http://www.whyamirich.com/ Articles at Free Website Content from Whyamirich.com en-us http://www.whyamirich.com/business/outsourcing/family-counselors-benefit-from-a-backup-administrative-assistant.html http://www.whyamirich.com/business/outsourcing/family-counselors-benefit-from-a-backup-administrative-assistant.html Tue, 24 Aug 2010 01:51:28 -0600
There is no question about the importance of both individual and family counseling. Ever wonder how these professionals work and how they manage their daily patient flow? Let's take a closer look.

In the first place, counselors are not like doctors, which means most of them do not have any medical staff helping them deal with everyday problems. Hence, they work alone.

In spite of that, they are highly requested due to the wide range of services they offer, including support, assistance and therapies aimed to solve all kinds of issues. Should a family member die, for instance, it is your family counselor who would help you overcome such trauma and get back to your life. In case of divorce, then, a counselor might tell you how to restore communication with your partner and save your family's harmony.

But how do we set appointments with a family counselor? To be able to set an appointment with a family counselor, you usually have to find a family counselor in your area, ask around for their contact numbers and call them to set an appointment. It will seem to be a surprise to find yourself talking to the counselor themselves on the phone, since you are expecting for a receptionist to receive your call on the other line.

Well, should this happen, do not be too surprised. That's because both individual and family counselors work alone, which means they listen to your problems, help you solve them and perform a number of time consuming secretarial tasks, such as scheduling appointments, keeping records, answering the phone and, eventually, remind their patients of their upcoming appointments.

Can a single person really do all these tasks on their own? They cannot. They can if they would limit the number of clients and appointments they will entertain which is not possible. Even a doctor needs a medical assistant to do secretarial tasks for his practice.

There is an applicable solution though that applies to doctors, dentists, personal trainers and also family counselors. I'm referring to the automated administrative assistant. Functioning just like a live receptionist, a backup office assistant is incredibly more precise and accurate. The real receptionist also tend to make mistakes and are far more expensive.

Because family and individual counselors often work alone, they are sure to need someone to take their phone calls, schedule their daily appointments and send appointment reminders, to avoid patient no-shows.

All counselors should consider going for an automated front desk secretary, and see themselves help more and more people. Since the service is available 24/7, the counselor may find their daily schedule already organized by the virtual front desk assistant as soon as they reach their office in the morning.

This represents a brand new way of working which allows family counselors to focus on those who need their special assistance, while building a more professional image. ]]> http://www.whyamirich.com/business/outsourcing/taking-advantage-of-outsourcing-your-web-design.html http://www.whyamirich.com/business/outsourcing/taking-advantage-of-outsourcing-your-web-design.html Thu, 01 Jul 2010 02:54:26 -0600
One of the more noticeable benefits of outsourcing your web design needs is that you can save an enormous amount of time and effort. The moment you outsource the work you need done, you can relax knowing that the work is done for you to a higher standard that you may have reached alone. This should give you more time to work on other aspects of your business instead of spending hours trying to build a site. You can trust that the designers you outsourced to are working on creating a higher quality website while you spend that extra time enjoying greater productivity from focusing on other aspects of your business. On the long term this will prove to be a good investment when you make viable returns.

Website design and creation is a challenging field due to the rapid pace of innovation and change. When you try to do this work on your own, you will need to get constant updates on the latest trends and be sure that you keep your technical professional skills up-to-date. On the other hand if you go ahead and outsource your work to professional web design services, you'll get access to technical expertise that is above par, and experience you can count on. Little of that would be possible for someone attempting to design their own site.

Another element of you website work that you may consider outsourcing is the search engine optimization that ensures you rank how you want to. Tailoring your approach so that it nets you good search engine rankings will be important if you want people to be able to find you. Once the web design part is taken care of and everything is in place, you should put your focus on driving more sales/leads for your business. Everyone is looking for cost effective ways to increase marketing and Internet marketing is a great way to reach your target market and connect them with your website.

You can, of course, choose not to outsource; however, many people find that this only slows them down or that they are unable to get many things to work on their own. On the other hand, if you look at it as a necessary investment in your future success, you can have it done quickly and efficiently. ]]> http://www.whyamirich.com/business/outsourcing/the-benefits-of-outsourcing.html http://www.whyamirich.com/business/outsourcing/the-benefits-of-outsourcing.html Tue, 29 Jun 2010 03:40:53 -0600
- Are you always in a time crunch trying to keep ahead of client or customer needs?

