Summer Plans, Op Note Reporting

Erik Sunset: [00:00:00] Hey, welcome back to the DocBuddy journal. I’m your host, Erik Sunset. Here at DocBuddy. Our mission is to deliver healthcare solutions that take the pain and costs of a broken workflows. One of the ways we do that is your Op Note solution, which gives ASC is the power of instantly generated operative reports approved from the point of care with images, if you want them, or if you need them. And learn more about op note and all of our other solutions at docbuddy.com. You’re also going to hear a little bit more about operating it for me in just a few minutes. So thanks for stopping by.

Thanks for using some of your podcast, listening budget with us, your friends here at doc, buddy. Just to give you a quick recap. Over the last few episodes, we’ve talked about one of the biggest issues facing healthcare, and that really revolves around physician burnout. Uh, physician burnout. Of course. A symptom of all of the ways that physicians and nurses are dissatisfied with their careers. [00:01:00] I’m really coming out of our ASCA speaker series, which you can see more about on doc buddy.com/blog. We covered the class arch collaboratives, 2024 burnout trends for physicians and nurses reports. We also looked at Medscape’s 20, 24 physician burnout and depression reports. And most recently we looked at ways to get more folks interested in medical school.

And how does med school throughput. Relate to physician burnout. Great question. Glad you asked it actually matters a ton with regard to physician burnout, because due to all of this. Physician and provider and employee sentiment around burnout. Physicians are leaving the profession entirely. They’re retiring way earlier than expected. Let’s be clear.

Everybody needs to make the best choice for themselves. Um, but as a group, as a cohort, we’re seeing physicians retire [00:02:00] way earlier than anybody who was planning for. And we’re beginning to be faced with a massive shortage of physicians in this country. And I did just see a headline today before clicking record on this show. That it seems like the ASC is the least impact and police service by this lack of physicians. Um, but, uh, it’s going to get worse before it gets better, uh, for all types of care sites, almost certainly. So anyway to come back to the point I was trying to make there on med school throughput. You know, we’re not seeing the amount of medical school graduates, not seeing the amount of residents going through the process to become practicing physicians and surgeons. Uh, so in these last couple of episodes, we looked at the trends around burnout and depression for physicians and nurses.

And there’s maybe a glimmer of hope. There’s a little bit of good news. It’s not really getting worse. Um, and you’ve heard me say this before. If you’ve listened to any of our shows. Yeah, [00:03:00] just because it’s not getting worse, you know, it doesn’t mean that it’s getting better. Things are still bad around physician burnout. And for all of the details on that, you can listen to those prior last couple of episodes.

And of course we had, uh, Nicholas allery for partner with McDermott will and Emery is sandwiched in there as well while we were at the McDermott will and Emery. Physician management and ASC symposium in Nashville. So thank you again to Nick for his time and expertise around ways that healthcare organizations can generate new and compliant revenue.

That’s the key word. There are lots of ways to make money. You got to make sure you’re doing it above board, but for the scoop on all of these. Uh, burnout factors. You need to listen to those last few episodes or if you’ve already heard it from me once. It won’t be a surprise. To be reminded that a lack of staffing, lack of employees, the inability to make a hire, to retain folks.

That’s the number one problem in this year’s round of [00:04:00] physician burnout reporting. Then all of our, our same old common nemeses, like lack of physician autonomy, lack of alignment with leadership and your organization. Poor. Legacy software giving you workflows that nobody really likes just to be totally Frank. Um, we’re able to in a little bit here, so we’ll come back to, uh, come back to the point. Go check out DocBuddy.com/blog, or find the DocBuddy journal, wherever you get your podcasts and you will be able to see. Um, all of our coverage around physician burnout, as we’re just about halfway through 2024. And while we’re talking about all the different places, you can get the doc, but the journal give you a quick reminder. Be sure that you’re subscribed to the show on either YouTube, Spotify, or apple podcasts or all three, that way you never miss an. An episode.

Let’s get into it.

