Posted by: AtlasMD

January 24, 2018

Growing Your Practice? You Set the Pace. Atlas Will Keep Step.

Growth: your reason, your rules, your pace.

You set out on the Direct Care journey for your reason. Maybe you wanted freedom from the limitations of a traditional healthcare environment. Maybe you were tired of having to fudge your billing codes to make a suit somewhere happy. Maybe the stack of paperwork waiting at home for you each night became too overwhelming. Maybe you wanted to live a little while also helping patients. (It’s called a social life!)

Bottom line? You’re in control. You know your patients, you know your community, you know your strengths. You know how fast or slow you want to grow your practice. If full speed ahead is your thing, that’s great; let’s make it happen. But if slow rolling growth is more your love language, that’s great, too. The beauty is that Atlas is perfectly poised to grow with you no matter how fast your strategic plan moves.

There’s nothing traditional about your practice’s growth.

This is where we say the thing nobody else will say. While growth is good, your happiness is better. Protect that happiness at all costs.

Let’s elaborate. Standard advice is to start your business and grow it as fast as you can for a better initial return on your investment, right? The marketing gurus will yell at you to GROW, GROW, GROW! The blogs will show you a million and one ways to do it.

But you don’t have to listen to them.

If you’re feeling pressured by how society says you should build your practice, take a deep breath and remember who’s in control. You. You chose this life because of the freedoms it offered, and if growing too fast too soon threatens to compromise your reasons – take a step back. Enjoy where you are right now, and slowly plan your next move. Read more

Posted by: Atlas MD

November 6, 2017

What’s New in Atlas.md? Faxing PDF Attachments, That’s What.

We’ve been excited about releasing this feature for a while now, and we know you’ve been looking forward to it, too. Today we get to share the good news that you can now fax PDF chart attachments right from Atlas.md. We have big plans for expanding this feature’s reach as time goes on; this is juuust the beginning.

So here’s how it works.

When you upload a PDF to a patient’s chart, you’ll now notice a fax icon over to the right. From there, the process is just like you’re used to.

It’s cost-effective, too.

Faxing costs your practice 7 cents per page. Before you send the fax, you’ll see an estimate of your total, so you’ll know exactly what you’re being charged. Full transparency is the name of the game, so you’ll also find your cost included in your clinic’s next subscription billing cycle, using the credit card you already have on file with Atlas.

Let’s talk about file size.

We know you guys are super efficient, so you probably won’t run into a size problem… but just in case we thought we’d mention it. You can fax pretty much anything, as long as it’s under 20 MB, and under 200 pages. Anything bigger or longer than that won’t go through. If it did, we might feel sorry for the guy on the other end of the fax…

So that’s all there is to it! You can now fax PDF attachments from inside Atlas. Now, go play with the new feature. You know you want to.

Posted by: AtlasMD

September 28, 2017

What’s New in Atlas.md? A Smarter Workflow Wins Every Time.

Smarter Exporting

When you’re sharing patient details, you now have the option to specify the date range for what you’re exporting, printing or emailing. Just select “custom date range” from the date range dropdown and select your start and end dates. Read about it here.

When you’re exporting data for multiple patients you can now include Health Maintenance data in the export. This’ll make it easier to review possible targets for exams, physicals, etc. since you can quickly sort your Excel file by ‘exams’ for example. Get the details over here.

Labs Updates

On the Recent Labs Results dashboard widget, you can now mark a notification as “read,” so only the info that still needs your attention is front and center.

Now you can email out Custom Lab results the same way you can email out other attachment files! Just click the “email” icon when you hover over the note in the stream.

Did you accidentally request a lab wrong? Now you can delete them in Atlas so you can keep a tidy and accurate chart. Deleting the request won’t change anything on the Lab’s end, though – you’ll still need to deal directly with them for anything that might have already been processed.

Macros!

