Taking on the multitude of issues that come with being in the healthcare industry is a task that is no longer solely for management. Everyone has to be involved in the game of legislation and regulation if they want to survive. That is the message Paige LeMay, president of the Mid-South Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), promotes within the community.

 

"We are one of the largest, local MGMA groups. We have over 200 members," said LeMay, who is also the COO for Campbell Clinic. "The main goal is to make sure MGMA is the go-to place when medical managers have questions. We want to add value."

 

You have to be involved. You have to be educated. The managers get so caught up in running the day-to-day business that you have to know what's going on in Washington and Nashville and how it affects your business. 

 

Our goal is to educate people because healthcare is so complex and the business of healthcare is changing everyday, and it is so hard to keep up. We've got to have somebody looking out for that, because if we don't we will drown.

 

Whether you're a member of the national, state or local group, MGMA is there to support physicians and the medical managers that work with physicians. 

 

We don't want people to simply pay dues, come to a lunch and not get anything out of it. It's important to have their participation and we want to do what they want us to do. 

 

I think in our world, one hour a month as a break to what we do everyday is well received and there's a little bit of education on top of it while networking with colleagues.

I think we all agree healthcare reform is needed. I think we all have different views based on where we sit in the healthcare world. I think it's important to get involved with the solution rather than sitting back and letting the government make the decision then saying we disagree with it. Whether it's through MGMA or the TMA or the AMA, the physicians need and want to get involved.

 

The biggest thing with technology and the possibility of going forward is people are trying to find out what is a qualified electronic medical record. What makes the product qualified? There is the unknown at this point that we're all waiting (before we invest in these systems).

 

We've looked at pay-for-performance. It's something that is here to stay. We have not decided to move in that direction yet. Regarding other government programs, we will be doing e-prescribing. We needed to upgrade our hybrid electronic medical records and we have. In the next several weeks we'll be implementing e-prescribing. We all have a lot to learn on that. 

 

We have two major areas of technology. We have a PACS system, our radiology system where we do not have films anymore. With EMR, we've been using a system the last few years and we're very pleased with it. It's technically a hybrid EMR. It has a scanned product and parts of a traditional EMR. We have found that the hybrid product works better for us in a high volume practice. A lot of it has to do with the input. Our physicians do not input data, or point and click on a screen when you speak to them. The fastest way for them to get information into the record is to dictate. We still have a transcription department that transcribes and uploads everything into the hybrid EMR. 

 

Each practice has to evaluate which system is best for them. It took us a couple of years to be able to select a product. It was a long process but worth going through it.

 

We started our after-hours program at the end of March. It's a two-fold strategy. We have talked about an after-hours program for a few years now, and I think with the economy, with people not wanting to spend time away from work to come to the doctor's office, it provides them an opportunity to see us in the evening.

 

It's walk-in only, no appointments. We encourage people that if they have an injury, not to go to the ER but to come here. We encourage referrals from the minor med clinics and the emergency rooms. We're starting out slow and small and so far it's been successful.