- Do you have often find yourself missing project deadlines because you do not have the resources available to complete them on time?

- Do you find yourself, or your employees, spending time that could be used on other tasks to do tasks that require little or no training?

If you answered yes to one or more of the above questions then you should seriously consider outsourcing some parts of your business operations. Put simply, by outsourcing you and your personnel can focus on your core competencies. While you focus on critical business functions, the 'leg-work' can be handled by an outsourcing provider. The result? Bigger profit margins, as you will be able to spend more time doing the things that make you the most money.

What then, can you outsource? Well, outsourcing is a great option for, amongst other things, the following: accounting, payroll, typing, data entry, transcription, email services, mailing services, customer service, website creation or maintenance, research, data mining, tax processing or preparation, marketing, digital image editing, office management and client maintenance. So, basically, you can outsource anything and everything if you wanted to.

So, you have come to the conclusion that outsourcing may be for you. How do you find out about outsourcing? Ask colleagues or nearby companies for good outsourcing firms in your area or search the internet for firms that offer the services you are looking for on an outsourced basis. There are numerous excellent firms that offer outsourced services. You simply need to do a little research, make a few phone calls and perhaps do some interviewing. But do not just grab the first company that you come across or that is suggested to you. Be careful and make sure you look into the reputation and reliability of the company or individual with whom you would like to work. ]]> http://www.whyamirich.com/business/outsourcing/using-order-taking-methods-to-great-effect.html http://www.whyamirich.com/business/outsourcing/using-order-taking-methods-to-great-effect.html Fri, 26 Jun 2009 03:19:31 -0600
You will see that many outsourcing businesses are at your disposal and can competently handle any order taking work. It is usual for them to have human operators that can take incoming calls (as well as make outgoing calls) to process orders, arrange leaflet distribution or process product orders via the telephone. The potential advantages of outsourcing are plentiful.

For example, perhaps your company is a small outfit who closes in the early evening. It is plausible that you have missed several sales opportunities because your office is not open. By employing order taking services you can mop-up these out-of-hour calls and potentially receive a few more sales than you would have done otherwise. This facility can help you to boost your sales significantly.

When choosing a possible outsourcing company for order taking, it is imperative that they have the right number of staff to effectively deal with all the incoming calls. The staff should also be well-trained, professional and polite. The outsourcing company's management team should have the skills to deal with any problems that arise and ensure the smooth running of the operation.

An outsourcing provider should also have the right technology in place to be able to deal with a large number of calls and to perform any order taking work with minimal mistakes. If you are a huge conglomerate you will be best to find an outfit that can operate 365 days a year, 24 hours a day.

One of the many advantages of outsourcing is that you will receive highly aggressive quotes for the work. The way charges are calculated will vary but some companies only charge a one-off payment to take on your project. You may not incur charges relating to training of staff and may be offered a monthly plan to suit your needs. These types of packages may be based on a flat rate or depend on sales targets or volume of calls answered. Many providers will take on turn-key operations for a fixed price each month.

When you are searching for providers it is vital to make sure that they can live up to your expectations. Missing those extra sales calls when the office closed may have been slightly detrimental but worse than that is the possibility that your whole customer base could be affected by an incompetent call center system.

If it planned and executed correctly from the outset, then order taking can be a beneficial addition to your business operations. Small, medium and large organizations can profit from this kind of outsourcing and efficiently collar those missing sales and confirm repeat business from happy customers. ]]> http://www.whyamirich.com/business/outsourcing/outsourcing-your-small-business-accounting-functions-to-family.html http://www.whyamirich.com/business/outsourcing/outsourcing-your-small-business-accounting-functions-to-family.html Thu, 11 Jun 2009 03:37:08 -0600
Outsourcing your company's accounting functions may result in reduced labor costs or the conversion of fixed costs to variable costs, insurance,benefits and some tax savings, etc. Before you begin outsourcing, you need to invest in a quality scanner or fax machine and maybe even a high volume scanner or fax machine,depending on the volume and frequency of documents to be scanned. Scanning or faxing is necessary because all of the source documents(i.e. bank statements,vendor bills,customer invoices, etc.) have to be sent either by email or fax to the outsourced accountant to record your company's accounting transactions.

