Common Obstacles to Nurse Entrepreneurship

President of the National Nurses in Business Association (NNBA), Pat Bemis, wrote an article in December’s edition of RN entitled, Obstacles to Nurse Entrepreneurship. In her article, Bemis discussed three mindsets that nurses have when making the transition from employment to entrepreneurship:

1. The instant response mindset – Bemis says that nurses are used to getting an immediate response to their work, however, it’s important to break out of that “instant gratification” mindset because it takes time.

2. The “I can do it myself” mindset – Out of fear of criticism, nurses tend to have the mindset that to “gather all the information and put it into a certain arrangement…before involving another team member.” Bemi suggests for nurses to involve business support team members early on in the start-up process.

3. The desire for perfection mindset – Bemis also advised for nurse entrepreneurs to deviate away from the need to do everything perfectly because “this mindset leads nurses to overlook opportunities that arise while seeking that elusive perfection.”

Click here for more information about Pat Bemis and the NNBA.

Ohio Hospitals Required to Report Infection Rates

Although the Ohio Hospital Association tried to prevent it, it was announced last week that Ohio hospitals will be required to start reporting in 2009 on a “consumer Web site data on surgical wound infections, antibiotic-resistant staph and clostridium difficile (C. diff), a type of intestinal infection that has risen sharply in recent years.” According to the health department, these reports will be made available to the online public in January 2010.

Click here to view the entire post on Cleveland.com.

KLAS Ranks Transcend #1

KLAS, a research firm that specializes in monitoring and reporting the performance of healthcare’s information technology (HIT) vendors, announced that the third largest medical transcription provider, Transcend Services, Inc., as the #1 Medical Transcription Service Organization in the healthcare industry.

“We are extremely pleased that our customers have again ranked us number one,” stated Sue McGrogan, Chief Operating Officer of Transcend. “We believe that being in the best in our industry requires more than maintaining a relentless focus on providing high quality reports on time to our customers, as important as that is. It also requires that people in every area of our organization are available and responsive to our customers’ needs. I am extremely proud of our operational team for consistently going the extra mile to provide excellent service to each and every customer.”

Click here to read the press release on MSN: Transcend Ranked #1 Medical Transcription Company by KLAS for 2008.

New Medical Coding System Gets Much More Complex

BCAdvantage posted an article in its e-newsletter last week that discussed the forthcoming medical coding system overhaul, known as ICD-10. Although an updated medical coding system has been needed for a number of years, many in the health care industry fear the switch will “initially cause headaches for consumers and their doctors.”

According to the post, hospitals, insurance companies and many doctors all agree that the new medical coding systems was necessary to keep up with the ever-increasing new medical developments, but the problem with the new system is that it drastically increases the number of codes used to define various ailments and procedures to 155,000, which is ten times as many codes as are currently in use.

In addition, “some medical-industry officials also are concerned that consumers could see…an increase in billing errors. That can lead…to overcharging of patients, or an insurer denying payment for claim because it was submitted with an incorrect code. Some officials also expect an increase in billing fraud and more delays in payments to doctors and consumers.”

In a nutshell, when this new medical coding system goes into full-swing, it’s possible that Medicare, Medicaid and other third-party insurance companies will take longer to reimburse medical facilities. It’s quite possible that if it takes longer for medical facilities to receive payment from third-party payors, then it will take longer for medical facilities to pay their vendors. This is where PRN Funding’s accounts receivable factoring program enters the equation, as PRN Funding specializes in factoring healthcare vendor invoices made payable by medical facilities.

Click here to read the entire BCAdantage article: New medical coding system more precise, more complex.

AnyNurseCan.org Sponsors Pitch to Nurses

Prompted by the dwindling economy, the two nurses who started the Any Nurse Can consulting business, started Pitch to Nurses about a month ago. Pitch to Nurses is a foundation is for disable, financially distressed and retired nurses who need a helping hand to those in need when the government and the financial institutions are willing to. Pitch to Nurses is designed to provide financial help and security to all the Nursing community.

Click here if you want to donate to the Pitch to Nurses program.


MTIA and AHDI Seeking Feedback on Speech Recognition

The Medical Transcription Industry Association (MTIA) and the Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI) are conducting a survey to gather meaningful data around the adoption, integration, and use of speech recognition technologies (both front-end and back-end). The goal of the survey is for MTIA and its partners to analyze the data from the survey and report trends and best practices back to the medical transcription sector in the very near future.

For you convenience, we’ve included a link to the Speech Recognition Survey.

Outsourcing Solutions for MTSOs

Barbara Ziccardi (manager of AlphaStaff) wrote a brief yet informative article in the December 2008 edition of Health Data Matrix about MTSOs benefiting from outsourcing their human resources department.

Zaccardi listed some of the amazing benefits a medical transcription service owner can expect to receive by simply utilizing the services of a human resources outsourcing (HRO) partner:

  • Obtain access to benefits programs that wouldn’t otherwise be available to small or mid-sized companies on their own
  • Streamline time and attendance for payroll, including time record data flow for payroll processing and capturing line counts to hours worked through entry or data import
  • Access to subject matter experts that will proactively develop handbooks, provide on-site and webinar training and assist with liability insurance
  • Receive assistance with filing taxes and handling worker’s comp issues

Ziccardi wrote: “Many [medical transcription] companies are being confronted with challenges that have little to do with their core business–which is exactly why outsourcing has become such an attractive option.”

The medical transcription factoring specialists at PRN Funding couldn’t agree more with this statement! By outsourcing their receivables to PRN Funding, MTSOs can stop worrying about their cash flow and focus on more important things–like growing their medical transcription service.

Ways to Get Paid Quicker in a Bad Economy

Scott Love of RecruitingMastery.com, wrote an excellent article in Net-Temps Recruiters e-newsletter that gave recruiters tips on how to get quick-paying clients.  More specifically, he advised recruiters to use “fear of loss” as a motivator.  Translated to healthcare vendors like medical staffing agencies and medical transcription services, threatening to pull your nurses or ceasing your transcription services until until a check is received is a good attention-grabber and lets the medical facility know that you mean business.

Love also highly recommends putting your terms directly on your invoices, which is something Phil Cohen (president of PRN Funding, LLC) suggested to temporary nurse staffing business owners in part two of his article series: How Nurse Staffing Agencies Can Get Paid Quicker.

Not to mention, another way for business owners to get paid quicker during a bad economy is to utilize invoice funding.  Selling your invoices to a factoring company is a great way for you turn your receivables into cash immediately.

Rapid Response Nurse Staffing Firm Seeks New CEO

Reliant Health Care Professionals, a medical staffing agency who specializes in staffing nurses on short notice, announced that it’s searching for a new CEO earlier this week.  The current president and CEO, Gregory Mikkelsen, will step down and serve as the executive VP and vice chair of the Denver-based healthcare staffing firm.

“There are some other things I would like to do professionally and personally,” Mikkelsen said.  He began speaking to the Reliant Health Care Professionals’ board about his succession plan last year.

Click here to read the entire briefing via Staffing Industry Analysts: Reliant starts search for CEO.

PRN Funding Accepts Credit Cards

As an account receivables factoring firm who specializes in funding medical staffing companies, factoring invoices for medical transcription services and providing financing to medical coding companies, we (PRN Funding, LLC) made a big announcement today.

In order to serve our clients to the best of our ability, PRN Funding is now accepting VISA, MasterCard, and American Express credit cards as a form of payment on its clients’ invoices.  Traditionally, PRN Funding has only accepted checks and direct deposits.

Click here to read the entire press release on PRN Funding’s web site: PRN Funding Now Accepting Credit Cards.