Best Practice Software

Telehealth Challenges and Successes in 2021

Telehealth and Billing in Bp Premier

The rise of telehealth consultations in Australian practices has been a huge success since the COVID-19 pandemic began. The ability to treat patients remotely to reduce clinical risk has a range of benefits, and plenty of eHealth initiatives (such as electronic prescriptions) were fast-tracked to enable healthcare providers to continue to provide outstanding patient care in this new, uncharted territory.

Innovation often has the potential to cause some confusion, particularly when legislation hasn’t quite caught up with changes. One area that some of our practices may find confusing is the requirement to bulk bill telehealth consultations. While the Department of Health has relaxed the rules surrounding COVID-19 telehealth items, there are several considerations which Bp Premier users should understand when it comes to bulk billing telehealth consults.

Assignment of Benefits for Telehealth Item Numbers

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the government introduced new, temporary MBS telehealth and phone consult item numbers in March 2020. These item numbers must be bulk billed and have a similar requirement to the standard face-to-face items on which they’re based.

In July 2021, however, the Department of Health (DoH) warned GPs that it is still a legal requirement for patients to provide their explicit consent to ‘assign their benefit’ to their GP if they’re being bulk billed for a telehealth consult. While many consider this as a legal technicality, the DoH officials posted a memo on MBS Online enforcing this rule, and noting that it extends to telehealth consultations as well.

While the general sentiment is that Medicare need to review these rules, officials have decided that for the remainder of 2021, patients can give verbal consent during their consultation to assign their benefits to their GP. The easiest way for doctors to record this is in their consultation notes. Patients can also assign their benefit to an eligible provider via email, or a responsible third party – such as the patient’s carer or relative.

In summary, to ensure your practice is complying with legislation, a patient’s consent for the assignment of benefits can be provided in writing, by email, or verbally through the technology by which the consultation takes place. This agreement can be provided by the patient or another responsible third party, and the GP must record their patient’s assignment of benefits if they wish to claim benefits online without a patient’s signature.

What Other Telehealth Challenges Have Arisen?

One of the obvious downsides of telehealth consultations is the inability to give patients referrals, prescriptions, and other critical healthcare information which can be actioned immediately. Luckily, many eHealth initiatives have come to fruition since the COVID-19 outbreak which partly solve the challenges created by telehealth consultations.

Electronic prescriptions allow GPs to send patients their prescriptions via an electronic token regardless of their location, although emailing and faxing paper prescriptions to pharmacies is still commonplace. eOrdering for both pathology and radiology is also steadily increasing in popularity amongst labs around Australia. Participating laboratories allows GPs to send investigation requests to their labs electronically, although again, emailing and faxing investigation requests is still customary for telehealth patients.

Fact Sheets in Bp Premier allows for education materials to be emailed directly to patients via Healthshare. This is an excellent resource for telehealth consultations as it’s a quick and easy way to share critical healthcare information electronically. In addition, many of our users are enjoying the benefits of improved Secure Messaging – which was implemented in the release of Bp Premier Saffron.

For more information about telehealth consults, or to schedule a customised training session to demonstrate how these features can work for your practice, please reach out to our training team here.

Authored by:

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Matthew Smith
Training and Deployment Specialist at Best Practice Software

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My Turning Point In The Pursuit of Effective Practice Management

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Contributed by guest author, Dana Tse.

There is much more to effective practice management than what most people think about.

As practice managers, we are always on the go. Putting fires out, worrying about team members doing their job, eating on the run, filling our day with webinars, resolving complaints, making the practice run on time and being absorbed with the usual business of running a practice. 

This is the nature of our work, yes (often at a heightened level of drama with the pandemic), but are we exhibiting effective practice management? 

I mean, are we the most effective we can be? It’s often the adrenaline of a sprint each day, and solving problems on the go…but is this sustainable in the long term? Can we get through each day sprinting, if in reality, we are to pace ourselves for a marathon? Are we using the skill sets of Managers or Team Leaders? Are we actually leading or are we honorary senior administrators, filling in, patching over mistakes and doing it all over again the next day? 

Practice managers need healthy habits to be effective for the long term. We need to avoid the dreaded burn out- which is very real and quick to come by.  

I am no athlete, sprinter or marathon runner. I am guilty of drearily piling on the Covid kilos in 2020, after working 7 days a week and becoming very unhealthy.

It was during the start of the pandemic when I was in utter despair, and I reached out to find a coach to help me regain a good work-life balance.  

Alex is my coach, based all the way in Boston – and her influence has been amazing. I met her through a tough conversations challenge, which made me confront the issues I wanted to avoid. It’s a breath of fresh air to be supported and coached towards plans and goals.  

effective practice management quote

A coach is an investment in us. It is a form of self-care. Contrary to what many think, it’s also an investment in your team. When we are coachable, our needs are met, our tank gets rejuvenated and we can offer and perform more efficiently and exponentially. Having the accountability helps us to focus on what needs actioning. When we focus on changing the things in our control, we effectively work on the business.  

