Top Technology Tips To Streamline Your Practice

One of the many challenges of private practice, especially solo practice, is efficiently and effectively juggling administrative and practice management tasks with clinical work. Since I often blog about my favorite technology tips, I reached out to other therapists "in the trenches" of private practice to see what technology they find most helpful to streamline practice management. Here are the devices, programs, and software they use most and how it helps them successfully run their practice. Dr. Trevor Small, Clinical Director and Psychologist for Bridges to Recovery, a private, behavioral health facility has several tech tips that help streamline his practice:

1. Quicdoc: This is a great program for documenting and following patients progress as well as helping with insurance requirements.
2. Therapist Helper: Billing software extraordinaire!
3. iCal: It is fantastic for billing and keeping track of patient hours.

California psychiatrist David M. Reiss, M.D. suggests these technology tips:

1. ONE Box Voicemail/Efax and Google Voicemail - There may be cheaper or better companies supplying this service, but I've been using them several years and I have not checked any other companies. The One Box/efax allows all phone messages and faxes sent to my office to come to me via email, which I can then read on any computer or my iphone, and can save. I don't have to call in for messages; I can listen on the road; i can respond from wherever I am, and I can respond to faxes without waiting to a hard copy. I can then save the message in organized files as needed. I have a Google phone number which goes directly to my office number - those messages also come to me via email - and come transcribed. The transcription quality is mediocre, many words inaccurate. Usually good enough to get a sense of the message and the call back, but not perfect. Maybe there are better services than this available, but it comes in handy at time, combined with the One Box.
2. Google calendar - Again, there may be others offering the same service, but this is easy because it attaches to my email. I can keep a calendar,  and keep non-confidential notes regarding appointments kept, no-shows, reports sent  regarding evaluations electronically in a way that is accessible at  any time from wherever I am, as long as I have Internet or phone, and I can share  it with any office personnel one I choose to allow access.
3. DropBox (or any other cloud service) - I now have 15 years of complete  medical records accessible to me to read, email, fax immediately from anywhere i have the internet or via iPhone. Makes keeping, storing,  updating, referencing and transmitting medical records much easier, quicker  and more efficient.

Psychologist Tamsen Thorpe, PhD, Director of New Jersey's Directions, a Center for Life Strategies, LLC swears by the following technology to manage her practice:

1. Therasoft On-line - Web based practice management. Key is that it is web-based and can be accessed anywhere versus software.
2. Google calendar - This program is great for interfacing home and office schedules.
3. Smart phone - Allows me access to emails and calendars on the go. Clients email me non-confidential information mostly about appointments.

Clinical neuropsychologist and chief of psychology at Saint Barnabas Medical Center as well as a professor at Kean Ilyse O'Desky, Psy.D. relies on these technology suggestions for teaching and practice management:

1. Dragonspeak  voice transcription software - Between writing patient reports and professional papers, this has made my life much easier and I can complete any written work (including e-mails) much faster.
2. PowerPoint - I think this has improved my lecture presentations dramatically and has allowed me to have much more fun with the 4 or 6 hour presentations I give nationally.
3. iPad -  First, I can download articles directly to the IPAD to read whenever it is convenient and next, I can demonstrate apps to patients or their parents that I think can be used for cognitive training.

New York psychotherapis, Mary Pender Greene, LCSW-R  suggests:

1. Webinars – I use this platform for training new clinicians on how to build their practices, among other topics. 
2. Twitter/TweetDeck – I use Twitter to share the key points from my blog, inspirational quotes, links to articles, and links to resources. I use TweetDeck to automate my tweets, which average about 10 per day.
3. Skype – I use this program to facilitate online group discussions and also to expand the reach of my private practice to include clients that are at a great distance from my office. 

Dr. Trevor Small adds the best tech tip of all...back up your documents. "It is so simple, but nobody does it. Also, it is important to make sure that what is stored is stored according to HIPPA compliance requirements," Small says.

What technology do you use to streamline your practice? What programs, apps, devices would be hard for you to live without?

A Day In The Life: Meet Anxiety Expert Marla W. Deibler, Psy.D.

Peek into a work day in the life of private practitioner and licensed clinical psychologist Marla W. Deibler, Psy.D. Founder and Director of The Center for Emotional Health of Greater Philadelphia, LLC. Her outpatient behavioral health group practice specializes in the treatment of anxiety and obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders.

She's also a wife and a mother of three children and has found a nice work/life balance working 2.5 days per week at her clinic, and spending time the rest of the time home with her children. Thanks to email, phone, and text, Dr. Deibler operates her business remotely "in spurt" during the days she's at her home. And apparently, she doesn't sleep much!