Introducing Shared Macros! Now you can create a macro and share it with everyone else on your account. You can edit an old macro to be sharable moving forward, or create brand new ones to share with the team. Learn how to manage shared macros over here.

It wouldn’t be a features release if we didn’t have a few new macros to talk about, right? We’ve added a new macro for Contacts: #contact, and new macros for patient age and gender: #patientage #patientgender. Review the full list here!

Faxing Updates

Now your real fax numbers displays on the caller ID, which means the pharmacies whose heads explode at the sight of an unfamiliar fax number coming through on prescriptions can rest easy. Does your practice have multiple locations? No problem, the caller ID will respect the location sending the fax.

Posted by: AtlasMD

September 21, 2017

Atlas Welcomes New Docs After InLight Leaves EMR Business.

Transitions are part of life. Some are simple, others are messy. Some are quick, and others take time. Some pose as a welcome change, and others don’t even ask our permission. And still others are a little bit of all that depending on the day.

We know how hard that transition season can be, and we’re poised to help you through your version of it – whatever it might look like. Whether you’re transitioning from a traditional healthcare environment to DPC, transitioning from a one-man-shop to a practice with employees, or transitioning from a one-location practice to a multiple-locations practice, we’re here to help. We offer free practice management consulting to answer even the smallest of your questions about how to do it DPC-Style.

As you’ve probably heard, InLight recently left the EMR business. So if you’re new here, welcome!

If you’ve joined Atlas from InLight, your transition is one of process, and details. That can be difficult on a totally different level! But even though you may be having a hard time getting a hold of files, we’re here to help you through this, too. We’re doing everything we can to help clinics transition smoothly; you’ve got the Atlas community standing behind you now, and we will fight for your success just like we fight for our own.

If you have questions about transitioning to Atlas, we encourage you to reach out to support@atlas.md, or go join our Facebook group. We’ll get your questions answered so you can get back to doing what you do best: helping patients.

Posted by: AtlasMD

September 15, 2017

The Value Proposition You Don’t Value Enough.

Value Proposition for Direct Care PracticesWe talk a lot about value added propositions. Here, here and here for example. As you probably already know, we’re referring to the value you bring to your patients. Your value comes in many shapes and sizes – your flexible schedule and extended appointment times, your ability to open your doors at almost any time, your willingness to answer the phone, email, text, or video call at all hours, not to mention your steadfast devotion to saving your patients money at every turn.

But there’s one piece of value you offer your patients that, whether they say it out loud or not, is actually invaluable to them.

You put the power back in their hands.

It starts at the top. The freedom to opt out of a convoluted healthcare system held together by red tape is liberating in itself, but the benefits just keep coming. Nobody’s telling them what to do. No insurance or third party regulations of which the fine print must be scoured. Your patients do their research, and weigh what Direct Care offers against the alternative. The choice is theirs. They make the decision, and they can feel good about the consequence.

Because after they sign up, they see that the power stays in their hands. Read more

Posted by: AtlasMD

September 7, 2017

Feature Review: Task Management

You could search for and test out a whole bunch of different todo apps. OR you could use the task management system already built into your EMR. Create tasks for yourself, or assign them to your team members. Whatever works for you. Plus, email reminders help keep you accountable and on top of things. To freshen up on how task management works inside Atlas, check out the video below, or read this support article.

Posted by: AtlasMD

September 5, 2017

Go Ahead, Treat Your Patients Slowly.

Treat Patients SlowlyWe humans can’t help but shove as much as possible into one minute. One hour. One day. We’re rewarded for doing it, too. Society says that the more you check off your list, the more productive you are. And by default, then, the more productive you are, the more successful you are. So, we rush. We search for ways to skip steps and still get the same result. We fill downtime with more stuff in the name of said productivity.

We load up our arms with more grocery bags than we can carry because we simply refuse to waste time making two trips.

