2011: A Year of Milestones at Our Medical Practice

Another year has come and gone. I often wonder where the time goes. It has been quite the year.

The biggest milestone was our EHR attestation. I have posted my trials and tribulations, and it turned out that the actual attestation was much less painful than I thought it was going to be. As I’ve said before, from a clinical standpoint, we really did nothing different. We did need to learn to document things differently. And there are still some bugs that will need to be ironed out. Nonetheless, not only did we successfully attest, but (drum roll please), we got our incentive check!

I gave my staff and my associate a little bonus out of the attestation money to thank them for the hard work they’ve put into it. I have also paid off a substantial bit of the business loan I took out when I opened the practice. With any luck, the whole loan will be paid off before the end of the year.

This year, we have had three full-time staff members. We had two in addition to one part-timer, but we have been busy enough to need the third person full-time. My associate has also celebrated her first year anniversary. She is still seen as the new kid on the block, but her patients are sending family and friends and word is getting around.

We are still looking into growing our practice. I am hoping that sometime in the near future we will be able to add a nurse practitioner/diabetes educator to the staff. I have, however, found it very hard to get guidance or advice from other doctors about the logistics of doing so. I don’t know if it’s lack of knowledge on their part because they delegate such matters to an office manager, or what.

2011 gave us its share of ups and downs, and we had some rough patches here and there, but for the most part, I’d like to think that we had a successful year. I am hoping that 2012 is at least as good if not better - for all of us.

Find out more about Melissa Young and our other Practice Notes bloggers.