Practice for the Future 
• Seminar: The Practice Administrator's Role in Acquisition and Integration 
  
  Save the date
• MGMA 2012 Annual Conference, Oct. 21-24, San Antonio

Advocacy

• Congress and the Obama Administration will consider many proposals and policy options as they focus on health care reform. The MGMA Health Care Reform Resource Center provides access to the most up-to-date information on their efforts.

Products

• Physician Placement Starting Salary Survey: 2012 Reported Based on 2011 Data
  

Gastroenterology Resources

• ASC Financial Performance Survey: 2009 Report Based on 2008 Data. A significant benchmarking tool for ASC administrators, MGMA's 2009 ASC Financial Performance Survey Report contains financial data on ASCs, including information about revenues, expenditures, patient volume, profitability, and much more.
  
• Operating Policies & Procedures Manual for Medical Practices, 3rd edition. Natural disasters, declining reimbursement and more diverse patient populations have made the need for specialized medical practice policies and processes even greater.
  
• HR Policies & Procedures Manual for Medical Practices, 4th edition. Human resource issues in the medical practice setting have a reputation for being more complex than the mainstream; thus, the need for specialized information has never been greater.
  
• Electronic Health Records: Transforming Your Medical Practice, 2nd edition. While some electronic health record (EHR) implementations proceed on schedule with the team’s full participation and – seemingly – little effort, others flounder, stall, or struggle, experiencing only limited success or, in extreme cases, no success at all. What accounts for the difference?
  
• Medical Fees in the US: 2010 Edition. This book includes everything you need to review your fees, set fees for new services, challenge low payments from third party payers and evaluate managed care contracts.
  
• Data Sanity: A Quantum Leap to Unprecedented Results. Far too much emphasis has been placed on “tools, tools and more tools” (especially statistical techniques), resulting in rampant waste caused by poor everyday organizational use of data. This book offers a new way of thinking via a common organizational language based in process and understanding variation to motivate more productive daily conversations for everyone.
  
• Integrated Delivery Systems: Ensuring Successful Physician-Hospital Partnerships. As medical groups, hospitals, and health systems position themselves for the new marketplace, they must be proactive in establishing new relationships and affiliations. Because the outcomes of health system integration vary widely, this book will help steer organizations toward a common purpose – in a way that is meaningful to providers, administrators, and health care leaders, and most of all, to patients.
  
  
• See additional group practice management resources.