Office Acquisition and Merger of Multi-Site Medical Practice

Challenge

Our client, a medical practice, acquired an additional practice. The new practice used an alternative practice management system with a unique database architecture. The new staff also followed different operating procedure and practiced a vastly different company culture. In order to help our client smoothly integrate this new practice into their system, we sought to:
1) Ensure consistent patient care through transition
2) Establish a secure network connection between offices
3) Import existing patient data into primary practice management system.
4) Align all existing technology with best practices.
5) Train incoming staff with new policies and procedures.

Solution

Our primary goal is to make sure patient care remains consistent throughout this process. Our initial assessment revealed database and company policies requiring elaborate data manipulation prior to importing into our client’s existing practice management system. All hardware was upgraded or patched to meet our client’s alignment needs and ensure compliance requirements. A new firewall was deployed, establishing a HIPAA compliant encrypted connection to the practice management server. The Wi-Fi was configured to give internal devices secure access and guests a managed isolated connection. To ensure the successful on-boarding of new staff members, an office manager from another branch was brought in to assist with training.

Result

The new office was successfully transitioned within one week. They continued seeing scheduled patients during this time and within 2 weeks were operating with full functionality. The new patients and capacity immediately had a positive impact to overall practice profitability, and the expedited process dramatically improved staff morale and patient satisfaction. Recall rates increased because of proper database conversion.