Ask providers, have they ever experienced burnout and heard about that before? According to a Medscape survey in 2019, approximately 44% of providers have reported that they have experienced burnout. However, the rate was even higher in the specialty-specific practice and studies showed female practitioners face more burnout than males.

Nowadays, within this urgent healthcare industry lifestyle can be draining. Long working hours and a fast-paced environment can lead to serious burnout to the medical staff or care providers. Prolong occupational stressor is a never-ending path of feeling frustrated, uninspired, or fatigued. We know that being a healthcare provider is not at all an easy job. They have to tough it out on themselves often if they are struggling. That shouldn’t go that way.

Signs can manifest behaviorally, emotionally, physically, i.e, heightened anxiety, feeling tired all the time, procrastinating, increased cynicism, and feeling a sense of impending doom. Providers should be on the lookout for burnout signs like reduced sense of accomplishment, depersonalization, emotional exhaustion, and loss of meaning in their work.

Why Is Preventing Burnout Matter?

When it comes to burnout and workload the healthcare industry is not always forgiving. The continuously increasing administrative burden, compelling situations, working long hours can often raise multiple issues like; higher risks of malpractice, low-quality patient care, increased medical errors, etc.

The fact is that practitioners who face burnout are more prone to encounter mistakes, receive lower patient satisfaction, and inefficient medical care management. These symptoms must be taken out seriously as this can lead to professional behavior erosion at work and home. It also reduces compassion, empathy, and potentially you have to face worse patient outcomes. Additionally, the mounting pressure of seeing more patients, non-patient-centered duties, increased government interference everything contribute to provider burnout.

Lately, the huge global economical pressure has put the healthcare industry to be lurching in one crisis after another. Practitioners have seen climatic changes due to industry regulations and economic uncertainty. Indeed, it was a time of unprecedented upheaval and struggle for many of them. Furthermore, lab professionals were also busy with huge administrative responsibilities that take a lot of valuable time. Even EHR integration takes a toll on them. Therefore, it becomes necessarily significant to make small changes to aid the providers regain their work-life balance.

There are several ways to reduce their workload from the implementation of flexible scheduling to handling claims manually, etc. Luckily, broad consent has emerged in the healthcare industry over this matter when it seems that there is not a quick fix to deal with it. Reducing burnout is critical in the battle against contagious diseases- and we’ll acknowledge this. In this blog, I have addressed a few ways to execute efficient strategies in your lab practice to combat provider burnout & develop financial resilience.

Know the Root of the Problem

It is highly critical to know what is the root cause of the problem from where it is stemming? Many times, it has been seen that issues stem in a day from a lack of time to get everything done at an exact time.

But the questions that arise here are, is it a staffing problem? Why is there not enough time? Is it due to enormous administrative duties? Is it due to the influx of new patients? Is it over-scheduling patients? It is essential to create a thorough plan and pinpoint the source behind the problem whatever the case may be.

Take Proactive Approaches

Combating burnout could be possible when you are proactive, not reactive. You can figure out new ways to anticipate providers’ needs in the future once you have identified the root cause of the problem. For instance, if you are having a staffing problem, you can hire a professional billing team. If not then anticipate the time, consider fewer patients’ scheduling to manage administrative chores. You can utilize technology and ease the stress of your backend team by streamlining your billing processes.

However, often, burnout could be an outcome of various circumstances weighing on the lab professionals either hypothetical stress or critical difficulties. Consequently, the best plan of action is to rest by taking a break despite it sounds counterintuitive. Without any time for yourself, you may drag yourself along for months being a lab practitioner so whatever the specialty you belong to, it doesn’t matter. The better way to go is practicing self-care otherwise both your patient care and mental health will drop drastically.

Outsource Your Lab Billing

It is important to stay financially healthy and successful in the healthcare industry. For that, your insurance billing has to be done effectively. It can be overwhelming trying to handle complicated billing-related tasks and contract negotiations along with treating patients. The root cause of the issue is almost somewhat related to the amount of time required to manage the ever-changing insurance billing tasks but never related to the team’s competence.

At this point, the ideal and profitable way is to take the help of an experienced billing expert who handles insurance billing on a regular basis. You can get out of this dilemma and witness;

Less Financial Headaches
You deal with many in-depth intricacies during the specialty-specific billing procedure. Billing experts utilize their extensive knowledge to deal with specialty-specific lab practices and standalone hospital-based facilities. They recover your expenses and help you boost your bottom line by recognizing the missed revenue opportunities. In this way, you can operate below value in the short term and help patients in the long term; using a pool of talented billing specialists to protect your bottom line besides ensuring accurate lab billing and coding.

Faster Payments
You can receive the maximum reimbursement benefits when RCM experts provide medical record audits and contract reviews. You will be able to stay compliant. With the support of dedicated teams, you can assure your claims are double-checked and submitted accurately to the payers. This way, you will witness little to no errors and faster payments in a timely manner.

More Time for Patients
When you spend your whole time in the paperwork you will get less time for your patients. There’s the lab billing and coding professionals come along. They save your time and help you get to your existing or new patients who are in need of your complete attention. Rather than keeping up with the latest coding and billing regulations, dealing with the frustration of paperwork, investigating current insurance claim processes, you can completely concentrate on the most important thing- Your Patients.

Utilize Tech Innovation
Advanced technology can help providers maintain a healthy work-life balance and mitigate their burnout by providing the following benefits;

• Data management solutions streamline documentation.
• Integration of practice management & EHR/EMR systems automate the whole billing cycle.
• Adopting telemedicine saves more time.

Laboratory Billings comprehends billing can be abounding with difficulties and uncertainties. Our lab billing services are tailored to meet the demands of diverse specialties, including coding & billing, credentialing, revenue cycle management, and more. Our custom-tailored services are designed in a way that can help you to develop business resilience & help you cope with turbulent times. Building resilience will also help you better grow in today’s modern healthcare landscape and bounce back from tragedy or hardships. Get the best out of it. Keep in touch with us today to transform your lab practice![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]