Whether you are the owner of a small business or the person responsible for accounting or bookkeeping, it's critical to establish a process by which someone monitors the activities of the outsourced company or person. If you decided to outsource, its also important to insure that a competent and independent person oversees and monitors your small business's financial results.

We often read that that if you outsource, some of your business accounting functions to a foreign country, then your labor costs will decrease as compared to what you would generally pay in the United States. In these uncertain times, when small business owners are facing survival issues resulting from lost sales, skyrocketing costs, contraction, often exacerbated by family unemployment, then it may make sense to give thought to employing a family member to help with the small business accounting. By employing a family member in your house or outsourcing your accounting function with family in a distant location, rather than outsourcing to another country, you may actually help the U.S. economy, in your own way, by keeping jobs in this country. A baby step,but certainly the right one for our country. This idea works, if the owners or members of the owner's family can learn QuickBooks, or another comparable online accounting software program. It's helpful, if the family member has some basic financial knowledge to undertake this responsibility of entering the financial information into an online accounting software. Given the current economy in the United States, there are situations where family members are now unemployed and are now ready, able and available to help and make a positive contribution to the family business.

QuickBooks Online Plus is one of many online accounting softwares available and easy to learn. With training, most people with common sense can handle QuickBooks. If you decide to chose this option, it's important to have a CPA or accountant available to ask questions and to receive timely answers, as well as a mechanism in place to allow for real time or after the fact corrections or adjustments to the accounting records.

Under either scenario, outsourcing with a family member or to a foreign country,a CPA or accountant or a skilled financial services consultant is the ideal person to monitor either the real time, or monthly or quarterly financial information, and to check that the reconciliation process is working and more importantly, that outsource person or team, are doing the right job.

With the correct QuickBooks Online or other QuickBooks versions with remote access, it is possible for your CPA or accountant to remotely monitor an outsourced accounting department, whether the outsourced department is in a distant location or outsourced to family.

Before making any decision about outsourcing, it is recommended that you first speak to your CPA or accountant in order to determine if whether or not outsourcing is appropriate for your particular business. The CPA or accountant can also help access the skill of the person to provide the outsourced service.

Outsourcing to one or two family members will not work for a large or mid size business. But, if you own a small business, interested in minimizing a portion of your payroll, thinking about to outsource your current bookkeeper or accountant, and someone in your family is not working, outsourcing to family may very well be a viable alternative for you. This should work as long as the outsourced family member is supervised and checked by your CPA or accountant. In the beginning there will be more time required by your CPA or accountant to teach and to oversee as compared to the time that your accounting professional currently spends each month or quarter. Overtime, your accounting professional will spend less hours in monitoring. Notwithstanding, some time will always be required of your accounting professional to monitor the activities of the outsourced person. ]]> http://www.whyamirich.com/business/outsourcing/better-medical-billing-processes-can-lower-healthcare-costs.html http://www.whyamirich.com/business/outsourcing/better-medical-billing-processes-can-lower-healthcare-costs.html Sun, 26 Apr 2009 05:15:17 -0600
Although the issue of claims processing is mentioned as one of the sources of rising healthcare costs, the true economic drivers that are keeping the current inefficient and opaque processes in place has not been well explored. The fact of the matter is that the current process prey's upon the technology, process and staffing limitations of most physician offices to take money from the physicians and give it to the payers. The result is rising costs and following revenues for the average medical provider.

The tactics used by payers to save money (and drive up the cost for medical practices to operate a medical billing process) include: Underpaying over 10% of medical claims, "losing" submitted claims on a regular basis, and constantly changing the rules by which they decide if claims are actually payable. If the provider's medical billing process is not technology savvy, well designed and properly staffed then over 20% of the practice's revenue can easily be lost to these tactics.

Now, here is a shocking fact - more than 50 percent of claims that payers "lose" or are underpaid are never pursued by physicians (and therefore the payers never have to pay the money they owe to the physician or facility). This means that payers have a powerful economic incentive to play games and make the medical billing process complicated.

