Meet Kate – Practice Manager
Healthcare Office
Fully Managed Healthcare IT Support at Reduced Rates
Healthcare Practice Requires Full IT Support
Kates works at a physician-owned endocrinology healthcare practice for diabetic patients. They do not have a Healthcare IT (HIT) specialist and her end users are not tech-savvy. Currently, they are using an independent contractor to support the network and staff.
Kates Healthcare IT Environment
The healthcare practice has 5 endocrinologists, 20 fulltime employees, 25 computers, 5 servers, and one firewall. Her electronic medical records (EMR), billing software, and Exchange are on-premise in her server closet.
Kate’s Healthcare IT Challenges
On most days Kate is overwhelmed. After all, she oversees office staff, patient billing, insurance coding, appointment setting, patient records, HIPAA Compliance, OSHA Compliance, MACRA reporting, and all the vendor contracts. Doctors and nurses have high expectations as they navigate their patient’s needs throughout the day. Every day is a surprise and a challenge.
The Day Everything Fell Apart
On the last day of the year, New Year’s Eve, the EMR server unexpectedly crashed. Doctors couldn’t see patients, staff couldn’t respond to the patient requests, and labs couldn’t be drawn.
Patients were frustrated because they took time off from work and were not being seen. Even worse, many of them had met their deductibles and were trying to squeeze in that one last visit before the deductibles started over. Now they would have to reschedule and pay the deductible.
Kate didn’t know if she should send the patients and staff home or have them wait. Time and time again she tried to reach the independent contractor to no avail. She knew he was on vacation, but he said he could be reached by phone. Despite what he said, she could not reach him.
Everyone at the healthcare practice was looking for Kate to fix the issue. At 3 PM she called it and told the staff and patients to go home. She would have to deal with the fallout later.
It wasn’t until the morning of January 2nd when the independent contractor was back in the office. Unfortunately, it took him a long time to diagnose the problem as he had never seen this particular issue before and had no one else to consult with for help. Again, the healthcare practice doctors, staff, and patients waited while he searched for answers. At 2 PM he finally found the answer and fixed it.
Kate realized, she needed to find a reliable Healthcare IT Partner – fast.
Issues With Using an Independent Contractor for a Healthcare Practice
There are a number of issues with using an independent contractor for a healthcare practice. First, they are person, one set of hands, one set of skills, and one single point of failure. Further, they do not have the sophisticated ticketing, monitoring, and tracking systems an MSP has. Unfortunately, in this case, the independent contractor was unknowingly out of range in his rented mountain cabin.
Kate chose an independent contractor to save money. He only charged $75 per hour. There was no onboarding cost or monthly fee. In fact, she could pay as she went.
Kate decided to do the math. She has 5 doctors who can see 4 patients per hour. That is a loss of $4,000 per hour and $32K in revenues per day. Not to mention some very upset patients. In essence, this one incident wiped out all cost savings over the years.
INSI’s Healthcare IT Support Solution
Kate is suffering from all the things mentioned in the independent contractor (ad hoc) section. They may be cheaper, but it will cost you more – especially if you charge billable time like in Kates’s situation.
INSI proposed a flat rate managed plan for all of Kates Healthcare IT needs. Due to INSI’s tiered structure, she still receives a highly discounted rate on 80% of her IT support cost. Most importantly, she has access to a highly-skilled IT team, who utilizes robust IT management software, to deliver superior results.