Here's a day in the life of one of Dr. Deibler's "work" days:

A Day In The Life

November 16, 2011

6:15am – 8:15am

Woke up and got my children ready for school and myself ready for work. Ate breakfast. Checked my email, responded to several emails, including an email to our web designer who is working on our new website (very exciting), and forwarded a few visual voicemail emails to my office manager for return phone calls later in the day. Quickly scanned personal and business Facebook newsfeeds and scanned my Twitter feed.

8:15am-9am

Took my second grader to board his school bus and took my 1 year-old and 4 year-old to day care.

9:30am-10am

Arrived at my office, large cup of caffeinated tea in hand that I brewed before leaving home.  Turned on all office lights and computers, collected billing slips and receivables, returned two phone calls, one from a potential patient who had a question and one from a TV network with whom I’ve worked. Review my clinical schedule for the day: it looks like I’ll be working with adults and children today with difficulties including, OCD, compulsive hoarding, tourette’s disorder, depression, panic disorder, and trichotillomania.

10am-11am

Saw a therapy patient.

11am – 12:45pm

Supervision meeting with one of my post-doctoral fellows. Discussed cases and other clinical and practice management issues. Discussed planning co-presenter workshop proposals for the Trichotillomania Learning Center (www.trich.org) annual conference in May 2012. The deadline is quickly approaching, so we have to finalize our proposals over the next 10 days.

12:45pm – 1pm

Pulled testing measures to create charts for this week’s pre-bariatric surgery psychological evaluations. Received incoming mail. Checked email and forwarded visual voicemail emails to my office manager for return calls.

1pm – 2pm

Weekly staff luncheon. Enjoyed great salads from a nearby restaurant that delivers while we discussed cases with one another and other practice issues.

2pm – 3pm

Supervision meeting with another post-doctoral fellow who has just returned to work on a limited basis from maternity leave. This was particularly nice, as she brought her 8 week-old baby while we discussed her cases and other work-life balance issues. I manage my facility in an employee-focused, family-focused manner; each clinician is valued professionally and given the flexibility to create their own schedule so that they can create happy work and personal lives (I whole-heartedly believe this happiness is reflected in their work with patients, so it’s a win-win approach to practice management). In this clinician’s case, she presently sees patients on Saturdays, when her husband is home caring for their child.  On Wednesdays, she brings him to the office for her weekly meeting with me.

3pm – 6:30pm

Saw therapy patients.

6:30pm – 6:45pm

Left the office for the day and drove home to my family. My husband is also a psychologist. He works at a special services school, so he gets off from work at 3:30pm and tends to the children until I come home (Mondays and Wednesdays I work late).

7pm-8:30pm

Spent time with my husband and children. Ate dinner. Ensured that homework was done. Put the baby to bed. Supervised bath time for the older children. Read bedtime stories and tucked the big kids in.

8:30pm-9:30pm

Sat with my husband in our bedroom, while each of us spent some winding down time on our Apple devices –We love this technology. (My husband read news and such on his iPhone, talking about some of the day’s events with me), while I logged into my electronic medical records system (www.carepaths.com), signed off on billing, reviewed and signed off on clinical documentation written by post-doctoral fellows, and submitted batched electronic insurance claims for the day’s in-network patients. Contemplated a run on the treadmill, but today is usually a “rest day” for me and I have too much to do this evening, so it will have to wait until tomorrow.

9:30pm-10pm

Brewed a cup of tea and planned our Thanksgiving dinner menu (as well as ordering our turkey and when I’m going to grocery shop—I’ve got to begin with making butternut squash soup this weekend). I cook Thanksgiving dinner for my family and my brother’s family every year.

10pm-2am

Procrastinated work a bit here and there, intermittently throughout, by checking and returning emails, both personal and professional (needs to be done anyway), checking Facebook, and exploring professional and practice growth opportunities.

Reviewed a post-doctoral fellow’s lengthy forensic report. Completed business accounting tasks for the week. Created to do list with particular attention to the insurance claims/pre-authorizations about which I need to inquire.  Filed a freelance writing/consulting application.

2:30am

Went to sleep (Yes, it is very late. Wednesday is by far my latest night of the week; it’s a worthwhile tradeoff for more time with my family on other days). Tomorrow is a new day. I’m home with my two youngest children to enjoy time with this and take care of household tasks, while managing the practice via email/phone for the day.

For more information on Dr. Deibler and her practice visit www.thecenterforemotionalhealth.com, or connect on Twitter, YouTube, or Facebook.