Nothing is free, so payers do incur a price on their end because of the current process. It cost about $25 when a payer that has spotted an underpaid or missing claim gets a insurance representative on the phone. This has lead payers to get quite clever and grade each medical provider. The grade is based upon how well the provider spots issues and calls the payer (thus generating costs for the payers). If the provider catches the payers "mistake" each time they will be rated an A. If they never catch the payer's errors they will receive a F. Interestingly, the payers that are rated an F seem to have many more lost and underpaid claims than those rated an A.

As soon as payers see the economic motivation of losing and underpaying claims disappear, they will be forced to adopt acclaim adjudication process that is easier and cost significantly less for medical providers. The way to make this happen is to ensure that each provider is rated an A. This is why improved medical billing processes are a key weapon in the fight against rising healthcare costs.

If every medical billing company and every billing department relentlessly pursued each claim then the insurance companies would see their costs rise and be forced to revisit their strategy. They would be hit by the double sided sword of increased payouts to providers (since the tactics would only slow down payments not eliminate them) and increased cost of adjudicating claims (since all of those medical billing specialists are sitting on the phone costing the payers $25 per call).

Real-time claim adjudication, where a payer adjudicates the claim while the patient is in the physician's office, is a goal that has been frequently described as being "just around the corner." This goal will never be reached while the balance of power between payers and providers is so skewed in the favor of the payers. Once each provider is rated an "A" and the payers are no longer able to use their superior size and technology to under pay providers, a truce can be achieved. It is from this truce that a true real-time, low cost medical billing system can emerge.

Copyright 2008 by Carl Mays II ]]> http://www.whyamirich.com/business/outsourcing/clean-claim-laws-tough-to-master-but-worth-the-effort.html http://www.whyamirich.com/business/outsourcing/clean-claim-laws-tough-to-master-but-worth-the-effort.html Sat, 25 Apr 2009 09:09:26 -0600
The basic idea of the law is that a payer has to respond to a clean claim within a set time (usually around 30 days for electronic claims). In order to utilize the clean claim law effectively you must have a tracking system built into your medical billing process that flags:

1. Which payers are subject to the clean a claim law (not all are),

2. The date your practice initially submits each medical claim;

3. Events that stop the clean claim clock (e.g., an information request from the payer),

4. Events that restart the clean claim clock (e.g., your office replies to a payer's information request), and

5. When you received a payment or denial.

Planning and constructing the monitoring system can be difficult, but it can have a significant impact on how quickly your claims are paid cleanly. Aggressive users of clean claim laws have actually received calls from payers assuring them that their claims will be process quickly and requesting that complaints be held to give the payer a chance to prove itself.

A quick way to get started with using the clean claim law is to pick a specific payer that you believe habitually delays claims beyond 30 days. Find a handful of claims that have gone past 30 days and then test the water with those claims. This will allow you to learn the basics of using the on-line tool provided for submitting complaints and see the impact of your initial complaints.

Copyright 2006 by Carl Mays II ]]> http://www.whyamirich.com/business/outsourcing/the-importance-and-benefits-of-human-resources-audits.html http://www.whyamirich.com/business/outsourcing/the-importance-and-benefits-of-human-resources-audits.html Tue, 21 Apr 2009 06:12:36 -0600
Human resource audits

Human resource audits are necessary to ensure that human resources is doing their job. Strengths and weaknesses are indicated so that human resources can do what they need to do to make sure the entire staff is happy.

Here are some of the benefits of human resource audits:

- A through analysis is able to pinpoint what needs to be improved. - Paperwork is evaluated to ensure accurate recordkeeping. This is something that is important to both current and former employees. - Those who make decisions within the human resource department can see where improvements must be made. - The overall design and structure of the business can be evaluated so that it can be improved for better functioning. - HR managers are better able to evaluate the positions within the business and see who needs to be promoted, who doesn't, and what needs to be done staff-wise that will improve the business. - Legal compliance can be determined. It is very important that the business complies with everything legally. If not, then those improvements can be made. - Employee morale can be kept up and so can job satisfaction. - The business can improve its reputation. Satisfied employees will talk about how great their job is. Satisfied employees also do a much better job at their job. When they do this, customer satisfaction increases and the company can make a better profit.

