From Billing Gaps to Burnout: My Practice Growth Lessons

Hey guys, Don here, welcome to Podiatry Practice Mastery. I'm going to go over the $1,000,000 minute things that have helped get to the $1,000,000 mark and beyond. So I was talking recently, I've been listening, this is a couple of times to this peaks and valleys book. And one thing that kind of stuck out to me, there's another book.

Again, I read a lot of books. It's called You can't teach a person to Ride a bicycle in a seminar. And it was, it's a book from Sandler. So Sandler is kind of a coach for sales people. And the idea is a lot of times we try to teach things like in a seminar format where you just really have to live through it and learn from it. And the one big key from that book and also Peaks and valleys is that we have roles in our life and then we have our identity.

And this is kind of a philosophical idea here. So like I have a role as like a son of my dad that I'm helping him with his like dementia stuff. I have a role as a husband, I have a role as a father. I have a role as a physician, as a doctor. I have a role as an office business owner. So all these different roles. And then we have our identity. And I think sometimes we mix up our roles and how we feel in our roles. Like right now the role isn't

doing too good in my office. Our biller just kind of gave her notice. We're still going through this new EMR day #8 and but there's an identity which is bigger than that. So the identity is separate from our role. And even though the role might

be bad or having a valley or identity, if how you identify yourself. And so in the way I identify myself as like a child of God. And, you know, I, I have this identity of myself, it's separate. And so trying to learn to separate those things and kind of turn off, OK, the role went bad today, but I, I'm still am a good person. I'm doing the best I can and

keeping your identity. So this is kind of a peaks and valleys have a have a similar mindset of that, you know, even though you're in the valley, your identity and the way you kind of deal with that can be beneficial. So one thing I've been doing during this transition is I'm, I'm doing writing 10 good things about about each day as I'm going through this quote UN quote, sucky time of the medical record translate transition. So I'm going to tell you about

those things. I, I really, frankly, I can't remember. This was a day of a Friday that it was 1/2 day because it was the first Friday of the month where our staff does an office meeting and I had Marjorie help me. So I guess the good thing with Marjorie, she did like 5 toenails with a carry flex on this patient. I don't know if she charged for all 5, but her toes probably looked really good when she was done. She took a long time.

That's fine. I was just kind of pushing through the day and now we're up to full schedules. Now we're not limited schedule. And I had like, gosh, I think went home with 19 charts open and I never do that. But morally doesn't know what he's doing with the charts yet. I don't know what I'm doing yet. And specifically, I'm having to open up the other charts to see why they were billed that way. And what are the errors that I'm learning is that we send a systemic over to the primary cares.

They fill it out. Let's say it comes out with something with like a diabetes with modern neuropathy or neuropathy. I still in some, I didn't know

they were billing it under that, but there was no class findings of neuropathy in the note or in that at least in the note of Athena. Now with Mod Med, I have to put class findings in there. I have to put something else in there to get that type of care covered. So I'm I, so I'm talking about the good thing. So I've asked for help now to learn about my ignorance with routine care. You guys might be great at it.

I wasn't that good at it wasn't my focus, but I'm having to get better at it. So I have a Kenya who's helping me. So I'm getting better at that. She emailed me back and I can fix those notes. There's only two I couldn't finish, but it took me, gosh, it took me forever guys, to do these notes. Murali was starting to copy notes over. Well, I had an obligation that day to leave. We were recording a TV program with our church, and so I was part of that TV program. So I left earlier.

I left like at noon, but I had to finish the notes at night. I was also kind of share something with you. I was like to share the bad stuff too. So you don't think everything is good. So the other day I was doing aspiration of a ganglion cyst.

I did too that day, but one of them I numbed her up and as I was injecting it, she moved her foot and it stuck me. So I got like a stuck and I haven't been stuck. Gosh, I don't know if ever or, or it's been years and I don't even know the pull process anymore. And so I had to talk in the in the midst of switching the medical record, I asked my office manager, what do we do with this? What blood test do we need?

I had to contact the patient or she was actually contacted me said, Hey, you know, I think we should check this out or and I felt embarrassed. I'm like, because initially I was like, Oh, it's no big deal. But then she called me out on it. And so that's embarrassing. You know, she called me out. I was like, oh, you know, just a little stick. And she said, oh, I think we should do the tests. And I'm like, I don't have anything. I asked her, you have anything like bad. Do I have anything?

And so maybe I think next time, regardless, I would, I would get the the stick training or whatever that's called because it's happened in in. So I don't think it happened with me. Happened with my resident in surgery that they stuck themselves. But so anyway, it was kind of an embarrassing situation, but we're going to get that taken care of next time.

Like I said, I'm going to report it right away and get it taken care of. I also picked my dad up that day from my his daycare and he just reamed me out.

So I'm still dealing with this dementia. And the nice thing is my wife found this like levels of dementia or in Alzheimer's, like mild, moderate and severe. And he's like in the moderate phase and he just wasn't happy to be at this day program. But we have to be firm bringing him there. And my wife kind of exaggerated, but she's probably good that way because I'm not.

She got in this like I, I, I iPhone tracker or I, whatever this thing is called, this disc that you put in your shoe insert and she's just going to put it in his shoe inserts. So if he runs away, we can find him. So that was kind of an eye opener because he tends to be nice to me because I'm, I'm with him, what, an hour or two a day when I get home. But my wife's with him most of the time and picking them up and dropping them off and by me picking them up, I, I could see this outburst.

I don't know if he was tired or what, but then he forgot about it after like he said, I want to go home and then now he's fine. So the, the, he has his outbursts and then he's fine afterwards, like the next day or even a few hours later. So we're kind of learning to deal with the, with these things and, and with parents. It's a hard thing. And so I think having that list of the stages was really eye opening and actually seeing this.

And then finally, I, I was listening to this peaks and valley that's been helping me out and I've been getting back to doing the podcast, even though this isn't, this isn't like the, the $1,000,000 stuff. It's kind of a life, the life, the life, life stuff right now. But I hope it's beneficial to you. There have been some good patience. Shock waves are getting a little

bit easier. I saved some protocols within Modmed. So it's making it a little bit easier from Raleigh. It's going to get better. But I just like to share kind of what's what's going on here. OK. If you guys want to reach out or, or anything, e-mail me at don@podiatrypracticemastery.com. If you got the e-mail, the newsletter, if you have any input, like what would make it better, shoot that out to me.

If you don't get the newsletter, sign up for anything on that Web page and you'll start getting my newsletter. It's coming out once a week. I'll help me with it. And this is something, this whole perfectionism thing.

I was like, we have to fix this and this. And I'm like, OK, wait, let's just get the first one out. You do it and then we'll improve it after that. I think kind of getting going and fixing things is a better way to do things. OK, have a good day.