Sunday, November 22, 2009

FAQ for Physicians

FAQ for Physicians

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How do I apply for a license in my zip codes of interest?

Our signup process is simple, just go to physician signup button, click and fill out the physician pre-credential form with all of your credentialing  information, zip codes of interest and opt-in to our licensing agreement.  It’s that simple. There are no hefty initial software licensing fees.  

How many physicians will be granted licensing in my territories of interest?

Our licensing agreement provides exclusive licensure for use of the platform for the first 24 months.  So applying for your zips of interest now effectively excludes your competition from providing this innovative service line.

How do you credential physicians?

Our Medical Director reviews the pre-credentialing form and gets the process started.  Our team will provide you with passwords to our physician portal for you to upload PDF copies of your DEA, State License, Board Certification information for our credentialing team to approve you.  

How long does credentialing take?

Several weeks.

How long does it take for my physician site to go live?

When your credentialing is complete, our developers will have your site ready for your final approval and go live.

How do I know if my patients will sign on for this new program?

After your credentialing is complete, our team will implement a market research survey to validate direct medical practice is viable in your market.  The first step is getting feedback from your patients and then we move into the sales phase of the transition process.

How do I tell my patients I am transitioning into cash practice?

Our marketing team  will take your existing patient base through a carefully crafted  process that tactfully  converts a maximal number into your new cash practice utilizing your existing relationships, through surveys, email marketing, web demos, sales presentations, informative webinars, all provided through our site.

Can other patients besides my current practice join?

After our internal marketing process is complete and we pass your patient‘s “priority signup date“, we turn to systematically marketing to families in your geographic radius.

What if we already have a practice website?

No problem, our licensing agreement enables you to post the Personal Medicine House Call Service line logo and branding on your site, which will link directly through to your physician house call marketing site for automated patient signup through our ecommerce platform.  Our programmers are happy to add this functionality to your site with access to your FTP site.

What if I don’t have a website?

No worries, your  Personal Medicine physician marketing site is all you will need for adding new patients to your practice.  

What about my hospital priveleges?

Your admitting priveleges are up to you.  We do recommend streamlining hospitals if you are on staff at multiple locations.  If you prefer completely outpatient practice, that’s ok too.  

What about call?

We recommend implementing two physicians within a practice at a time, so that you will have coverage for each other for travel.   Remember, with a practice with ten-fold less patients, you can expect ten-fold less phone calls.  We find that with the relationships nurtured in the Personal Medicine Model, lends itself to less night time calls from patients than in the traditional large practice model.

How many house calls can I expect to make a day?

In the full practice model with 300 patient panel, you can expect 6-7 house calls a day, half that for a 150 patient panel.

How large of a radius should I choose?

Our implementation team can help you in choosing the best radius to cover, depending on traffic, density of population, population demographics,  generally a five to ten mile radius  makes for minimal drive time between houses.  

How do I learn the technology?

We will help you with training on your emr, through user tutorials, you tube tutorials, and support center, this is all part of your transitional process and timeline you will follow through your portal site.

What if I need a loan to start practice?

We have partnerships with investors who have made funding innovative primary care practices a priority and we will work with you on accessing capital if you need it.  Our investors have put together a 36 month credit line especially for Personal Medicine practices.  Each loan gets funded on the physician’s personal credit and financial picture.

What about my malpractice?

Personal Medicine has teamed up with Keane Insurance Group to provide malpractice for our affiliates.   Several National carriers feel that physicians practicing in our model, meeting our credentialing process, who attentively care for patients in their homes translates to lower risk of a malpractice suit.  There is a point within our conversion process for you to upload your current med mal carrier’s dec page for our insurance team to get you a new quote.   You are certainly welcome to keep you existing carrier if you prefer.

What kinds of physicians can use the Personal Medicine Platform?

Our Platform is for use by primary care doctors, internists, family physicians, pediatricians, med-peds.   If you have a specialty within  primary care,  you may still have a successful Personal Medicine direct medical practice, particularly within the NICU and ICU niche.  

What is a direct medical practice?

Direct Medical Practice is a Descriptive term used for describing physician practices, usually in primary care in the Medical Home Model, which cultivate direct financial relationships with patients, rather than our currently dominant third party payor contracts.  

How does the Platform compare to the overhead of typical primary care office practices?

Our Platform reduces overhead by 80% compared to median primary care office overhead. ( 2007, Modern Healthcare)

Why should I allow my patients to have access to their medical record?

There is a massive demand amongst health consumers to have access to their medical record through a PHR.   Consumer internet health business are growing in popularity and transparency of the medical record is essential for any primary care physician wishing to remain competitive in practice.  Also transparency of the medical record is responsible for some of the dramatic cost reduction found in the Personal Medicine Model.

Doesn’t this restrict what I can chart in the medical record?

There is a way to restrict viewing of aspects of the record, by setting “ permissions” within the EMR.  For example, a mother of a patient in which you suspect “ Munchausen’s by Proxy” you may wish to document and hide permission from the patient.  This is your legal right.


What about lab and x ray?

We recommend bringing clia waived testing with you, as they are convenient, simple and easy to transport.   If you retain ownership of your office, you may use those facilities as you wish.   The EMR portion of the platform has interface with quest and lab core as well.  

What should I tell my partners?

We find the transition to utilizing the Personal Medicine Platform enhances the market share of an existing practice, adding significant revenues without adding overhead.  Over time we envision that as the house call  service line grows, additional doctors in the practice will transition to house calls as well, and you will hire in new physicians and nurse practitioners to support the office.   This differentiates your brand and puts your practice leaps and bounds over your competition.  

What if I only want to practice part time?

Personal Medicine’s overhead structure is perfect for part time practice.  If you only want to maintain a half panel of 150 patients, you will still have take home pay that rivals the medial take home pay in primary care.

What is SAAS, anyway?

SAAS or “ Software as a Service” is an established  business model in the tech industry.   It refers to using software services on a monthly membership rate rather than traditional health IT licensing models.   Also utilizing enterprize cloud computing services, with outsourced hosting, security, backups,  it frees physicians from hefty IT costs associated with puchasing and maintaining servers, firewalls, backups, and hosting.  Utilizing this technology is part of the drastic overhead reduction of practice, compared with traditional Health IT. 

How secure are the servers that house the medical record data?

The hosting environment maintains high level of encryption and firewall.  It is as safe as the banking industry standards.  Also, our hosting environment incorporates third party IT consultants advice as well as security audits into their data and security strategy. 

How does social media within the Personal Medicine Platform help grow my practice?

The old methods of practice building  word of mouth, print marketing materials,  TV are slow costly ways to grow a cash practice.  They are intrusive and ineffective.  The latest  social networks present the opportunity for exponential growth of your practice, minimizing your risk in the transition.   There is deep emotion and value that house calls brings to patients and our marketing platform seeks to intimately tell the personal story of each physician, patient, employer, through video, community, blogs, forums, in a permission based manner that makes your patient sale when the patient is ready to buy.   Without social media, one customer tells one person at a time about your practice.  With the Personal Medicine Platform, one person tells 500 people at a time!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Physicians your questions about mobile practice platform answered here!!

To Your Best Health,

The Personal Medicine Team

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