Lisa Hansen Physiotherapy

With nine full and part-time physiotherapists working across clinics in different parts of town, Lisa Hansen Physiotherapy often found itself stuck with the problem of having a patient attending one clinic while the patient’s records were stored at the other. The result: significant expense, labour and delays, and risks to confidentiality, resulting from moving the records from clinic to clinic.

Similarly, with billing and other processing, as often as not the required records were in the other clinic.

As a result, says practice owner Lisa Hansen, reception staff were tied up for as much as two hours a day just retrieving and replacing files. “Our three receptionists were getting overloaded – with all the mucking around getting files from place to place, they couldn’t get all their work done.”

With increasing financial pressures on the practice due to changes in Accident Compensation Commission (ACC) rules, adding another receptionist was out of the question.

Worse still, as the volume of records built up, the practice was forced to rent off-site storage, meaning extra expense, as well as even more hassle, if a patient’s history had to be retrieved from storage.

Furthermore it was becoming clear to Hansen that ACC would be bringing increasing pressure to bear on physiotherapy practices to submit claims and provide copies of notes electronically.

Lisa chose Houston Medical’s VIP Allied to bring her practice up to speed. “We made immediate cost savings because we weren’t moving files all over town, and the worry about keeping client confidentiality was gone.  And we also saw an immediate saving in the time taken up with filing, although scanning takes up some of that time. But now, at least, our receptionists can easily cope with their workload.”

Despite not being very computer literate herself, Lisa jumped into using the new computerised systems, even going so far as to design, with the help of Houston specialists, forms that emulated her existing paper forms, as she foresaw a challenge in getting her clinical staff to move to computer-based forms.

“It was a mindset. I knew that a lot of physios resist moving to computers because they like the personal contact, and they feel a computer screen and keyboard gets in the way of that. But with forms that looked much like the ones they were used to, it wasn’t such a huge shift, and with fields pre-ticked and with pre-set quick-key short cuts available so they can fill out much of a form with only a few clicks – rather than having to write the same thing out again and again in long hand, the uptake was fine.”

Lisa Hansen says the transition was not all plain sailing, and the balance of work has shifted for both practitioners and admin staff. “The system took a bit of time to get used to, and there’s more work up front, but now you can see in seconds what work’s been done with a patient, and you can access that information from wherever you are. Those advantages, on top of the cost savings we’ve made, totally justify our move.”

Lisa Hansen adds that now, no paper documents need make the hazardous trip across town, and there’s reduced need for off-site storage.

“I’d recommend for anyone thinking about going paperless like we have, that they factor in time for planning – we did and it paid off. Being able to create customised forms to suit how your practice works is also a key factor. I’d also suggest that they consider getting Houston to supply all the hardware as well as software – that way there can be no passing the buck between hardware and software vendor, since Houston takes responsibility for all of it, and their people are very approachable about helping with other things like virus protection.”

87 Clarence Street and 750 Victoria Street, Hamilton, NZ
Phone 838 3798 or 834 0333 ext 2

Bigfoot Podiatry grows with Houston VIP

Starting out 12 years ago as a sole operator podiatry practice, Bigfoot Podiatry has grown to include six practitioners across two sites covering podiatry and, recently, osteopathy.

The only way this growth could have been achieved, says founder Justin Chong, who manages the operational systems of the business, was to move from paper-based processes to a fully integrated electronic practice management system. Bigfoot took on Houston Medical’s VIP soon after start up and they’ve been with them ever since.

Bigfoot Podiatry operates in Howick and Northcote, delivering services across all facets of podiatry, but with a special focus on sports and lower limb injuries.

Right from the start Chong knew that electronic systems would enable increased productivity and lower operating costs for his business. He took on an early version of Houston Medical’s VIP practice management software, and the system has grown and developed alongside Chong’s business.

“When I started in 1998 I just wanted to get off paper. At first I used Houston to help me do my ACC billing but since I moved to VIP five or six years ago I’ve been able to run all my patient information off it.”

“No way could we have grown the business like this using paper,” says Chong.

“When we took over Howick three years ago the first thing we did was move them off paper – writing everything down is just too hard – and setting up the new clinic systems was easy to do.”

Now all practitioners and staff key patient data straight into the system, and all accounts and medical processing is completed electronically.

Regardless of which practice the patient attends, all his or her medical and accounts records are immediately available to the practitioner and administrators. Authorised users can access the data from anywhere. In fact Chong has been known to log in while on holiday to check up on things back at the office. “I dialled in once when I was in Thailand.
It was a bit slow, but it was all there for me, just as if I was in the office.”

VIP also enables much closer management oversight of how the business is running, says Chong.

“One of the most important things we’re able to do with Houston is run customised reports,” says Chong. Chong worked with Houston staff to develop a suite of reports based on the business’ specific needs.

Monique Ujdur joined BigFoot as a partner six years ago. She says VIP provides a good running tally of the key indicators of the business, along with standard revenue data, such as cash in, average cost per patient, and so on.  “VIP reports on the number of orthotics produced, broken down by clinician, daily revenue for each site, clinical hours billed for each clinician, billable appointment slots, capacity rating for the week and much more.”

“VIP is essential for monitoring the business at a financial level as well as for clinical and staff management,” says Ujdur.

For communications with other healthcare services Bigfoot at the moment relies on printing and faxing medical forms, and scanning incoming mail, but Chong is looking to VIP to provide faster and more efficient communications, via Healthlink. “It would be nice to be able to send patient information straight to their GP electronically,” says Chong.

“At the moment it takes days, as well as lots of manual handling, and I want to shortcut all that and I know Houston can do it.”

Contacts at Bigfoot:

Justin Chong BHSc(pod)
Monique Ujdur BHSc(pod)

Bigfoot Podiatry
162 Lake Road,
PO Box 36473, Northcote, Auckland NZ