Giving your patients access to your expertise and your knowledge is important for making them feel connected to you and your business. They expect to be able to reach you and get the answers they need to routine inquires as well as critical needs. Unfortunately, if you spend your whole day manning the phones, you don’t have time for business development or to actually provide services to your patients.
It is certainly easy to get sucked into the phone lines, but a medical answering service can help keep you from drowning under the flood of incoming calls. The service is much more than a set of receptionists for hire. A medical answering service is staffed by operators with advanced medical knowledge. They can do basic intake and answer patient questions about medical matters.
This is much better than having your patients leave messages in a voicemail box that may or may not be checked in time to make a difference. You hate to think of any of your patients suffering unnecessarily just because they couldn’t get through to a real person. Instead of letting them endure pain or an adverse reaction a second longer than necessary, you can have your answering service address the issue or route the person directly to you in emergencies.
Your patients will love you for providing them with a medical answering service, because they will be able to immediately talk to real person with actual knowledge when they need something. This will also help you separate your practice from other service providers in your area. Most people haven’t thought of having an answering service, even though patients truly appreciate it. Instead, they scramble to answer the phones themselves and have very short service hours as a result. You can offer 24 hour response if you desire, without sacrificing your personal freedom or your free time for hobbies, as you won’t need to be physically next to the phone.
Of course, the best part of all of the benefits of a medical answering service is that it is much less expensive than you might imagine. You pay only for the volume and services you truly need. You can also rest assured that your patients’ privacy is fully protected, since you are dealing with top of the line professionals. You will be able to focus on delivering care and find that you have much more time to provide the best care now that all of your free time isn’t spent answering the phone.
It’s often difficult to find the knowledge we need to live with bipolar disorder on a daily basis. Medical information is a good start, but who’s going to help us manage the nitty-gritty parts of life that are made more challenging with bipolar disorder?
I call this kind of knowledge “street knowledge”. Street knowledge about bipolar disorder can make the difference between feeling stuck and finding clarity and hope. You can gain street knowledge from others who are challenged with bipolar disorder–your peers. One excellent way to learn the street knowledge you need is to connect with others through support or recovery groups that are focused on these 3 elements:
* Education
* Peer empowerment
* Problem solving around life challenges
Education
The first-rate education that can occur in a peer led support or recovery group is right off the street instead of from a medical textbook. Both types of education–direct experience and reading books–are valuable in managing the challenges of a psychiatric illness. The best advice I can give you is to become an expert in the illness you are facing. Becoming an expert consists of learning as much from the medical community about the your diagnosis and treatment as possible. It also includes learning about your personal illness experience. Medical knowledge is essential and helps you find and utilize treatment that is most appropriate.
Street knowledge, however, is what helps you live from day to day and minute to minute with the challenges of your illness. Street knowledge embraces topics from how to keep from forgetting to take your medication to how to explain your illness to your best friend. You may want to learn how to tell (or not tell) your boss about your diagnosis. You may be asking what to do when you feel stuck in recovery. Or how you can save money when medical bills are mounting. Or just what can you do for recreation (for free).
Within a safe environment of a high-quality support or recovery group, you can learn from and teach others the ins and outs of living with an illness. These lessons are part of an illness experience that goes beyond the textbook knowledge you may get from other sources. They may take place formally in a group with planned educational events or informally with conversations among members. Either way, street knowledge is where the rubber meets the road. It covers a host of questions that may never be answered in therapy. Street knowledge complements treatment, but is never a substitute or treatment.
Peer Empowerment
The wealth of support or recovery groups is peer empowerment. Peer empowerment is the currency of recovery. It has been shown to be an effective means, leading to better medical outcomes for individuals with psychiatric diagnoses. More importantly, peer empowerment is associated with greater satisfaction in life.
Peers might be those with the same or similar diagnoses. They could be friends or family members who are experiencing challenges due to the effects of a psychiatric diagnosis of someone they love. Peer empowerment recognizes the person beyond the diagnosis and encourages achievement of goals and dreams. Peers demonstrate mental wellness and recovery from illness. They share their own challenges and validate your struggles.
Like education, peer empowerment is a two way street. Identifying strengths in your peers can help you recognize your own strengths. Learning to have power over a psychiatric illness builds courage and determination that enable you to accomplish your recovery goals.
Problem Solving Around Life Challenges
A well-run support or recovery group will provide opportunities for problem solving. In fact, the recovery focus comes from consistently asking the question, “What are you doing to take care of yourself?” This question can prevent a group from bogging down into self-pity and unproductive venting of complaints about life or illness. Venting needn’t be discouraged; nor should it be lacking the purpose of quickly getting to a point where challenges are identified so active problem solving can begin.
Problem solving in a group is not giving advice. The conversational tone includes phrases such as these:
* I like the way you took care of yourself by coming tonight.
* When I felt that way about my doctor, it helped me to write down my questions so I could ask them at my next appointment.
* Have you ever tried going for a walk when you felt like screaming? I did that the other day and it saved my having a screaming fit. (The neighbors were glad to see me instead of hearing me!)