These are benefits that every business with an HR department needs. There are many businesses with high turnover rates and the improvement really needs to be in the human resources department. If the HR departments within these businesses would make the necessary improvements, these businesses would have lower turnover.

Lower turnover also means that money is saved within the business. This is due to the fact that it costs a lot of money to train new employees. If a business has to train fewer employees, that is less money that they have to spend on training. This significantly improves their bottom line.

A successful business

All-in-all, the human resources department is what can make a successful business. As stated before, employee morale can be improved if the overall function of the Human Resources Consulting is improved.

So by doing audits, all of these issues can be found and they can be rectified so that the business will run smoothly. The human resources department will feel better about what they are doing, management will feel better about what they are doing, and the employees will also feel good about how things are operating within their place of employment.

If your business needs an overhaul, this is the way to do it. An outside company can audit the human resources department or upper management can take care of it. It really depends on if you want to spend money on having the department audited or if you want to spend time on an audit. Either way, the audit is going to make a significant difference in how the business operates. But you may want to have someone come in from the inside so that they have an unbiased view of the business activities. ]]> http://www.whyamirich.com/business/outsourcing/how-statistical-sales-can-help-your-business.html http://www.whyamirich.com/business/outsourcing/how-statistical-sales-can-help-your-business.html Sun, 22 Mar 2009 11:49:01 -0600
My sales team hadn't acquired one new client within a month's time period. They also could not come up with the statistical sales projections that I had asked them to furnish the previous month. I was beginning to wonder if they were attempting to hide something from me. They were failing to execute fundamental requests.

The sales team knew that they were underperforming and they were trying to procrastinate the inevitable for as long as they possibly could. I knew that I had to bring in outside selling help to turn my sales team back around.

I contacted a sales outsourcing service provider to assist me in regaining control of my business. I needed help in assessing my sales team and determining whether or not they would remain a part of my company. The outsourcers promised to provide me with all of the selling help and guidance that I needed in order to obtain the results that I wanted.

The outsourcing company provided me with a team of professional sales experts to work side by side with my current sales team in strategizing to build up my clientele. The outsourcing company was also being paid to observe and analyze my sales team.

They provided me with a full report detailing their findings and suggestions for improvement. They also were able to come up with the statistical sales reports that I had been waiting for. These reports clearly showed that my sales team was not even coming close to achieving their monthly targets.

The outsourcing team suggested that I bring in a Sales Team Manager to supervise all aspects of my sales department and to report directly to me.

The Sales Manager would have authority to dismiss any employee that did not meet their minimum monthly requirements and replace them as needed. Thanks to the assistance of the outsourcing company I was able to regain control of the future of my company. ]]> http://www.whyamirich.com/business/outsourcing/free-sales-tips-for-your-business.html http://www.whyamirich.com/business/outsourcing/free-sales-tips-for-your-business.html Fri, 13 Mar 2009 12:29:05 -0600
There were a number of restaurant decorative tips that I incorporated into the dcor. I had read restaurant-goers preferred warm red hues when dining. This color supposedly stimulated their appetite.

I also read that diners preferred soft lighting and candle light when possible. I took all of this advice to heart while I was working on the interior of the store. I incorporated as many of the free sales tips that I learned as I could into my restaurant.

I also looked up free sales tips that would help me increase my overall traffic. I found out that I could lure more customers into my restaurant on slow night by offering specials and discounts. On Mondays I offered two for the price of one pasta dishes.

When Tuesdays became the old Monday, I tried something new and set up an all you can eat pizza and pasta buffet. This became a favorite of my customers and many of them made sure that they didn't miss a Tuesday night dinner.

All of the sales help that I found on-line encouraged restaurant owners to provide their diners with something different. I felt that I needed to make my restaurant stand out from the competition. I knew that my food and my menu was as good as it was ever going to be so I decided to add to the atmosphere of the restaurant by providing some entertainment.

During our dinner hours on the weekends I found some local bands to come in and play some dinner music. I noticed that diners would linger in the bar after dinner to listen to the music.

The sales tips that I found were very helpful in providing guidance. I was able to open up and maintain a very successful Italian eatery. In fact, we are building an addition in order to keep up with all of our customers and provide a room for private parties. ]]>