Some examples of the lasting changes and initiatives that Alex has lent herself towards instilling in me are: 

  • Monthly team meetings. We sit down and enjoy a lunch together. It has involved a treat (seafood market lunch, yum cha, local Uyghur food), team boding (trivia!) and planning.
  • Improving communication with morning huddles, debriefs at lunch, and 8am and 2pm update, especially useful during Covid-19 times.
  • Planning and meeting with each person intentionally every 6 months to help them reach their goals and mentor them through their journey.
  • Building an on-boarding framework for staff – from phone interviews, to face-to-face interviews, to a fully completed training program.
  • Training my team to take part in this leadership journey.

Demonstrating healthy habits has involved getting a ‘personal trainer’ in the professional field. When we are challenged to grow outside our comfort zone, to have tough conversations and to be intentional in our communication, we develop the culture of a supportive team built on strong, healthy foundations – and from there we exhibit more effective practice management.

Over time you will see the change.  

I am liberated with a work-life balance.  

Please reach out to let me know what you think. I would also love to hear from you and find out what keeps you going as a healthy practice manager!

Authored by:

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Dana Tse
Practice Manager at Campsie Medical Practice

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Real Time Prescription Monitoring – An Important Update

Bp Blog Header Image ePrescribing Update

Real Time Prescription Monitoring (RTPM) is a clinical tool providing real-time monitored medicines prescription information for prescribers and pharmacists to support safer clinical decision-making.

The use of a Real Time Prescription Monitoring tool is mandatory in some states and it is important to check your state-based legislation to ensure you are complying with any requirements. Currently, RTPM is available for Victorian and South Australian users of Bp Premier, with other states expected to come on board within the next 12-18 months.

To access RTPM in an enabled state, users must be registered for eRx or MediSecure and have the functionality enabled via the User Preferences window as per below:

For further information about configuring RTPM at your Practice, visit the Bp Premier Knowledge Base.

Authored by:

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Jess White
Technical Writer at Best Practice Software

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Looking to Become a Data-Empowered Practice? – Cubikon 2021

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With the increasing use of data in the day-to-day operation of a medical practice, data is now paramount to the ongoing success of a medical practice. We are now seeing more and more practices around Australia use their data to gain insight into how they are performing and to make smarter business decisions.

Join Best Practice Software Gold Partner Cubiko and their all-star line-up on 1 October 2021 for an action-packed day that celebrates data. Gain the tools and insights from leading experts on how to become a data-empowered practice PLUS get 40 AAPM approved CPD points.

Join pioneers and veterans of the industry, as well as Bp Software’s very own Dr Frank Pyefinch, Jessica White and Dr John Aloizos AM Chairman of Cubiko as they discuss everything data. They’ll share how General Practice has changed over the last 30 years and they’ll share the steps you can take now to ensure you’re able to continue to adapt in this changing landscape.

Bp Software’s Leading Training Specialist, Bec Bland will also be taking the stage, as she presents an Advanced Data Cleansing session. She’ll unpack the importance of data quality, take you through how to clean up your existing data, and provide the tips and tricks for creating and promoting better quality data recording practices in your clinic.

You’ll walk away from the day with a key understanding of:

  • How Cubiko can help you make sense of the data within your practice
  • How to become a high-performing business
  • How to increase your billings
  • How you can use your data to deliver outstanding patient care
  • How to become data-empowered
  • How you can use data to empower your team

REGISTER NOW to learn how you can become a data-empowered practice.

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R U OK? Day 2021 – A Reflection on Mental Health

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Each year R U OK? Day reminds us to stay connected, have meaningful conversations and encourage more people to ask R U OK? at work, school and in the community. The website includes suggestions for simple steps that could save a life:

  1. Ask
  2. Listen
  3. Encourage action
  4. Check in

There are conversations tips, videos of how to ask and resources including how to find professional help if needed if the conversation becomes too big for family and friends.

Lifeline provides a directory of free or low cost health and community services available in Australia for areas such as domestic violence, family and children’s services, financial assistance and mental health services at lifeline.serviceseeker.com.au

The BeyondNow suicide safety plan app helps create a safety plan in crisis and distress for those in need, ideally with support us, as health professionals, or someone they trust, to work through when they are experiencing suicidal thoughts, feelings, distress or crisis. The app is available to download and to read further about the app, see beyondblue.org.au

moodGYM is an online self-help program that has been available since 2001, using cognitive behaviour training to develop skills to manage depression and anxiety symptoms. The program allows real-time self monitoring of problem moods, thoughts and behaviours via mobile phone or computer. Those using the programme monitor three symptoms of their choice or three recommended to them by myCompass through answering the profiling questionnaire ( eg stress, depression, confidence, worry, irritability, motivation, diet and medication use) See moodgym.com.au

myCompass is a self-help tool for mental health, providing proven techniques to help manage stress, anxiety and depression.