The, uh, the couple of things we want to cover in today’s episode [00:05:00] are number one. Where can you see DocBuddy, this summer? And we kick off every trade show year. Uh, if you will. And if you go to HIMS, that’s kind of the launch, the granddaddy of them all, uh, much, much earlier in the year, but for our ASC focused friends, ASCA, which was a great event, again, great event as always back in April in Orlando. That kind of kicks off the surgery center, focused trade show season. Uh, for the year.

So where can you see doc, buddy next? Well. The next place we’re going to be is that the Gulf states ASC annual conference, which is June 11th through the 13th. That’s next week. Um, at the beautiful Beau revive resort and blocks you Mississippi. Right after that following week, we’ll be at Becker’s spine and orthopedics conference in Chicago.

Uh, If I’m not mistaken, that’ll be the last time. Uh, we’re going to the Swiss hotel with Becker’s. Um, so be sure to send everybody out for the bang there. Following [00:06:00] Becker’s will be at the Arizona ASCA. So Arizona ASC annual conference in Scottsdale that’s June 27th, 28th. So a lot of action through June, obviously. Get a little bit of a break for, uh, the early part of July, 4th of July. Um, but after that, we’ll be at the F S a S C, which is the Florida society for ambulatory surgical centers, annual conference. Back in Orlando, perhaps the. Event. Capital of the world.

If it’s not Las Vegas, it’s gotta be Orlando would be my guess. FSA. ASC is July 17th through the 19th. That’s one that I’ll be at personally, the rest of these shows will be staffed by other members of the fabulous DocBuddy team. Of course. Parallel to FSAs. See in Orlando is CASCAP, which is the Colorado ambulatory surgery center associations annual conference, July 18th and 19th in golden, Colorado. From there. Going down to Galveston for tasks, the Texas ambulatory surgery center.

Society’s annual conferences there. Another great event. You know, [00:07:00] we’ve been to, um, We’ve been to all of these over the past handful of years. And the organizers do such a great job of taking care of both the vendors and the attendees. Obviously I’m a little bit biased being on the vendor side. It’s not easy to put on an event. That makes everybody happy. You know, sometimes in historically not speaking about any of these shows, we’ve just named of course. It’s not too difficult to put on an event that your attendees, like it’s a little bit tougher to put on an event that your vendors love and are happy to go to take time away from their friends and family to. Be in the exhibit hall, do all the networking and be present and productive at these events.

So huge shout out to all of our event, organizer, friends, you know who you are. Thank you very much. And then rounding out the summer. I’m going to call it labor day, essentially as the end of summer, though, depending on where you’re at, like I’m here in Miami, it’s going to be like summer. Basically until Christmas. Uh, late December. [00:08:00] But rounding out our slate of summer events, where you can see DocBuddy, where you can meet the team where you can see op note in person. We will be at the. August showing of the Georgia and South Carolina joint event in Hilton head, South Carolina. August 15th through the 16th. And we’ve already been to a couple of events. Uh, so far this year. Um, Most recently the New Jersey. Ambulatory surgery center association, annual conference. Another fantastic event.

Uh, but by my account, that gives us one, two. Four or 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.

Is that right? Nine. Events. Uh, that we’ve been to. So far. This year, or we will be going through over the course of the summer. It’s fantastic.

So changing gears a little bit, we mentioned you’ll be able to see DocBuddy, be able to see op note. A lot of our listeners are in [00:09:00] physician practices. A lot of our listeners are also in the ASC. I’m trying to give you a pretty good. Pretty pretty good grab bag of the topics that we cover, obviously, position burnout, and how you can solve work, applies to all of medicine.

As we know. May look to bring you a little bit more deep, dive on how the ASC. Is slightly less impacted by this physician shortage. How burnout, maybe isn’t rearing its ugly head quite as bad in the surgery center. And that’s certainly not to say that it isn’t happening. Because it is, it’s a little bit different beast than the hospital or the practice, right.

Coming back to the point. When you see DocBuddy in person, you’re able to get a look at our oppnet solution or any of our other solutions for that matter, whether it’s enterprise or on-call, which are kind of our practice. And on-call at the hospital based products, surgery, workflow, and other surgery center based product. Um, but really the star of the show [00:10:00] ends up being opt-out. And by now, wouldn’t doubt that you’re familiar with oppnet as a solution.

