PRN Funding Headed to ACE2012 to Talk Factoring to MTSOs

PRN Funding, LLC has been invited to exhibit at The Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI)’s Annual Convention and Expo.

This year’s event, held at the JW Marriott Indianapolis August 8-11, is an exciting one. All AHDI attendees are invited to stop by the company’s booth #108, to secure a stamp to help them win a prize in the Wheel of Prizes game. President Phil Cohen and Marketing Manager Nikki Flores will be available to share insider tips on the benefits of medical transcription factoring.

Click here to read the press release in its entirety: PRN Funding, LLC to Travel to Indianapolis as Experts on Medical Transcription Factoring

Swipe Fees Threaten Merchant-Customer Relationships Nationwide

Did any of the small business owners who regularly read The Factoring Blog see the article in The Wall Street Journal today, entitled: The Swipe Fee Conundrum?

We thought our small business factoring readers and Americans everywhere should be concerned about a recent court settlement against major credit card companies that may open “the way for millions of businesses to add checkout fees when customers pay with plastic.”

This surcharge comes as the result of 1-3% charges burdened on businesses by credit card companies. This fee may be passed on to customers, who may remain entirely unaware that they are being charged extra for credit card companies’ profit.

Of course, though most business owners would rather be transparent in dealing with swipe fees, “many don’t want to run the risk of alienating credit-card users” by exposing swipe fees to the public.

The fees, which have been deemed by merchants and customers alike as “petty” is undermining the relationships that business owners have with their clientele, as well as the hard-won credibility that make those relationships work.

According to this article in The Wall Street Journal, “The proposed settlement sets aside $6.05 billion,” and “the biggest portion of the money will likely go to large retailers.”

Small business owners may be fortunate to even receive several hundred dollars from the settlement, making this lawsuit a purely corporate affair.

Supreme Court Stuns Nation with Obamacare Decision

The outcome appeared uncertain, but in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to be constitutional in accordance with U.S. tax laws.

Chief Justice John Roberts opined that the individual mandate, the clause compelling all Americans to own some sort of health insurance, was unconstitutional if the penalty took the form of a fine. Instead, if

Americans decided not to follow the individual mandate, they would be taxed in accordance with the burden that any potential uninsured illnesses might pose to taxpayers.

Though, prior to signing the bill into law in March 2010, the president had vehemently denied the bill to be a tax, his wording was corrected by the court on Thursday June 28, 2012.

Beyond compelling Americans to purchase policies from healthcare insurance companies, the bill also limits insurance companies’ rights to severability. The PPACA holds that no insurance company can terminate coverage because of a person’s pre-existing condition.

Limitations upon the rights of private sector insurance firms are subsequently countered by the bill’s expansion of Medicaid. The federal government has offered to fund the expansion in every state, to the tune of 100% of the cost.

The act, pejoratively known as Obamacare, has a host of pros and cons that will be sure to affect the well-being of each and every American. It is unforeseeable how our small business, healthcare factoring clientele will be affected, but we will keep you posted as new information becomes available.

The Future and Foundations of Medical Transcription

There was an interesting article in For The Record Magazine last month that the medical transcription factoring specialists at PRN Funding wanted to share with our medical transcription readers–Utterly Essential. Keep reading for a brief overview of the article:

Could it be that the old way of doing things is more effective than the new? When it comes to medical transcription, many doctors still stress the benefits of dictation for providing patient care that is at once more personal, nuanced and efficient.

In his 2007 article in Family Practice Management, David E. Trachtenbarg, MD shared that “clicking or typing text multiple times is generally slower than dictating…Using discrete data, it took me 95 seconds to complete 17 clicks for yes-or-no questions, five text boxes that required typing and two drop-down lists. In contrast, it took me 41 seconds to document the same history using dictation.”

Furthermore, Jason Mitchell, MD, was quoted in Utterly Essential as saying that dictation can “capture nuances and subtleties that cannot be communicated strictly through EHR fields.”

While dictation certainly makes relationships between individual patients and doctors more personal, meaningful, and effective; in the grand scheme of data collection, the tape recorder certainly has its shortcomings. Even with burgeoning vocal-recognition technology like Apple’s “Siri,” harvesting, codifying and putting dictated notes to good use is a process that presents many challenges to the health information industry.