Here are some of the agencies that offer good support to those in need:

  • Lifeline, 1311 14 for 24/7 crisis support, the Suicide Call Back at 1300 659 467
  • kidshelpline at 1800 55 1800 for counselling to young people under 25 years
  • Griefline on 1300 845 745

Authored by Dr Lisa Surman

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6 Key Elements of an Online Bio: A Medical Marketing Checklist

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Contributed by Bp Partner Healthsite’s Director, Lachlan McPherson.

Prospective patients in Australia are doing their homework by checking out the background of healthcare providers and their Practices. Are you doing enough with your medical marketing and online bio to win them over?

As the healthcare consumer landscape continues to evolve, patients are making increasingly frequent decisions within the digital environment. Putting your best foot forward online has become critical to attracting new patients and propelling both your organization and personal brand. Most medical Practices today recognise the importance of the usual online must-haves: a powerful website design, a comprehensive online presence, and search engine optimisation. But, sometimes, the simple things get overlooked.

A prime example of an often-ignored aspect of medical marketing is your bio. As a physician or other healthcare provider, you need to tell people who you are and what you do. Chances are you’re already doing that on your Practice website. But how effective are those bios?

Are they interesting? Clear and compelling? Do they assure patients you have the experience to meet their unique needs? Does your online bio give prospective patients a sense of your patient care philosophy or what they can expect from the patient-provider relationship?

Too often, patients find nothing more than a bulleted list of a doctor’s education and training, professional organisation memberships, and more rarely published research. Nothing about the doctor’s approach, specialty or subspecialty focus, and even some personal flavour.

Patients want to know more, and when they find a provider bio that aligns with what they’re looking for, they’re much more likely to move forward with booking an appointment.

The Power of Medical Marketing for Healthcare Professionals

When patients search online to find nearby medical care, the process is simple. They just want answers to their questions, ideally presented by a healthcare practitioner who is a good match for their needs. 

Prospective patients will naturally evaluate the Practices they encounter online, but they also narrow their search down to the provider level. They want to find a doctor who can deliver the care they need, with whom they feel they can connect with on a personal level. If they can gain that confidence online, even before an in-person visit, they are likely to choose that provider for an appointment.

That’s the connection your bio can make after a patient finds your website. But, your online provider biographies also help that person find your Practice’s website in the first place. The information within your provider bios can play an important role in your search engine optimisation, demonstrating to the search engine giants like Google that your providers are worthy of patients’ attention. 

By using keywords that align with the terms patients use when searching for your specialty, online bios can help increase the chances that your website, Practice, and providers rank well on search engine results pages (SERPs).

Checklist: Your Must-Haves for an Optimised Online Healthcare Provider Bio

Your bio has to be more than just an online curriculum vitae. Today’s savvy healthcare consumers are putting in the time and effort to find the right medical provider — and know they have options.

Your medical marketing needs to be a multi-pronged approach. Just as your Google business profile brings your Practice to life and lets consumers know you exist, a well-crafted bio helps prospective patients get to know you. It can affirm that you’re the provider they want to entrust with their health. 

When done right, doctor and provider bios can set your Practice apart from the competition, and contribute to new patient acquisition. How can your provider bios make a memorable impact, and convert more new patients? 

Here’s what you need, from our online bio checklist: 

  • A Professional Headshot Photo
    Ensure you have a warm and friendly smile, and that your providers are wearing their regular professional attire, and are looking directly into the camera. Avoid busy backgrounds or low-resolution photos taken with a mobile phone — this is one instance where investing in a professional photographer is well worth it.

  • Clinical Interests and Areas of Specialisation
    Quickly tell patients you have the expertise to meet their needs. For instance, if you’re a primary care doctor with an affinity for helping patients control diabetes or hypertension, mention that. Be as specific as you can. Highlighting any unique procedures you perform (especially if you’re the only practitioner in your area doing so) or rare conditions you treat. This will also help prospective patients searching for these services find and connect with you.

  • Education, Board Certifications, Fellowships and Years of Experience
    These establish your credibility and help patients identify a good provider match. Some patients prefer a younger doctor on the edge of innovation; others prefer a seasoned professional with decades of experience. Featuring this information will help savvy searchers find the provider they feel is the right fit.

  • Awards and Published Research
    Accolades and industry-recognised publications can offer third-party validation that you’re an exceptional provider. Published research can affirm your expertise in niche clinical areas, while awards can highlight your positive reputation. Both lend credibility and a level of achievement to you and your Practice.