We pull out our phones at red lights so we can jump on the email that came through five seconds ago. Or check Facebook…

We give patients seven minutes of our time. And we spend four of those thinking about what’s waiting for us in the next exam room.

Where has that gotten us? Actually, it’s making us sick. Read more

Posted by: Atlas MD

August 31, 2017

Marketing Your DPC Practice – How Everyone Else Does it.

Marketing Your DPC PracticeThe best marketing strategy is a good business model. It’s a value proposition. Think about it this way: it’s really easy to sell a great product, and it’s really difficult to sell a not-so-great product. Start from the beginning! DPC’s high-value proposition often looks like this: unlimited visits, no copay, free procedures, wholesale meds and labs, up to 95% off and cheaper insurance – that is a huge value proposition that you can sell – no matter what you do, your patients are going to be happier. You’ll find more foundational tips on marketing your DPC practice over in the marketing course of the DPC Curriculum.

You’re Better at This Than You Think. Honestly.

Even though the idea of telling the world all about the great things you have to offer might make your stomach churn, rest assured you already have the skills needed to sell and market your practice. (We wrote all about that over here.) Marketing and sales is largely about having a conversation. Talking to people and answering their questions. You already have the answers, and with knowledge comes confidence.

It’s Time to Walk the Walk.

So once you have that foundation laid, you can do some external marketing. That all sounds good in theory, right? If you’re curious about what that actually means, here are some ideas on places to start networking right in your own community. Read more

Posted by: AtlasMD

August 29, 2017

How To Be A Good Businessperson AND Take Your Oath Seriously.

How to be a good businessperson And a good doctor. It’s true. Sometimes doctors struggle with the idea of innovating in the space of business. Some docs used to think you couldn’t do both – you couldn’t be a good businessperson and really take your oath seriously, meaning, care about patients. The foundation of DPC allows you to flip that theory on its head! We take a very bold stance now to say that really embracing and holding true to our oath of “do no harm” must also mean do no financial harm.

We must continually push ourselves to find ways to innovate that bring value to our patients.

For example. Direct Care offers wholesale medications, so most of the time they’re somewhere around 90 – 95% off. It’s literally ten times cheaper to get your medications through Direct Care than Walmart. Take Immitrex for example. (Use GoodRx.com to price check.) Depending on your area, Immitrex is anywhere from $88 to $256 for the generic version. But the wholesale price is $6. And the patient pays $6. Let that sink in! How long did doctors struggle with patients who couldn’t afford their medications only because we complained about the system rather than find a way to fix it ourselves?

As a patient, you don’t have to be rich to like more money, but if you’re struggling financially or working a low-paying job, those savings are even more significant. That’s time back with your family – not to mention a better quality of life. Direct primary care removes all those hurdles.

Traditional healthcare had a culture of either learned helplessness, or groupthink. It has historically lacked a culture of “Innovate, Help and Build” because it always felt that a wall was built by insurance and government. If they didn’t pay for it, then by default we couldn’t do it. And us docs were so busy seeing 30, 40 even 50 people a day that we had no choice but to focus on the task at hand rather than our future ability to practice medicine. Read more

Posted by: AtlasMD

August 24, 2017

What’s New in Atlas.md? Making Multiple Locations Work for Your Practice.

Lots of practices have multiple locations, which is fantastic. But each of you are growing a little bit differently, and Atlas wants to account for that.

We’ve added support for more location flexibility so you can run your practice however it works best for you and your patients. We’ll run through the details so you can get back to it.

Inventory Selection Flexibility

Now when you write a new prescription, you can choose from which location’s inventory you’re dispensing. Pretty great, right?

So if you’re a doctor who floats between branches and you find yourself dispensing from one location today and another tomorrow, now you can accurately dispense from the correct location no matter where you are.

That goes for patients, too! If you encourage patients to go to whichever branch location is more convenient for them, you can dispense from whichever location they choose. This added flexibility makes properly managing inventory more convenient for you. Read more