We led off with it at the top of the show. As a matter of fact, it gives surgeons and their facilities, the power of instantly generated operative reports. You’re able to let that surgeon keep the workflow that they really like, which is dictation. They’re used to transcription. We’re going to pick it up transcription in a minute here. But you’re able to give that surgeon the workflow that they are most accustomed to, but get a digital result of digital outcome for the rest of the facility. And for that matter, the practices with which you interact the practices, obviously you need to get that operative note back. Um, at some point not where it removes the manual faxing or encrypted email, right?

Encrypted email guys without sending any, any, uh, Phi through regular un-encrypted email. Right. Um, but I’m not able to take away that step. Uh, from your facility because it will automatically distribute to your physician practices, be it via [00:11:00] EHR integration or via the oppnet portal. And that’s kind of the point that I’m getting to here. That op note is way more than just front end speech for surgeons.

And that’s a big part of it, right? Because we’re replacing this antiquated. Outdated painful transcription process. With something digital. Op note. That gets a lot of oohs and aahs when you’re at these different events. And we do go to quite a few events over the course of the year. Be they national events like ASCA or the Becker’s series. Or any of our state ASC association shows, we get a lot of oohs and aahs that that’s it. You open up the app on your phone. Utilize some of our voice commands.

You provided a subjective information that you need for that procedure. And it’s done. The surgeon can sign off right then and there. And that’s huge. That’s, world’s better. Then sending a voice file off to some place. Waiting for the transcribed reports. Come back. And then [00:12:00] hopefully approving it. Hopefully there aren’t any edits, but then you’re still chasing down that surgeon for a signature.

If you don’t see them every day. Sometimes even if you do see them every day, you’re still chasing them down for that signature.

Op note does elicit a lot of oohs and aahs because we’re taking away all of the pain and heartache. From that old process that as breakthrough be replaced. Frankly, that’s what we’re doing. But there’s a lot more to op note than just that front end speech for surgeons.

Often the biggest oohs and aahs that we get aren’t from showing our friends at the ASU would be the, an administrator, a surgeon, um, Any of our nursing team or any of the care team, just how quickly operative reports can be generated and completed. Instantly. Matter of minutes, but it’s when we show them the op note portal. So for your surgeons, they get to use their smartphone. From [00:13:00] everybody else. Whether they’re an administrator support staff, uh, your billing team, whether they are your own in-house billing team, or whether you use a revenue cycle management vendor in our CRM team. Regardless of who it is.

They have access as you, the facility dictate to go in and grab, completed operative reports and work on them. However, they need to, whatever their work function may be.

But there’s a reporting module as well. Did you know that? Obno reporting is what gets some of the biggest oohs and AHS. Out there. When we’re showing up off of him. Administrators and staff, and again, the security rights and privileges are determined by you, the facility. So whoever needs to see this can, may not be for everybody, but whoever needs to see a can, they’re able to report across whatever period of time that you would like. On how many operative reports were completed? How many operative reports are still outstanding. And again, based on the time parameter. You’re able to [00:14:00] see average sign-off times you’re able to drill down into providers, see their timeframes for completion. Which surgeons and all my ASC administrators will know. Um, if you’re touching this operative report, supply chain, you know, You have a couple of surgeons who just aren’t quite as fast as everybody else in signing off their operative reports?

Not unless you’re running a very, very efficient machine here. Imagine the value. Uh, that you as a facility get, when you’re able to track and trend. Operative report completion times based on provider. You think these surgeons are competitive? Course they are. Nobody wants to be at the bottom of the scoreboard.

So being able to track and trend and report on which providers are most frequently turning and completing their opera reports gives you the administrator, a leg up now. I’ve know, does everything it can do to give you an instantly generated operative report. And then the data we see when we’re reviewing findings with, with our clients, [00:15:00] for the most part. Surgeon’s take the op note like a duck takes to water they’re up and running in a matter of minutes, they’re completing and signing their operative reports. Essentially, as soon as they scrub out of the procedure, And then they’re done. Um, but. You know, law of averages, there’s going to be some that take longer than others.

So even when you have these providers who have the power of it’s an operative reports in their hand, but they’re just a little bit slow to get to them.