  • A Patient Care Philosophy Statement
    This helps readers understand how you like to work with patients, and can give a sense of your personality and patient care style. Describing your approach to care gives you an opportunity to let patients know you’re a good listener. You may also want to include information on your hobbies, interests, and family, all which help prospective patients feel like they’re getting to know you. Most important, these statements often cut through the rest of the bio, breaking up what can sometimes feel clinical and formulaic.

  • A Link to Online Scheduling
    Linking to this directly from your bio page can make it fast and easy for website visitors to become new patients by scheduling an appointment online. This is of the key interactions patients are requiring by way of digital offerings. With research showing 7 out of 10 patients willing to switch doctors for a better or more convenient experience, these modern conveniences can also support patient retention.

The Bottom Line: Optimised Bios Can Contribute to Practice Success

To sum it up, in today’s increasingly competitive healthcare landscape, Practices that focus on optimising their medical marketing, in which healthcare provider biographies play a significant role, can stand out among the crowd. Professional provider bios demonstrate that your Practice has a top-notch team, while giving prospective patients the information they need to choose one of your providers and visit your Practice.

This article was contributed by Best Practice Software partner Healthsite’s Director, Lachlan McPherson.

For more information on the services they provide, you can visit their Bp Partner Network profile here, or visit the Healthsite website.

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Creating Your First Practice Website – 10 Essential Tips

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When it comes to medical website design, it’s important to remember that your Practice website is the single biggest online asset that connects all of your business efforts. With the growing number of patients browsing the internet for anything and everything, it makes sense for your Practice to leverage a website, otherwise you miss a huge opportunity for reaching new patients, and for keeping existing patients informed and connected to your Practice. With 73% of Australians surfing the internet for treatment and medical advice, having a Practice website is crucial to your identity and growing your business.

A good website shows you are serious about your business and that you care about your visitors. It’s all about perception – if it looks like you don’t care about your Practice website, then maybe you don’t care about other aspects of your Practice.

Practice Website Benefits Include:

  • A reduced workload for staff
    A detailed and easy to use website can do a lot of work for you, and save your staff time answering frequently asked questions on the phone. This time can be spent on more pertinent Practice matters, so that time can be more efficiently spent in the core focus of serving patient needs. Patients no longer have to call to make appointments or to ask how comprehensive your services are – all they need is to visit your website to get what they’re looking for!

  • 24/7 access to appointments and other online services
    Your website never sleeps, and your patients will be able to make appointments, request scripts and referrals, and access other online services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The expert website developers at Healthsite have helped hundreds of medical Practices around Australia take the first step into the digital marketplace. We have put together this list of hints and tips for creating your first Practice website, or updating an existing one.

Tip #1 - Know Your Target Audience

Before you start building a website, ensure that you understand your target audience. Your target audience will affect the website’s design, content, usability, and navigation. In short, your website revolves around your target audience.

At Healthsite, we help guide you through this process and start from the ground up to lock in your basics, such as the kind of patients you want to attract, your strengths and weaknesses, and the things that set you apart from your competitors.

Tip #2 - Mobile-Friendly Medical Website Design is Essential

More and more internet users are accessing websites on their phones and portable devices, with about 52% of webpage views coming from a smartphone

Because of this, it is important that your Practice website displays correctly and provides a great user experience on mobile devices. Mobile friendly design (sometimes called “responsive design”) is non-negotiable in 2021. Not just for user experience, but also for search engine optimisation – Google rewards websites that are mobile friendly (among other things). Many websites we manage have up to 75% of website visits occurring from a mobile device.

Tip #3 - Easy Navigation and Clear Calls to Action

There is nothing worse than trying to find information on a confusing website. People are time poor and will bounce off your website if they are unable to find what they are looking for quickly. You need to make sure your website is well-organised, easy to navigate, and has clear Calls to Action (CTAs).

Calls to Action, or CTAs are the things that encourage visitors to take an action, like booking an appointment through “Book Online” buttons, calling the Practice with “Call Now” buttons, downloading a document, or encouraging content sharing.

Not all CTAs are made equal, but those of great importance should be VERY easy to find on your Practice website. For example, a “Book Appointment” button should stand out and be easily accessible at all times.

The same can be said for phone number CTAs – this is especially important on mobile phones, as many people will click the phone number to call your clinic. It’s essential to make sure all phone numbers on your website are clickable, so people can easily call your number with a simple tap.

In terms of information organisation for navigation, the basic rule of thumb is to have important information a maximum of 2 clicks deep. i.e. the user has to click a maximum of two times to find what they are looking for.