* Watching funny movies or calling friends have both helped me when I felt alone. What kinds of things help you when you are feeling so isolated?
Problem solving respects that each individual finds unique solutions to problems. Problem solving can have four basic steps:
1. Identifying the problem
2. Brainstorming approaches
3. Choosing an approach
4. Evaluating the approach and continuing or choosing a different approach
Problem solving in a group of peers requires a safe and supportive environment where confidentiality is respected. It can jump-start your efforts toward recovery.
Add These Features to Your Recovery Group
These are but three features of a healthy support or recovery group. They are high-quality traits to nurture in the group you choose. If you are new to support or recovery groups and have not tried one, look for these qualities in the groups you visit. Take a chance on a support or recovery group. You just might find the inside track to street education, peer empowerment, and problem solving around life challenges.
There are many jobs in the world; many are professional positions while others are simple run-of-the-mill which get one by in life. A career in the medical field has always been attractive as it is lucrative but it is not an easily achievable task. Hence, more and more are opting for a career that is related to the medical environment – the medical assistantship.
What is a Medical Assistant?
A medical assistant is one who has sufficient medical knowledge to assist a medical professional in meeting the patient’s needs. The medical assistant or MA must be academically qualified to be in the medical environment. The MA will have sufficient medical knowledge and training to help prepare the necessary medical procedure equipment in some health care facility for the smooth running of the health care environment while providing good health services to the patient.
What is the MA work scope?
Although the medical diagnosis, operations and medication prescription are all very important in patient care and treatment, one cannot ignore the menial tasks that form part of the health care process for any patient seeking medical attention. The patient who wants medical attention will need to have his personal information recorded, trivial questions answered, be given assurances on his proposed medical treatments, insurance information verified and the like; these are usually performed by the MA. The attending physician’s job to treat the patient’s ailment is then quick and smooth as the basics have been done by the MA.
Hence, the work scope of an MA is to assist the attending physician on many administrative duties that can bog down the physician’s time and effort in making a more accurate diagnosis of the ailment or medical condition. However, the MA requires the attending physician to be present if the former is to perform a medical task such as a medical procedure or surgery; even the task of taking X-rays and blood checks.
Where does the MA work?
In the past, MAs are only found in health care facilities that require a lot of administration but today, MAs can be found in the hospitals too. Where they can work is dependent on the state law and the training MAs undergo. A certification program on top of an academic program will open the horizon to the MA.
With global warming happening at an alarming rate today, it is not surprising that the health of many is adversely affected. Hence, MAs are a growing profession today as with any Medical assistant profession.
Do you usually link Renaissance to advances in medicine? Typically, when we talk about the Renaissance period, we talk about an explosion of learning and creativity. From paintings to music, this was a tremendous time for the arts in particular. However, the era of the Renaissance, which lasted from the middle 1400s until the 1700s, also featured major developments in European medicine. Here are some of the important facts surrounding the Renaissance period and medicine:
1. New knowledge and inventions improved medicine
A flurry of new knowledge and inventions helped to advance medicine quickly, during the Renaissance. There were no instruments yet to observe bacteria, and thus create a need for cheap urbane scrubs. However, diagrams of the human body and the printing press both had a huge influence on the world of medicine. Thus, doctors had a better comprehension of how the human body functioned, than during any previous era in Europe’s history.
2. Galen was no longer king
During the previous Middle Ages, the medical world considered Galen’s writings to be infallible. Galen was an ancient Greek living in Rome, who had developed the concepts of Hippocrates, “The Father of Medicine.”
However, during the Renaissance, doctors took a more practical and academic approach to training in their profession. Medical students studied from books with realistic diagrams of humans. In addition to better books, doctors-in-training also had access to more of them, thanks to the invention of the printing press. In fact, universities even permitted students to dissect humans, towards the end of the Renaissance. This practice had previously been limited to animals.
3. Science began to supersede spirituality
During the Renaissance, people still held to some spiritual reasoning regarding diseases. For instance, people were unaware that bacteria existed, and could spread from person-to-person. However, logic became king, due to a new wealth of knowledge available, and an efficient way to distribute it faster-the printing press. In addition, the training for surgical procedures greatly improved. Apprentices would learn surgical techniques, from an active surgeon. Interestingly, universities themselves failed to supply doctors-in-training with these skills. Nevertheless, the improvements in textbooks about human anatomy significantly boosted the complexity of the surgeries that doctors did.
4. Many did not embrace advances in medicine
While the Renaissance ushered in a new era of medical knowledge and skills, not everyone was impressed. During the Renaissance, home remedies remained a vital aspect of medical treatment, for many people. In fact, some people still sought treatments from local shaman who lacked formal training in the medical profession. Also, many “old-school” doctors and the Catholic Church still adhered to the teachings of Galen. However, within time, medical advances during the Renaissance would revolutionize the whole professional.
The Renaissance was clearly an era of enlightenment and developments. Besides the fantastic output in the arts, the medical profession flourished as well. While doctors were yet unaware of bacteria or the need to wear scrubs during surgeries, they were nonetheless learning. Essentially starting with the Renaissance, spiritual doctors were becoming scientific doctors!
