Stories with related Professional Interests

Take Care of Your Financial Well-Being - 05/16/2022

  Paying back student loans, budgeting for personal/family needs, investing, and planning for retirement can be overwhelming at times. But maintaining your financial well-being doesn’t have to be a burden, particularly with help from the Texas Medical Association’s Committee on Physician Health and Wellness.  

Navigating a Broken System: Helping Patients Use Health Resources - 03/31/2022

Whether patients do or don’t have health insurance, they need physicians’ help to make the most of their health care resources.

Practice E-Tips on Commercial Insurance - 03/03/2022

Get helpful practice tips on working with commercial insurance providers.

Here’s Your Billing and Collections Checklist for 2022 - 02/14/2022

TMA’s Reimbursement Services staff work year round with physicians and health plans to help make sure you get paid correctly and on time. They’ve put together a list of practical actions you can take at the start of 2022 to keep your billing and collections on track throughout the year.

Four Bill-Collecting Tips for New (or Any) Practices - 02/01/2022

Starting a practice can be daunting, and one challenge often overlooked is making sure you get paid. Although only a small number of patients will not pay you, or will pay slowly, they can hurt your bottom line. Writing off thousands of dollars in charges should not be an option.

Pinch Points: Health Care Isn’t Immune to a Tight Labor Market - 01/03/2022

Health care isn’t immune to a tight labor market, but employee retention efforts can help.

AMA: High Concentration in Many Insurance Markets - 10/25/2021

Most U.S. commercial health insurance markets are “highly concentrated” among the top insurers in those markets, and evidence strongly suggests insurers are “causing competitive harm to consumers and providers of care.”  Those were the findings of the American Medical Association’s 2021 update to its annual study, Competition in Health Insurance. 

Share Ideas to Improve Health, Wellness of Medical Workforce - 09/29/2021

TMA's Committee on Physician Health and Wellness wants to know your ideas on how your institution can better support your wellness. The committee invites you to submit your contributions to improve the health of the medical workforce by Monday, Oct. 11 for the upcoming PHW Poster Session.

Take Stock of Equipment and Supply Costs - 09/24/2021

The cost of medical equipment and supplies is an operating expense that requires careful monitoring because overspending can add up quickly. Here are a few tips from TMA Practice Consulting.

Communicating With Patients Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing - 09/23/2021

The Americans With Disabilities Act requires you do whatever necessary to ensure “effective communication” with deaf or hard-of-hearing patients. Here are some tips to help you do this.

Why You Should Conduct Background Checks - 09/17/2021

Starbucks does it. The company routinely conducts a background check when it makes a tentative job offer to any candidate for employment. Medical practices should do so, too.

Eight Reasons Your New Employee Didn’t Work Out - 09/17/2021

Hiring the right employee isn’t an easy job, nor a particularly fun one. You don’t want to do it all over again in a couple of months because your recent new hire didn’t work out. If that happened to you, here are some things you may have done wrong.

COVID-19: Billing and Coding - 09/16/2021

View COVID-19 resources related to billing and coding.

Interview Candidates the Smart Way - 09/08/2021

When interviewing candidates for your practice staff, it’s a good idea to work from prepared questions. Here’s why.

Report: Most Private Payers Have Stopped COVID Cost-Sharing Waivers - 09/08/2021

Private health insurance plans have largely stopped waiving patient cost-sharing for COVID-19 treatment, according to a recent report by the Peterson Center on Healthcare and Kaiser Family Foundation. The data represent an overwhelming shift from payer cost-sharing policies during 2020 as indicated by previous research.

New CPT Codes for Third Moderna, Pfizer COVID-19 Shots - 08/18/2021

AMA has expedited a new administration code for a potential third dose of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, following release of the CPT code for a third dose of the Pfizer vaccine.

COVID-19: Payers / Insurance - 06/22/2021

Get COVID-19 resource related to payers / insurance.

UnitedHealthcare Waives Cost Sharing, Extends Telemedicine for Certain Plans - 06/16/2021

UnitedHealthcare is waiving cost sharing for Medicare Advantage plan members for primary care services, and has extended access to in-network and out-of-network telemedicine visits, including COVID-19 testing and treatment, until Dec. 31 for most of its plans.

Deal or No Deal: Negotiating Contracts - 06/02/2021

Maximize your leverage when negotiating a health plan contract.

This Changes Everything: Practices Adapt to COVID-19 - 06/01/2021

COVID 19’s appearance in March 2020 triggered rapid changes for physician offices throughout Texas. For Sugar Land family physician Troy Fiesinger, MD, the full impact of those changes became clear almost a year later in February 2021 when unusually low

Are You Tweeting Yet? - 05/21/2021

Want to get started using — or become more active on — social media on a professional level? Interestingly, the 2015 Texas Legislature provides a painless opportunity for you to wet your feet in the Twittersphere, with how-to help from TMA.

Five Ways to Improve Patient Collections - 05/14/2021

If your practice spends too much time chasing down patient overdue balances, maybe you should rethink some of your up-front practice policies related to collections.

Don’t Overlook Credit Card Processing Fees - 05/14/2021

In today’s world of coinsurance and high-deductible health plans, more of a practice’s revenue comes from the patient, and taking credit cards has become a must. But are you paying too much for credit card processing services?

Three Ways Good Billing Practices Preserve Patient Trust - 05/14/2021

Patient billing and payment problems can sour a good patient-physician relationship. Applying these three practices can contribute to a positive experience for your patient by heading off uncomfortable money-related situations.

COVID-19: Telemedicine - 05/04/2021

View COVID-19 resources related to Telemedicine.