Tip #4 - Put Your Most Important Content 'Above the Fold'

When a new visitor hits your website, you don’t have much time to make a great first impression. And the best way to do this is to make sure you are effectively utilising the space “above the fold” on the homepage of your website. “Above the fold” refers to the area at the top of your homepage before a user has to scroll.

Every medical website design is different, but we recommend including the following elements above the fold:

  • Practice name and location
  • Book Online button
  • Phone number (clickable)
  • Address (physical location or service areas)
  • Value statement/slogan/short description of what you offer: e.g. “GP Clinic servicing the Bathurst Community for 25 years”

Tip #5 - Design is Important!

Along with being easy to navigate, your website also needs to look good. This might seem like an obvious statement, but many people underestimate the impact of an attractive and professional design.

Yes, quality content is crucially important, but visitors to your Practice website are absolutely influenced by the design. They might not even realise it consciously, but we see it time and again, great looking websites that also do the fundamentals well, consistently outperform other less attractive websites.

The trick is, the website must not sacrifice usability for style. And therein lies the challenge of great medical website design – the perfect mix of looks and usability is the holy grail we are always looking for.

Tip #6 - The Need for Speed

How fast your website loads will have a great impact on how successful your site is. No one wants to wait around for a slow website to load, and this year Google has released an update that will punish slow loading websites. Knowing how to make your website fast is a skill that requires expert knowledge, however there are some basic guidelines that will help you avoid slow loading times:

  • Make sure you optimise your photos for their size they will be displayed at – photos on websites should be compressed in size and, where possible, are no larger than 100kb –  taking into consideration how many images are displayed on any given web page.
  • Use video carefully. Video is a great thing to have on your website, but it needs to be implemented to minimise slowing down your web page. A way of doing this is integrating via a hosting platform such as YouTube or Vimeo.
  • Make sure your hosting is up to scratch. You can do everything right, but your efforts will be wasted if your web hosting is too slow (see next point for more details).

Tip #7 - Get a Host with the Most

Once you have your beautiful new website ready to go live, you will need to find somewhere to host it. We cannot make this point strongly enough – DO NOT skimp on web hosting. There are some very cheap options out there, and unfortunately most very cheap options are cheap for a reason (they are lacking in many aspects).

Finding the best web hosting provider comes down to 3 things; speed, security and support. And if one of these is lacking, then you can run into problems quickly. Most agencies (including Healthsite) offer hosting and support packages. It’s vital that you have support because the website will require updates every month. Website maintenance is widely misunderstood, websites need to be backed up, updated, and managed, so they are protected against security issues, or performance problems.

Tip #8 - Don't Be Content with Bad Content

Well-designed and engaging content is crucial to strong medical website design. It drives brand awareness, demand and revenue when it’s done right; everything an ideal website would strive for.

Creating engaging content requires you to understand the needs of your patients, which can be generated with thorough research, proven medical information and statistics and searching for relevant keywords and key phrases.

Some basic guidelines for developing content include:

  • Make sure your content is well-organised and informative. Add FAQs if you think it will help the user.
  • Write for a wide audience and try to avoid using terminology that the average website visitor might not understand. Using clear and simple language is always desirable.
  • Break your text into smaller, easy to read chunks. This makes it easier to skim information quickly and allows the reader to find what’s important to them.
  • Include images with your text. Images can also help to break up large blocks of text as people scan your content to determine subconsciously its readability and will help with SEO
  • Include information about your doctors, AND photos of the doctors. We know how hard it can be to make this happen, but it is really important. The photos don’t have to be amazing, but including photos of smiling doctors puts a welcoming face and an authenticity to your Practice.
  • Take interior and exterior photos of your Practice, and ‘action’ shots to incorporate into your website, alongside the use of stock photos. It helps with authenticity and connection to visitors.

Tip #9 - Choose a Domain Name That is Unique and Brandable

Ideally, your domain name should reflect the product and services you offer. Choosing the right domain name is crucial for Practice growth. Try and avoid acronyms if you can. Domain names like www.tgpmc.com.au might seem like a good idea, but you are far better off choosing something that is easily recalled, includes your business name and your location if at all possible. 

For example, if you have a skin clinic in Dubbo, then a good domain name would be: www.dubboskinclinic.com.au as opposed to something like www.dsc.com.au.

Tip #10 - Be SEO Ready

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is both a science and an art. It’s an ongoing process of research, analysis and educated experimentation in telling search engines what kind of searches you want to show up for. You can have the most beautiful website in the world – but if no one can find you, it may as well not exist.

It’s unrealistic to expect great SEO results in the first few weeks of your website. This is because search engines like Google need to first ‘index’ your web page, which is the process of organising all the information contained on it. This needs to happen before any other metrics are assessed, and it takes time.

