Practice Operations

TMA’s practice viability experts have organized the information you may need to successfully reopen your practice in one resource. From evaluating staffing levels and managing patient appointments, to ensuring patient safety and communicating regularly with patients and staff, this guide will provide the information practices need to more confidently head in the right direction.

This Practice Viability Toolkit collates much of the information, resources, and links physicians need to make informed decisions about their practice’s viability during this pandemic.

COVID-19 Resource Center

FAQs and How-To

What to Do If a Staff Member or Patient Tests Positive

COVID-19: Practice Management Considerations

Practical Answers to COVID-19 Questions for Your Practice

COVID-19 Quick How-To Testing Guide for Outpatient Clinics

COVID-19 Infection Prevention and Control for Outpatient Clinics Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What Physicians and Health Care Workers Need to Know about Stay-at-Home Orders

PPE

What is This “TMA PPE Portal?”

Help TMA Get PPE to Your Practice

Can You Hear Me Now? Communicating Across the COVID-19 PPE Chasm

Practice Staff

What to Do If a Staff Member or Patient Tests Positive

Tips and Strategies for Managing Remote Staff

Need Help Managing Staff Issues During COVID-19?

Ways to Keep Your Staff Productive When Patient Visits Have Declined

Here’s What You Need to Know About Managing Staff During COVID-19

Practice Resources

COVID-19 Safety is Everyone’s Business: Hang This Poster In Your Practice

Chart Provides Steps For Patients Who’ve Been Exposed to COVID-19

Give This COVID-19 Symptom Tracker to Your Patients

Use This Permission Letter to Excuse COVID-19 Patients from Work or School

Hang This Sign on Your Door to Keep Patients and Staff Safe

Dedicated Cellular Network Open to Physicians Responding to COVID-19

Legal

New Coronavirus Law Mandates Paid Leave for Certain Employees (Vinson & Elkins March 19, 2020)

Insurance

Covered for COVID? Business Interruption Insurance Could Come in Handy

The Texas Medical Board’s (TMB) emergency rule establishing minimum safe-practice standards related to COVID-19, and its frequently asked questions (FAQ) document on the rule, continue to generate a lot of questions from physicians.

Specifically, the provision requiring physicians, their delegates, and patients to wear masks when a physician or delegate is less than 6 feet from the patient has resulted in a lot of calls to the Texas Medical Association Knowledge Center.

With more people staying home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, more physicians are seeing existing and new patients remotely.

As the pandemic continues, remaining visible to your patients is essential to managing their health, building trust, and maintaining the viability of your practice.

While recognizing that COVID-19 has disrupted essentially all aspects of life, keep operations and finances in mind as you shift into a new “normal.”

Health care is going to look different, and you need to respond to the new way of business accurately. To help you and your practice prepare for the future, TMA has some suggestions.

The COVID-19 pandemic has most likely changed the way you and your staff care for patients during this emergency period.

And if you’re like many physicians, you have questions about how to protect and manage your staff along with the financial and operational needs of your practice.

To keep your patients and staff healthy and safe during the COVID-19 pandemic, you or your practice probably have reduced the number of in-office patient visits. As a result, your staff’s workload likely has drastically decreased. 
If you’ve been wondering how to keep your staff productive, we have a few suggestions.

As the Texas Medical Association told you Monday, personal protective equipment (PPE) will begin to move more quickly from state-managed warehouses to Texas county medical societies and on to private practice, community care physicians.

The movement of PPE, including N95 masks, is possible through an extensive collaboration among TMA, county medical societies, and a host of other associations and state agencies.

But we need your help.

Small businesses in Texas – including health care clinics and practices – can now apply for long-term, low-interest working capital loans to meet their financial obligations during the time of a disaster. 

If you’re concerned or uncertain about expanded medical leave, paid sick leave, or complying with other regulations regarding personnel, Texas Medical Association Practice Management Services experts have created a frequently asked questions (FAQ) to help guide your practice during the pandemic.

Many Texas physicians have reached out to the Texas Medical Association with questions about long-term, low-interest, forgivable emergency loans through the Small Business Administration (SBA).
One option that could help your practice’s valuable staff is the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), a new program to bridge payroll expenses through June 30. The program provides access to $350 billion for businesses with 500 or fewer employees.

If you haven’t already posted a sign on your practice or facility door advising patients what to if they might have been exposed to COVID-19, the Texas Medical Association Covid-19 Task Force has created one for you.

It takes more than great patient care to operate a successful medical practice.

As a physician you know the ins and outs of medicine, but for a small practice to thrive, you also need a solid understanding of the fundamentals of running a business.

The law carries mandates most physician practices must follow to make their offices accessible so as to not discriminate against patients with disabilities when providing care. And five years ago, the government raised the penalties for failing to do so. So it might be time to educate, or re-educate, yourself on what the ADA requires.

Whether you own your medical practice or are a partner in a group, your business absolutely must have clear financial policies and procedures in place.

Financial policies aren’t the most fun to read or write, but they can make or break your practice. Without them, you’re essentially enabling patients to set policies for you, and that de facto policy might involve chasing down patient balances and tolerating high accounts receivable. 

Because state laws and insurer billing requirements governing physician delegation and supervision can be tricky to navigate, practices must stay up to date to avoid potential penalties.

Most of you will encounter a “difficult” patient at some point in your career.

Difficult patients come in many forms, from those who are noncompliant or have complex health issues, to patients who are angry or manipulative.

Whatever the case may be, these three tips can make caring for and working with these patients a little less difficult.