The G.A.M.E. (Get a Member Event) is a fun way for current members to recruit new members to the transcription association and earn discounts on their own membership renewal in the process.

According to AHDI’s web site, all you have to do to play the G.A.M.E. is download a Summer G.A.M.E. scorecard, tell your friends and family to join the association, and send in your completed scorecard once they join.

Here’s a list of the rewards:

• First new Individual Professional member: receive 50% off your membership
• Second new Individual Professional member: additional $22.50 off your membership
• Third new Individual Professional member: additional $22.50 off your membership
• Fourth new Individual Professional member: FREE membership renewal

Visit AHDI’s Summer Rewards G.A.M.E. page for more details.

In the meantime, hiring, supply buying and real estate expansion are all on hold.

An article in USA Today, entitled Small businesses hold off spending while waiting for aid, said this is what’s in the bill:

•An increase on government guarantees to as much as 90% on some of the most popular loans.

•About 8,000 community banks with assets of $10 billion or less would be eligible to tap into the $30 billion fund when making small-business loans.

•Small businesses would get about $18 billion in tax breaks, such as larger write-offs on capital equipment investments, and get credits for new hires.

•The SBA would be able to increase the maximum for certain loans to $5 million from $2 million.

Here’s a list of what the initiative has already done for MTIA and AHDI members:

1. Better defined landscape on meaningful use that will raise awareness about issues and will continue to make the case for our industry as rules and regulations around certification and future iterations of meaningful use are crafted
2. Significantly moved the needle on awareness and visibility through education and grass roots connection, which will help us continue to establish stronger credibility and understanding of the roll the industry plays in an ever-changing healthcare system
3. Created key relationships that focus on frequent, consistent connection in a personal way and will allow us to be on the offence and in front of policy as it is crafted rather than trying to change laws that have already been enacted, yielding a return over time
4. Benefited from more targeted, strategic organization of our efforts, which has maximized the expertise of DSG and our resources
5. Built critical advocacy infrastructure for future regulatory positioning, including identifying critical issues, shaping key messages, developing outreach strategies, and building key contacts

If you’re a medial transcriptionist or medical transcription service owner, and you want to invest in the MTIA Annual Fund for Advocacy/Public Affairs Special Projects Initiative, you can download the form here.

Engineers are hoping to place the robots in Japanese healthcare centers by 2012.

Click here to read the entire article: Japan’s Answer to the Nursing Shortage.

The official press release announced that MTIA’s members “voted to change its name to Clinical Documentation Industry Association (CDIA) in an effort to reflect not only the expanded scope of services its members provide to the healthcare industry, but also a more appropriate focus on the health record and its critical role in clinical decision-making and continuity of care.”

A Nurse Staffing Agency Brings on a New Client
This nurse staffing agency owner was ecstatic when she heard that she had won a contract with a local healthcare network. Being an approved nurse staffing vendor in the system meant that she had the ability to fill shifts in five new facilities. The only problem with this growth opportunity is that in order to become a part of the network, the Alabama staffing agency owner had to agree to 60-day payment terms. She didn’t want to walk away from the opportunity, but she also knew that she would not be able to float payroll for that long.

The business owner remembered a postcard she had received earlier that month from PRN Funding, LLC, an accounts receivable factor who specializes in funding nurse staffing agencies likes hers. She dialed the toll-free number and within minutes was connected with a factoring specialist. After a brief interview over the phone, the agency owner realized that PRN Funding was presently accepting payments from the healthcare network, so she was pre-approved for funding. She factored her first invoice two weeks later and hasn’t had to worry about meeting payroll since.

A Private Duty Home Care Agency Gets Paid Quicker
Providing in-home private duty services and being reimbursed by a state’s Medicaid Waiver program has its pros and cons. On the plus side, state dollars are guaranteed to be paid, but one big drawback is it can take a month or longer to receive those funds. As her client list increased, the owner of a home care agency in Massachusetts was having difficulty adjusting to the state’s new invoice approval process. In short, it meant that the home care agency owner would have to wait 30 days to receive a check instead of the historical two-week turnaround time.

A month before this change in the invoice approval process was to take place; the agency owner contacted PRN Funding because she saw one of their posts on a social networking site. She was relieved to know that PRN Funding was already very familiar with various states’ Medicaid Waiver programs. At the conclusion of her initial conversation, the private duty agency owner filled out a factoring application. The following week, she factored her first monthly invoice and received cash the same day.

A California Healthcare Staffing Business Finally Opens its Doors
Without tangible collateral or a profitable operating history, this California healthcare staffing agency owner was unable to qualify for a line of credit at a bank. He found PRN Funding’s Web site late one night when he was researching small business financing solutions. The entrepreneur submitted an online application, and received a call from a healthcare staffing factoring specialist from PRN the next morning.

Within a week, PRN Funding had approved the agency owner’s first two clients, so he was finally able to start placing employees. The following week, the healthcare staffing business owner factored his first invoice, which provided him with instant working capital to pay his payroll taxes and meet his first payroll.

Click here for more information on PRN Funding’s accounts receivable factoring services.

Thanks to the Around the World Contest, PRN Funding’s team of medical transcription invoice funding specialists were able to meet a lot of the show’s attendees. Medical Transcription Service Owners (MTSOs) were especially intrigued by PRN Funding’s factoring services.

PRN Funding looks forward to exhibiting at ACE11 in Phoenix, AZ next year!

PRN Funding’s medial transcription invoice factoring specialists summarized the review below:

15% more accurate.

4-minute training (used to be 15 minutes).

Cheat sheet of commands that fills panel on right-hand side of computer screen.

Additional speak-to-type commands - Ability to open programs, pick menu commands, click Web links, move the cursor, format text, etc.

Apply the same formatting to every occurrence of a word/phrase in a document.

The software can recognize children’s voices now.

Accuracy improves regardless of how you manually edit corrections (type over or speak the correction).

Click here to read the entire review of Nuance’s NaturallySpeaking 11.

“NPDA supports some of the goals of the Direct Care Workforce Empowerment Act…NPDA member companies are committed to hiring and fielding a trained professional workforce of in-home companion care workers. NPDA also supports payment of at least minimum wage to in-home companion caregivers.”

However, “NPDA opposes mandating overtime for in-home companion caregivers” for the following reasons:

In some cases, caregivers spend the night in the homes of their clients. Making those overnight hours subject to overtime pay, many clients would not be able to pay for such a service. In addition, many seniors/people with disabilities usually prefer to have the same caregiver attend to their needs. “Restricting a caregiver’s work hours to no more than 8 hours/day or 40 hours/week could upset these essentially personal relationships, causing the senior/person with disability to have to settle for less care than they need, or to deal with more caregivers than they prefer.”

Click here to read more of NPDA’s thoughts on working with Rep. Sanchez and the Direct Care Workforce Empowerment Act.

The bill was intended to create the Small Business Lending Fund, which would set aside $30 billion to help local community banks get the capital they need to lend money to small businesses. In addition, the bill would help support small business initiatives run by states across the country that are struggling due to local budget cutbacks.

Click here to read the speech US Senator Patty Murray gave shortly before the vote.