SEO is something that you may want to consider undertaking seriously after your site is launched. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get a head start, by building your website with SEO in mind from the outset. Some basic guidelines include:

  • Write good content and organise it logically
  • Ensure your content is well laid out, with images and headings breaking up text
  • Delete old pages before you go live
  • Make sure your site can be indexed
  • Add page meta descriptions
  • If you are updating your existing website, make sure you redirect old URLs. If you don’t, people will see the ‘page not found’ error or similar – which should be avoided when possible.

Wrapping Up - Consider Hiring an Agency for Your First Practice Website

These days, medical website design can be done by just about anyone. But doing it well, with all its nuances, subtleties, and performance functionality requirements, you will get a far superior result if you hire professionals to build it for you.

Seriously consider hiring a professional or agency that has experience in medical or other healthcare-associated industries. Ideally, they’ll know the AHPRA guidelines and have wide-ranging healthcare industry experience.

Look for agencies that offer ongoing website support and are open to responding quickly to website changes. E.g. adding notices for modifications to Practice entry or booking procedures during the pandemic.

Make sure the agency you choose has proven SEO expertise and builds the website accordingly and choose one that has a broad range of skills to future-proof your web presence, which can be the difference between success and failure.

Finally, ask what else they offer that can help you. Most agencies have a range of complementary services that can help promote and expose your business to a broader audience.

This article was contributed by Best Practice Software partner Healthsite. 

For more information on the services they provide, you can visit their Bp Partner Network profile here, or visit the Healthsite website.

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Feature Requests & Enhancements – What Happens to Them?

Best Practice Software Feature Request Process

Best Practice Software product enhancements and feature requests are received frequently from our engaged user base, and often fuel our development roadmap. From time to time, we have users enquire about the request they’ve submitted and how it’s progressing.

As a customer-centric organisation, we highly value engagement with our customers and the insights it provides us. In a similar vein, we’ll shed light on our internal, end-to-end process for receiving, reviewing and prioritising these requests, to demystify what happens when you submit a request.

Being a Customer-Centric Organisation Means Listening to Users

First let’s talk a bit about what it means to be a customer-centric organisation. 

From the very first line of code that was written at Best Practice Software, customers have been at the heart of what we do. Our founders set out to solve some of the challenges our customers and Practices experience each day. It’s the reason why our motto, ‘designed by a doctor, for doctors’ is a key pillar in our organisation.

A lot has happened since that first line of code was written in 2004, but our customer-centric ethos has remained unchanged. So, let’s talk more about how we listen to our valued customers and what we do with the insights, feedback, enhancement and feature requests that we receive.

You Tell Us, We Listen - A Multi-Channel Approach to Receiving Requests

The world keeps changing, and new challenges arise, which consequently generates new ideas and requirements. This is also why product development does not stop. A great way for us to keep up with change and understand the ever-changing needs of our customers is to listen.

Listening to the voice of our customers is not a “single lane” approach. It takes multiple channels and methods through different interaction points that occur between us and the users. The important piece that ties everything together is that the feature enhancements are logged into the same product review backlog. Here’s an example of what a multi-channel approach means to us.

Multi-channel Approach to Listening to Customers:

  • Sales
    • Customer enhancement requests that we receive through sales interactions and account management are logged and placed into review.
  • Support
    • Like sales, feature requests received by support also get logged into the same review process.
  • Marketing
  • Beta testing customers
    • Feedback from beta customers is incredibly important, as it not only provides us with feedback on new features, it serves as another channel for us to receive suggestions and ideas for feature enhancements as well.
  • Product customer interviews
    • As part of our product development processes including User Experience (UX), we conduct interviews to gain insight on how customers use our products, potential pain points they experience, and to identify how we can best improve a feature in development. Feature enhancement requests in this channel are either incorporated directly into the design, or if the enhancement suggestion relates to another feature, we’d then log the request and/or provide it directly to the team members who manage that area of the product.
  • Product feedback tools
    • Some of our products provide a mechanism to submit feature enhancement requests directly from the product, or a link to send us the feedback.

Reviewing, Determining Value and Prioritising Feature Requests and Enhancements

Feature enhancement requests are incredibly important to us, as they not only provide us with an opportunity to improve a feature, but they also give us new insights into how customers are using the product, which changes alongside evolving user needs.

