The new decade has come with new challenges accompanied by some other problems that left unresolved during the last decade. 2020 came with some unprecedented and unpredictable predicaments such as a global medical emergency due to the covid-19 outbreak making its way from China to the US in a few days. It increased the burden both on physicians and medical practices. Front end and back end departments of healthcare centers both are seen to be in turmoil in such circumstances. This is just the start of 2020 and physicians of the 21st century are seeing it as the hardest challenge as healthcare centers are the front line of dealing with this crisis. In this crucial time, physicians are to face the following challenges in their everyday practice:
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Administrative Burden
Physicians have always been burdened by the excessive stress of managing both patient care duties and administrative tasks. This is not a new issue and physicians from across the globe have been facing this issue for decades. No matter their association with the private or public practice, no matter if they are practicing individually or on a large-scale healthcare center, they are not spared of the administrative duties and paperwork. Increasing administrative duties reduces their efficiency in providing effective care to their patients.
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Payment Denials
It is one of the most common problems faced by physicians even in 2020. It takes a lot of their energy and efforts to drive the payments that they deserve from their patients, insurance providers, and healthcare administrations. Without Evaluation and Management services providers it is very difficult to drive payments without facing the problems of payment denials, poor reimbursements, and inefficient payment schedule.
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Keeping up with the Competition
In this age of capitalism, healthcare service is also treated as a commodity and healthcare industry as a market with increased competition. The availability of innumerable options of availing healthcare services from different providers makes the physicians worse off as they have to cater to the increasing demands of its patients. In this environment of increased competition, they have to work hard on keeping up with technology and trends of the healthcare providers at market costs.
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Inefficient EHR Interface
An ineffective and inefficient EHR interface not only causes challenges for the physicians but also poses serious threats to the patients. It is also accompanied by communication gaps that result in more problems for the patients hence increase their probability of getting burnout. The basic purpose of employing EHR in medical practices was to make the process streamlined but it has increased the issues due to its inefficiency and difficulty of use by physicians.
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Burnout
Physicians are reported to have the most burnout issues out of all the workforce as they have to work long hours that require physical mental and emotional drain throughout their day and they get less time to restore their energy. The situation faced by physicians throughout the world in this time of the global pandemic, they are fighting on the front, risking their lives with little or no incentives. Their long duties and excess burden make them physically unfit to carry their job efficiently.
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The Threat of facing a Lawsuit
It is common for a physician to remain in a constant threat of getting sued by a lawsuit in case of malpractice or any other unresolvable complaint by the patients. This is because they have to juggle between so many tasks and their attention is being divided into several tasks rather than being converged on their main task of taking care of patients.
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Dealing Patients with Chronic Diseases
It is also a difficult task for physicians to deal with patients having chronic conditions. The responsibility of taking care of such patients falls on primary care physicians which can allocate only a limited time to each patient and can sometimes miss out on important details while dealing with these patients.
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Security of Patients’ Data
Cybersecurity is a growing issue of 2020 as hackers became one step ahead in their technology and patients have also become well informed about these issues. Physicians have to take care of the security of important medical data of the patients.
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Negotiation of Contracts
It is an important task that physicians face during their practice and find it the most challenging as the survival of their practice is dependent on these contract negotiations.
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The Hiring of Experienced Clinical Staff.
Physicians need to hire experienced clinical staff for effective teamwork and the functioning of their practice. These challenges can be effectively overcome by employing an expert medical billing and credentialing services agency.