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RETAINING STAFF

Do you make your employees want to stay?

By Lynne Curry Your employees are leaving, because they want better opportunities. What are you giving them? If it’s not better opportunities, you’ll lose them. Here’s what you need to consider: Do you pay your employees what they’re worth? If you can’t afford competitive compensation, do you compensate by giving employees flexibility and autonomy, allowing them to feel they’re in charge of leveraging their time and productivity, and can work harder or longer one day and take a bit of a break the next day? Do you give your employees the chance to learn new things and develop professionally? Do you respect and value your employees, and do you clearly demonstrate that you value them? As a manager/supervisor, do you step to the plate? If you want the best employees,… . . . read more.

TOOL

Love contracts: Help for hot messes

They arrive at work separately. They never touch each other in your presence. Then, as you chair a meeting, you see his gray eyes seek hers out across the conference table. She returns his gaze; her eyes linger. Suddenly you know. The senior manager, despite all the sexual harassment seminars he’s attended, appears romantically intertwined with an accounting clerk. If you’re in charge, how do you handle this hot mess?  The reality Some managers and supervisors would never have an affair with an employee they oversee or an employee in their company. Others consider the workplace a dating pond in which they fish. Still others fall into a relationship that makes them disregard risks. According to a recent survey by the Society for Human Resource Management, one in three U.S…. . . . read more.

QUIZ

Who Has OSHA responsibility for the health & safety of a temp?

What are your OSHA duties to temporary workers (“temps”) whom you hire from a temp agency to work at your medical office? Stated differently, are you or the temp agency responsible for the temp’s health and safety? Here’s a set of scenario quizzes that illustrate how the rules work. SCENARIO 1: RESPONSIBILITY FOR HAZCOM TRAINING The Temps R’Us Agency (Agency) assigns an employee to temporary work at XYZ Medical Office (Office). Agency is aware that Office’s workers handle and use hazardous chemicals for testing operations. But the temp has no Hazcom training whatsoever. As a result, he suffers an injury as a result of exposure to a toxic chemical while working for Office. QUESTION Who’s responsible for providing the temp the required Hazcom training? Agency Office Both Neither ANSWER Both… . . . read more.

TOOL

HIPAA compliance checklist

Having a complete HIPAA compliance program is important to your organization. Run through this HIPAA compliance checklist to see if you have your foundation of HIPAA compliance in place and easily retrievable. HIPAA Policies and Procedures HIPAA privacy policies, procedures, and forms HIPAA security policies, procedures, and forms HIPAA Breach Notification policy and procedure Most recent Notice of Privacy practices Privacy officer’s job responsibilities and contact information Security officer’s job responsibilities and contact information HIPAA workflows and evidence of compliance Most recent HIPAA Risk Analysis Most current HIPAA risk mitigation/risk management documentation Business Associate agreements with list of Business Associates Workforce HIPAA training, periodic HIPAA updates, HIPAA training log Password policies by system Workstation security practices (anti-virus, password requirement, password timeframes, workstation use, etc.) HIPAA documentation specific to the organization… . . . read more.

TOOL

Telecommuter home office hazard assessment & inspection checklist

While not an OSHA obligation, it’s highly advisable to take measures to protect the health and safety of telecommuting office employees who work from home. How? By having employees seeking approval to telecommute designate a room or area as their home workspace and arranging for somebody to perform a hazard assessment inspection to verify that the workspace is safe, healthy and appropriate for the proposed use. Option 1: Have an office supervisor or manager visit the site and do a physical walk-through inspection; Option 2: Have the employee videotape the space and/or submit detailed photos and a floor plan and do the inspection virtually; Option 3: Have the employee inspect the space himself/herself. Whoever does the assessment should use the Checklist below.

Tool: Model COVID-19 Contact Log Sheet

Maintaining social distancing will be the price that medical offices and other businesses will have to pay to reopen and remain open until the COVID-19 threat goes away. But for social distancing to work, there must be a way to track and analyze actual encounters between people at your facility. One simple way to gather the essential data is to have employees and visitors complete a contact log sheet. Here’s a model your office can adapt for its own use.

SAFEGUARDING PHI

Model HIPAA Privacy Reminder to Reception and Other Staff

Why you need this memo:

Your medical office staff understands the imperative of safeguarding personal health information (PHI) and wouldn’t let strangers roam about the facilities freely. But it’s easy for them to lower their guard when a former employee comes back to the practice, e.g., to pick up a final paycheck or just make a social call.

. . . download here


TELEHEALTH

CY 2019 List of Medicare Telehealth Services

Why you need this tool:

Has your practice recently implemented telehealth? If so, you might not know which CPT codes are available for reimbursement.


. . . download here

PROJECT LESSONS LEARNED SUMMARY

Model Project Summary

Why you need this summary:

A rite of passage to becoming a great manager is learning to fail in a way that stretches you without breaking you and results in wisdom that improves your resilience and future decision-making. In other words, failure is not necessarily bad. Your ability to grow from the experience, however, depends on your willingness to honestly assess the good, the bad, and the ugly of what went wrong and why.

. . . download here


MANAGING THE OFFICE

Model Tool: Office move checklist

Why you need this checklist:

When moving offices, there is no room for error. Every day that physicians can’t get into the new location or can’t see their patients, the practice is out of business. The key to success is good planning.

. . . download here



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