Now you have a way to manage that proactively. And let’s contrast that with the old way, the transcription way of doing things where there’s just a, built-in wait, there’s a lag. There’s a time where you can’t be proactive because you’re waiting for something to come back to you. Op note absolutely eliminates that there’s no more inherent lag in the process.

There is as much lag in your operative report process with op note. That you as the facility that you, as the administrator allow and that’s powerful. Not only are you completing the paperwork that you need to. [00:16:00] But that allows your operative reports to be sent to billing and to have that claim generated and submitted the same day, the procedure was performed. Even the very best transcription SLA or service level agreements. Very rarely are you getting a completed and signed operative report done? The same day as the procedure.

Now let’s take it a step further. What could you do with all of that time back? When you’re not figuring out which operative reports are still outstanding, which operative reports are back, but waiting on signature. And then from there. Which of these operative reports have gone to billing. Uh, be it through an electronic process like doc buddies integrated with some of the leading ASC. Jars like our good friends over at HST pathways.

Shout out to HST pathways among others.

Imagine. The efficiencies you gain. When there’s no weighting in your operative report, supply chain. And our, do you want to point out too, since we’re talking [00:17:00] about. Providers who are maybe not quite as fast as others about completing their operative reports. One of the other oohs and aahs that we get around op note. Is that we’re able to deliver notifications to the provider in question, Hey, you got an unsigned AAPOR report thing from lights up.

Now these, these notifications are configurable by facility. By provider, you certainly don’t have to be opted into them if you don’t want it, don’t want to make it sound like big brother is always watching you. But that is a really powerful tool to ensure the timely completion of operative reports so that your administrative processes aren’t bogged down by lack of signature. That’s also a way to accelerate your revenue cycle when you’re not waiting on operative reports to be signed. And the feedback that we get from customers who are using oppnet has been tremendous. We talked about transcription SLA is just a second ago. Now the, the industry average. From the reporting that’s available makes it look like that’s about 15 days. [00:18:00] From the time the. Voice file goes out to the time that you get a transcribed and finalized operative report back 15 days. That’s not everybody. Average right now, the standard distribution looks, you have a big chunk in the middle and then skinny tails on the end. Take a look at any statistics website.

If you need a refresher on average distributions. Uh, but even for our friends who are coming from a fairly robust transcription platform where they’re waiting just a matter of days, Maybe three or four days instead of the 15 that’s cited as the industry average might be three or four before they get that operative report back. What if we could take that down to an hour.

That’d be pretty powerful.

Wouldn’t it? Well, that’s the reality that reality is available for you. Out there in ASC land. There’s no reason anymore to be waiting on operative reports. So as we look to tie this [00:19:00] episode up, you can see DocBuddy at a wide variety of state ASC events, as well as the Becker’s spine and orthopedic event, uh, over the course of this summer.

So again, just quickly Gulf states ASC next week. Becker spine and ortho the week of June 19th through the 22nd. Arizona ASCA end of the month. Florida. Which is FSA ASC, July 17th through the 19th. CASCAP the Colorado ASC show, July 18th through the 19th. Tasks out there in Galveston, July 24th through the 26 and then the second running. Uh, of the Georgia South Carolina joints, uh, ASC annual conference out there and Hilton head.

So look forward to seeing you across this. Wide net of events that we’re casting. We’ll obviously let you know we’re going to be throughout the rest of the year. And for anybody that just can’t wait to hear where else will be. We’ll be in California at Casa. Potentially out to the task at Tennessee ASC HSA, we will be at the [00:20:00] New York states association of ambulatory surgery centers. The Minnesota ASC Becker’s ASC in the fall and the Washington. Ambulatory surgery center, annual conference at the to Layla resort and spa to kind of wind down. The trade show season for the year.

That takes us all the way through November.

So on behalf of the entire doc building team owned. Thank you for listening. Once again, be sure you’re subscribed wherever you get your podcasts. As long as that’s apple pod, Spotify, or YouTube, you can be subscribed. Otherwise we’ve got for clips of the show on LinkedIn. You can also get to them on doc, buddy.com. Until next time.

I’m your host, Derek sunset take care.