Is Your Practice Prepared to Be Closed Due to Emergency, Disaster, Illness, Death, or Retirement? Private Practice Preparedness. Health care professionals are so busy caring for others that tending to the business aspects of their practice is a challenge. Despite emergency planning being an ethical requirement, it is often overlooked. Without it, those left to pick up the pieces are directionless. Details like contacting patients, billing for work, or accessing Electronic Health Records and other computer systems can significantly hamper closure. With proper planning and organization, greater crisis can be avoided. Private Practice Preparedness: The Health Care Professional's Guide to Closing a Practice Due to Retirement, Death, or Disability provides the information and tools to ensure a smooth transition of care. Beyond the scope of a personal or professional will, Wheeler and Reinhardt share information, as well as tools to collect and organize such materials. In-depth descriptions of the roles of the Emergency Response Team for closing a practice, their duties, and templates to assist in carrying them out are included. All tools needed for anyone in private practice to respond to an emergency thoroughly and quickly are laid out in this book. The true power of this book likes in the downloadable templates ncluded in the purchase. These templates, also included in the book, help you collect and organize important information needed for someone else to run your practice. Tying all of this information together is the Step-By-Step Guide to Closing a Practice. This guide can be used to efficiently locate all information required to run, and close, your practice, if necessary. The templates provided are useful in an emergency, and also: Locating important information on a daily basis Training new employees Planning in advance for retirement and/or sale of the practice Topics discussed include: Identifying people to be on your Emergency Response Team The concerns around selecting a loved one as the responsible party taking over practice operations Handling the transfer of records, both paper and electronic HIPAA/HITECH Billing and financial records Computer and Software considerations Other points of consideration Once you've purchased and registered the book, you will have access to the following templates, which are customizable for your practice: Templates for Closing A Private Practice including Records Custodian AgreementPractice Reference - A record of all important information about the practice Records Custodian Agreement Sample Retirement Notice Sample Closure Notice Sample Telephone Message Computer & Software Inventory Step-by-Step Guide to Closing a Practice About the Authors: Anne Marie "Nancy" Wheeler, JD Nancy is an attorney licensed in Maryland and the District of Columbia. For over 30 years, she has provided risk management consultation services for a major national medical specialty association, and a national association of mental health providers. Nancy is also an affiliate faculty member of the Graduate Pastoral Counseling Program of Loyola University Maryland, where she teaches ethics and legal issues courses to masters and doctoral-level students. Additionally, she has presented hundreds of seminars, workshops and keynote addresses nationwide on medical and mental health legal and ethical issues, including closing a professional practice. She is the co-author of The Counselor and the Law: A Guide to Legal and Ethical Practice (Alexandria, VA: American Counseling Association, 2007 and 2012) and a contributing author to numerous publications, including "Top Ten Legal and Risk Management Areas of Concern for Psychiatrists," in Entering Private Practice: A Handbook For Psychiatrists (ed. J. Lazarus) (American Psychiatric Publishing Inc., 2005). Rob Reinhardt, LPCS, NCC Rob is a Licensed Professional Counselor Supervisor in North Carolina, and a Nationally Certified Counselor. Director of a growing counseling and wellness practice, he is also the CEO of Tame Your Practice, a private practice consulting firm. In addition to running a successful practice himself, he helps mental health and other professionals grow their practices, with a focus on efficient and compliant use of technology. Rob is also column editor of the "Tech Tutor" column of Counseling Today, the magazine of the American Counseling Association. Prior to entering the world of mental health care, his career was focused on Information Technology, with experience in software development, project management, and corporate management.In talking with Nancy about the need for health care professionals to engage in advanced planning for emergency or planned practice closing, Rob recognized the growing need for documentation of electronic systems. He brings his knowledge of computers and software to this project, in the hopes of easing the burden of transition for professionals and their appointed representatives.
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