After all, EHR has many benefits. Though it has been criticized for turning highly-paid doctors into data-entry clerks, medical practices are experimenting with cost-effective methods of implementing the process.

One method-which is rapidly becoming dated-involves a scribe whose job is to communicate with the physician and record the finer points of the patient’s case. This allows the doctor more time to see more patients.

Though it would seem to make sense to have nurses act as scribes, Jason Mitchell, MD, argues otherwise. Mitchell, who acts as the assistant director of the American Academy of Family Physicians’ Center for Health IT, believes it to be “more cost-effective to bring someone in on a lower pay scale.”

According to For the Record, Mitchell goes on to assert that “as software becomes more developed… the scribe’s role will eventually become obsolete.”

What does this mean for our medical transcription factoring clientele? It means that the future of EHR has to incorporate, in some meaningful way, the efficient, interpersonal process of dictation. Software must be developed that can enter dictation into EHR, codify it for future diagnostic purposes, and save it for the physician’s use.

By improving the process of extracting discrete data from patients’ narratives, the combined forces of dictation and EHR could save lives in both the present and the future, using all of the methods and information from the healthcare industry’s past.

Social Media for the Mind and Body – Jiff Reveals ‘Circle of Life’

If you can believe it, there is now a social network devoted to the collective wellness of healthcare consumers. Members of Jiff Inc.’s new platform, Circle of Health, will be able to embed a profile at the center of their very own network of friends, family, doctors, nurses, and insurance agents.

According to last month’s edition of the health information magazine, For the Record, Circle of Health (a HIPAA-approved service) will allow consumers to “share medical documents, videos, and information useful to managing health and wellness” with a network of three to fifteen people. This limited size will allow for greater privacy, facilitating simpler interactions among members of each network. Furthermore, Jiff is pushing to further simplify their platform by constructing an array of applications for member use.

The service may prove revolutionary, says Jiff CEO Derek Newell: “To date, healthcare has been communicated only on paper and through phone calls and office visits. This is a $2.7 trillion industry without an effective way for physicians to communicate and effectively keep track of the patient’s progress between office visits. Circle of Health changes that.”

Our medical transcription factoring clientele can find out more about this service on Circle of Health’s website.

Happy Medical Transcription Week 2012

Did you know that President Ronald Regan established May 20-26 as National Medical Transcriptionist Week? He did–In 1985.

So the medical transcription invoice funding experts at PRN Funding, LLC wanted to wish all of medical transcription blog readers a very Happy Medical Transcription Week!

Of course, the MT industry is not going away, but it is in a constant state of flux as large MTSOs acquire small ones in addition to incorporating EHRs. If you’re an MTSO or a transcriptionist, we want to hear your thoughts on the future of the industry. Feel free to leave comments.

Medical Receivable Factoring vs. Healthcare Factoring

When it comes to factoring in the healthcare industry, there are two different kinds of companies that can benefit from what’s commonly referred to as healthcare factoring and/or medical factoring. Both types of healthcare companies make ideal invoice factoring candidates because both routinely bill creditworthy slow-paying customers. The Marketing Manager at PRN Funding took the time to explain the differences in the video below:

The first variation of the healthcare factoring model involves entrepreneurs who own a service-oriented business within the healthcare industry. Specifically, medical transcription services, medical equipment providers, medical supply companies, medical staffing agencies, temporary nurse registries, outsourced medical coding companies, medical billing services, etc. can all benefit greatly by factoring their invoices. Healthcare factoring can be extremely beneficial for vendors hoping to maintain a positive cash flow when their customers (medical providers) take weeks or months to pay them for their services or goods. Click here to learn more about PRN Funding’s healthcare factoring solution.

On the other hand, medical receivables factoring includes a third party payer (i.e. Medicaid, Medicare or private insurance company) within the medical invoicing process. In this instance, the medical provider is the one who benefits from factoring.

Medical receivables factoring is a great way for medical providers to bridge the cash flow gap that is oftentimes created by slow payments from insurance carriers and other third-party payers.

As experts in the healthcare factoring marketplace, PRN Funding has developed relationships with credible medical factoring companies that specialize in helping hospitals, nursing homes, physicians’ practices, etc. maintain a positive cash flow.

Click here for more information on healthcare factoring vs. medical factoring.

