Online Appointment Scheduling!

Just a quick note to let you know that online appointment scheduling is now available. If you're interested in registering for this new feature, you'll need to request an access code to get started. Email bibi@hahnandnelson.com. I'll send you an access code and a guide to Patient Ally.

Try a Little Tenderness!

As you go about your Thanksgiving holiday, I'm sure you're feeling grateful thoughts for everything important to you. It's good to be grateful! Gratitude is a light that can shine through the days you're feeling blue, the days you're feeling forsaken, or those times you feel you don't have enough of whatever. However, gratitude goes even further if you express it, especially if your gratitude target is a person. You may be glad that you have a wonderful teacher, or an efficient accountant, or a thoughtful assistant. But maybe, as time goes by, you take that person for granted; you may even allow negative thoughts to cloud over what a gift that person really is. Perhaps they came in late one day, or forgot an appointment, or acted grouchy one morning; that sort of thing seems to cling to our consciousness more so than the good things. It's probably out of some kind of primal defense mechanism -- our brain wants to protect us against bad things and feelings, so recalling those things first will allow us to react quickly to a possible repeat behavior. Now is a great time to recall, instead, all the good things, even the mundanely good things, people do for you every day. Maybe they simply come to work every day without fail, or maybe the teacher drew a smiley face on your child's homework. Give gratitude and you will surely get it back doubled. Tell your assistant that she's doing a great job -- pick something specific so she knows you're paying attention...Give your office cleaning person an unexpected raise....ask your postal worker what she's doing for the holidays. And smile when you do....for all you know it may be the only smile someone sees all day.
Happy THANKSGIVING!

Making Time for Patients

We've come so far!

Hahn and Nelson Family Medicine is committed to spending quality time with patients. We're always looking for ways to cut down on the time that we must spend other than seeing patients in the office: billing, filling prescriptions, answering the phone, getting referrals, stocking our supply room.  Instead of simply throwing money at a problem, or hiring more people, we like to try to find creative, innovative solutions. Many times, technology is the answer: for example, we recently implemented electronic fax retrieval which saves time and paper. Other times, a low tech solutions such as altering a schedule, may work just as well to solve a problem. Some of these improvements may take a little getting used to, both for our patients, and for us.

It seems that our phone is always ringing! Most calls are for one of several common issues. One of those is patients needing refills. We recently asked Rick, our Teleplus representative, to add an option to our phone line to allow you to leave your refill information as a message.
New Refill Line!
Refills should ideally be handled through your pharmacy. You should be able to call your pharmacy for any refills you have available; if there are none, the pharmacy should call us directly to make arrangements. However, if this is not possible (in the case of prescriptions that must be on paper), when you call us, just press "1" when prompted and you'll be greeted with the questions you'll need to answer in order for us to refill your prescription. Please remember, it usually takes at least one business day for prescriptions to be taken care of from the time we receive your message until the pharmacy completes the order.

The other common reason patients call us is to get an appointment. We know that a lot of our patients would love to book appointments online, and we're getting ready to make that happen.

 Online Appointment Scheduling Coming Soon!
We already enjoy Oxbow, our state-of-the-art EMR software (Electronic Medical Record) and the advantages it gives us over old-fashioned paper charts. We use PracticeMate software to schedule patients quickly and easily and file our insurance claims electronically. Now we're getting ready to extend the ability to schedule appointments to our patients with the online PatientAlly service. PatientAlly allows enrolled patients to register their information, and then schedule an appointment. Patients can also send their provider messages. We're looking for some patients to "beta-test" this new service, so if you're interested, please email us at bibi@hahnandnelson.com to setup a training session.

Walk Across Maryland Redux

We love it when people copy  us! What's that saying.... "Imitation is the highest form of flattery..."? Right. Two years ago we got a phone call from a group that makes a hobby of doing "Walks" all around the region. They had heard about our Walk Across Maryland, but were unable to attend on the weekend we traditionally have the Walk. They wanted to know the route, and whether they could perhaps have a few t-shirts. We usually have a surplus of shirts, so we said "sure!". Again this year they had the same request. As they walked past our office, which is on the route Across Maryland, they noticed that both Dr. Hahn and Dr. Nelson were in the office despite it being Saturday, so they stopped in to say hello. Enjoy their pictures, and if you're one of the Walkers, thanks, and enjoy!