Every feature enhancement request we receive is carefully reviewed and considered by our Product team. While some make it onto our development roadmap, others are added to a log for future consideration. This is always a balancing act, as we need to evaluate whether a feature enhancement suits the majority of users, a user discipline or a user group. Sometimes an idea can be great, but it may only suit a very specific need and could potentially impact other users. When reviewing and prioritising requests, we take the following steps:

  1. Validation
    • Review the problem being solved and why it should be built
    • How will the request enhance / improve a feature and how it will help users?
  2. User Patterns
    • Does the feature enhancement help the majority of users, a discipline, user group, or only one/specific user?
  3. Clinical review (if applicable)
    • If the feature enhancement is clinical, then our clinical committee needs to assess risk and any other clinical factors involved.  
  4. Requirements & Scope
    • Identify the requirements needed to build the feature enhancement.
    • Determine scope of the feature enhancement.
  5. Feasibility & Effort
    • Estimate the effort and feasibility of building the feature enhancement.
  6. Value and backlog priority
    • Based on the factors above, determine a value for the feature enhancement and prioritise it with other requests in the backlog.
  7. Decision
    • Based on the above, make a decision whether the feature enhancement should be approved, rejected or flagged to be reviewed and considered again in the future.
    • If approved for development, establish its priority in relation to other approved items on the roadmap.

All requests, whether they are approved or not, are maintained in a log, allowing us to revisit them anytime, and to identify any growing trends for a certain feature requests. What might not be feasible to build or prioritise right now, might still be a relevant enhancement down the track. 

Our staff also contribute valuable ideas and suggestions, based on their interactions with customers, industry insights and/or product expertise. 

One of the key challenges of any software development organisation is determining value and prioritising the backlog. The priority of each feature enhancement request needs to be evaluated against other features already in development, features sitting in backlog, bugs, regulatory changes, industry, and government initiatives. This determines when a feature enhancement can be built.

Keep Them Coming!

I hope you enjoyed this insight into how much we value customer feedback, listen to our customers’ requests, and our process for reviewing and actioning your suggestions. To send us enhancement suggestions, new feature requests, or let us know about any challenges you may be facing, utilise this enquiry form on our website

Keep helping us improve our products, which are ultimately built for you!

Authored by:

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Henry Vesander
Manager of Product Management at Best Practice Software

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Changes to the Closing the Gap PBS Co-Payment

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From 1 July 2021, changes to the Closing the Gap (CTG) PBS Co-payment have taken effect. These changes will allow patients eligible for the co-payment relief to benefit from cheaper medicines, or free medicines if they have a concession or health care card, under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

Previously, only Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders living with, or at risk of, chronic diseases were eligible for the CTG PBS Co-payment program. After 1 July, however, patients will be eligible if they meet the following criteria:

  • Self-identify as an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Australian
  • Will have setbacks in preventing or managing their condition if they don’t take the medicine
  • Are unlikely to keep up their treatment without help with the cost
  • Are enrolled with Medicare

To support these changes and make the registration process easier, Services Australia has introduced a national registration database where patients must be registered to receive these co-payment benefits. Patients who were previously registered will have their registrations transferred to the new database, and nothing further will be required from them.

Only PBS prescribers and Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Health practitioners (who are registered with both AHPRA & Medicare) will be able to add new registrations to the national database via the Health Professional Online Service (HPOS) once they have received consent from eligible patients.

For Bp Premier users, there will be no changes to workflows within the system. Eligible patients will still need to have their ethnicity recorded, and the ‘Registered for CTG PBS Co-payment Relief’ checkbox must be ticked in the patient’s demographic window.

PBS Co-payment article ethnicity field screenshot

For prescribers using Bp Premier, prescriptions created in Bp Premier will have the relevant alpha numeric code included, such as ‘CTG00B’, on both paper and electronic prescriptions. For handwritten prescriptions, prescribers can include the letters ‘CTG’ along with their initials or signature. While annotation is not a legal requirement, it will help pharmacists in dispensing the medicine.

Further information on changes to the Closing the Gap PBS Co-payment can be found on Services Australia’s website.

Authored by:

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Jessica White
Manager of Commercial and Customer Enablement at Best Practice Software

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An Interview With AAPM (Australian Association of Practice Management)

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The Australian Association of Practice Management, or AAPM, is the peak national association and professional body dedicated to supporting effective practice management in Australian healthcare.

We spoke with Miranda Grace, the Manager of Engagement and Member Services at the AAPM, about some of the unique challenges the organisation has faced over the past 18 months, as well as how they continue to advocate for Practice Managers nationwide.

Q: As one your longstanding partners, we love seeing the various ways in which you support your Practice Manager members. For readers who may not be familiar with AAPM and the services your association provides, can you provide a brief overview on the support and resources you provide?

A: We are dedicated to supporting effective practice management in the healthcare profession, and provide our valued AAPM members with a suite of resources to assist them in their day-to-day activities.

AAPM provides support through its membership team, dedicated HR Advisory Service, the online Practice Community Portal and in the development and coaching of career pathways. This recognises experience and qualifications for members to achieve a Certified Practice Manager status or Fellow as they develop in their career.

The Australian Association of Practice Management provides resources and support in the following key areas:

  • Financial management
  • Human resource management
  • Business planning and marketing
  • Risk management
  • Governance and organisational dynamics
  • Information technology management
  • Business and clinical operations
  • Professional responsibility

Q: What did you observe to be the greatest or most common challenge facing Practices in 2020, and how do you think that’ll shift in 2021 and 2022?