Aging Workforce is Straining Social Security

Did you happen to see the Associated Press article on Monday entitled: Aging workforce strains Social Security, Medicare?

If not, the healthcare factoring specialists at PRN Funding summarized the startling findings below:

Social Security and Medicare, the government’s two largest benefit programs, are in worse shape than previously thought due to the increasing aging population and the slow-rebounding economy. Moreover, Medicare is in the worst shape because of rising health insurance costs.

The predictions from last year was that the Medicare hospital insurance fund for seniors would run out of money in 2024, and Social Security’s retirement fund would run out in 2038, with the disability fund running out of money by 2018.

The latest projections from March indicate that the disability fund would run out of money two years earlier in 2016.

CDIA (formerly MTIA) Closing its Doors

Did any of our medical transcription invoice factoring blog readers see the letter that the board members of the Clinical Documentation Industry Association posted on their web site?

If not, here’s a copy of what’s on the site’s home page:

Dear CDIA Members and Supporters,

The Clinical Documentation Industry Association (CDIA) has weathered many financial challenges over the past few years from the significant contraction in the marketplace and overall unhealthy economic conditions. In response, we rebranded the association to expand our reach beyond medical transcription, editing, voice, and speech recognition to encompass every touch point in the clinical documentation continuum. Our flagship event, the CDIA Annual Conference, had broadened the educational program to bring together these complementary audiences.

Unfortunately, the external factors have become too strong for the association to overcome and this is why we are writing to you today. On behalf of the CDIA Board of Directors, we regret to inform you that the association is closing and the annual conference planned for April 2012 in Baltimore, MD has been cancelled.

This has been a very difficult decision that the Board did not take lightly. The association’s finances could no longer sustain the organization to serve the members and support the annual conference. Over the next several weeks, CDIA representatives will be winding down the association and information will be sent regarding recent payments made to the association.

Thank you for your support of CDIA and participation in the association. We encourage you to continue to promote the spirit of CDIA’s mission, values, and advocacy platform as you continue your involvement in other associations, including the Health Story Project (www.healthstory.com) and AHDI (www.ahdionline.org).

Sincerely,

The Clinical Documentation Industry Association

The medical transcription invoice funding specialists asked the president of PRN Funding, Phil Cohen, what his thoughts were on the CDIA’s closing, and this is what he had to say:

First and foremost, on a personal level, I’m saddened by the announcement. I’ve either exhibited or attended the annual CDIA show since 1992! However, I don’t believe that the association’s closing is any indication that the medical transcription (or clinical documentation industry) is hurting. Rather, it just shows how the amount of mergers and acquisitions have been affecting the industry. To date, there are fewer smaller MTSOs in the industry and there are also fewer large players in the industry. For an association to remain active, viable and financially sound, it needs more contributing members, not fewer.

QUESTION: What are your thoughts on CDIA’s closing?

Temporary Hospice Staffing Factoring Case Study

The temporary hospice staffing factoring specialists at PRN Funding recently invited one of our current hospice staffing clients to “spill the beans” in a tell-all interview about her experiences with using PRN Funding as a medical staffing factor.

Although the video and printed interview is posted on PRN Funding’s web site, we also included them on The Factoring Blog for all of our medical staffing agency owners.

Chastity Williams has a big heart, and she had a big dream. As a long term care nurse she had many encounters with hospice nursing. In 2007, there was a tremendous nursing shortage and hospice was a very misunderstood area of health care. Chastity knew she could help make a difference in people’s lives and wanted to start her own hospice temporary staffing agency – Nursing by Demand.

“Like everyone else, I had an idea and thought I’d open a business. When I started I was all heart and had big ideas for the nursing part, but I didn’t know as much about the business part.” She felt uncertainty as many entrepreneurs do, and wondered how she’d be able to raise payroll.

“Chastity had a couple clients lined up before she started, but as in many new business situations, they didn’t pay quite fast enough. So she didn’t have the cash on hand to meet payroll. That’s a lot of pressure for a new business,” says Ryan Elliott, her Account Manager at PRN.

A business loan was out of the question – Chastity was adamant that she didn’t want to start a business with debt. She did some research and came across PRN Funding’s web site as well as some others, and looked into several.

Click here to continue reading why Chastity decided to choose PRN Funding as her hospice staffing factor.

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