Neil H. Baum, MD

"There are opportunities for doctors to become more productive, to see more patients, and to avoid the erosion of their incomes," writes Neil Baum, MD.

However you decide to market and promote your practice, you will want to measure the impact and results of your efforts.

The latest generation of mobile phones relagates the "talking" function to the background and offers users a wide array of activities once available only on desktop computers.

In part one of this series, Drs. Neil H. Baum and Robert A. Dowling discuss the basics of shooting a patient education video.

Most do-it-yourself videos require a minimum of tweaking and editing before they're ready to be uploaded to the Internet.

Adding physician videos to a Web site is a unique and easy way to not only make your practice stand out, but also provide another avenue for patient education.

Studies show that employee theft robs small business owners, which includes physicians, of $20 to $40 billion annually.

In an earlier article, we examined the reasons why an early EMR adopter might need to migrate to an entirely new clinical information system and some of the important issues that need to be addressed in managing that migration. In this article, we show how one practice overcame these challenges.

All successful physicians listen to their patients. Do you?

These 30 best practices incorporate compelling evidence that, if implemented, effectively reduce the risk of harming a patient.

Safety is an unspoken yet fundamental expectation of almost all personal and business relationships.

Quality improvement, pay for performance, and better patient outcomes have been major themes in health care during the past few years. However, many physicians don't fully understand how to introduce quality programs into their practices. Those who do have programs in place often don't know how to objectively measure quality health care.

The average urologists is named as a defendent in a medical malpractice suit at least twice in his career. What can we do to reduce our risk for these lawsuits?

The United States is witnessing a consolidation of physicians into groups, and urology is no exception. AUA estimates that only 22% of its members in 2006 are in solo practice (down from 48% in 2003).

The victim does not have to be the person harassed, but could be anyone affected by the offensive conduct.

It is not enough to maintain control over the profitability of your practice. In order to gain control, you need to know the cost of each procedure you perform in the office, the reimbursement from each of your payers, and the profit margin for each service you offer your patients.

There isn't a urologist who hasn't experienced the following scenario: The doctor stands up to terminate the visit with the patient, asks the patient if there is anything else they would like to discuss, and the patient says no. The doctor closes the chart, puts his hand on the doorknob to leave the room, and the patient says, "There is one more thing I'd like to talk to you about."

These simple pointers can help keep your patients happy and, consequently, healthy

Employee theft is more common than most of us want to admit. Many ofus are trusting and assume that our employees are honest and caring andwould not ever consider taking something from the practice that doesn'tbelong to them. I think, for the most part, health care does attract honest,caring, and compassionate employees, but that doesn't relieve us from practicingpreventive financial controls and creating an environment that avoids theftand embezzlement.

Keep these suggestions in mind to avoid obstacles and hostility duringyour transfer

For many physicians, the word marketing conjures images of Yellow Pageads, flashy brochures, or radio and television commercials. Of course, theseare all components of marketing, but the easiest way to market your practiceis to provide stellar service to your current patients.

Nearly all of us use and depend on computers for running and operatingour medical offices. I doubt that many of us could successfully operateour practices without this evolving technology, which adds not only to improvementin the medical care we offer our patients but to the efficiency of our practices.

Letters, appeals, and legal action can each help settle denial of compensationclaims