A: The single greatest challenge for Practices in 2020 and continuing through 2021 – 22 is Practice Managers’ mental health.

The COVID pandemic has had a significant effect on Practice Managers. Often in isolated roles, and the leader in the business, they take on their own personal challenges, together with that of the team and the Practice as a whole. This has seen many Practice Managers step away from their job, retire early or dedicate time to recruit new team members. All of these have significant impact, and we will see this over the next few years, particularly until most of the population have been able to receive their vaccine.

Quote box infographic mental health of practice managers

The above mental health impacts flow through to business revenues and in some cases, can cause Practices to close as operations become unviable. The new healthcare reform will further impact Practices over the coming years, however, until the COVID pandemic settles globally, this will be the greatest ongoing challenge for the foreseeable future.

Q: COVID-19 has obviously had a massive impact on our economy and nearly every business in Australia. Often in the face of adversity, innovation and opportunity are born. What have been some of the challenges Practice Managers have faced over the past year, and how have they adapted to overcome those challenges?

A: The silver lining for Practice Managers has been the agile and responsive approach from software vendors to Practices. Being able to deliver fast and practical solutions to allow for Practices to work effectively, even in remote locations, has shown the innovation available.

Physical treatment of patients has been a challenge for many Practices. The adoption of telehealth consultations has become increasingly popular and more practical than ever before. Again, Practice Managers have adapted their Practices, mostly with the assistance of their software provider to overcome this challenge.

Q: What percentage of your members are female and what percentage are male? Do you think female and male Practice Managers face different challenges, and if so, why do you think that is?

A: The profession has always attracted more females than males. At present, the AAPM has 91% female members and 9% male. Practice Managers experience the same challenges, regardless of their gender. The role of a Practice Manager is diverse and anyone who can juggle many things, show compassion, empathy, leadership, and all that goes with business management, succeeds in their chosen profession.

Q: Government initiatives have come down the pipeline fast and hard as of late (i.e. Active Ingredient Prescribing, Secure Messaging, ePrescribing, SafeScript, National Cancer Screening Register, My Health Record etc.). Which has challenged Practices the most and why? What have Practices looked forward to most?

A: The answer to the question is in the question – “government initiatives have come down the pipeline fast”. This has been incredibly challenging for Practice Managers to understand the changes, adopt and implement in a short amount of time.

Initiatives which provide a “toolkit” seem to be easier to digest and implement, however, when there are constant updates that also require software updates to take advantage of the tool, it presents further challenges.

Q: How has the shift to corporate ownership of Medical Practices impacted healthcare in your opinion and through your observations? Has it impacted the role of practice managers, and how so?

A: Corporate ownership has not had a significant impact on the role of Practice Managers. In many instances, the role of the Practice Manager is sought out more and regarded as a leading role in the business. In addition, this often leads to further career opportunities and growth in a Practice, and can offer a different type of experience to single or Doctor owned Practices.

The Australian Association of Practice Management has experienced growth in the recruitment of Corporate owned Practices becoming members.

Q: What is something that is right around the corner that many companies/organisations are not considering?

A: More technological solutions. Future patients are spoilt for choice with technological solutions, and Practice Managers and their Practices need to embrace this to remain competitive.

Australian association of practice management quote box infographic adapting technology into practices

Q: We’ve recently seen criticism emerge in the news about the pace of the COVID vaccine rollout. What is your take on this?

A: It is a significant issue and challenge for everyone. There is limited firsthand experience in dealing with a pandemic and fast-tracking a vaccine rollout, however, the pace and process has been less than desirable. The changes to information, the shifting dates of deliverables adds to concern and lack of confidence.

Q: What are your go-to resources for all things Practice Management, that our readers could bookmark for themselves?

A: The AAPM website – aapm.org.au member portal. This is where to find the latest information and resources.

Q: What healthcare trends have you seen emerge over the past 1-2 years, and does this surprise you? Can you please elaborate on why this surprised you, or if it didn’t why that is?

A: The main trend has been telehealth and technological advances. This hasn’t surprised us, but it will be interesting to further watch its growth.

Q: Where do you see General Practice in 10 years’ time? What will be the biggest change?

A: Perhaps we will have a clinic on Mars? Perhaps it will be AI appointments?

GPs are the most frontline business when it comes to healthcare. This is changing and the pandemic has fast tracked this. The future will host far more technology supported services and the scope of development is as far as the imagination can take you.

Best Practice Software would like to thank Miranda Grace and the Australian Association of Practice Management for contributing to this article. For more information on the AAPM or the resources and services they provide, you can visit their website here.
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