Rest in Peace, Windows XP

What you need to know about HIPAA compliance and Microsoft.

Steven Presement

Just when you thought not much more could happen in a year already chocked-full of regulatory changes, here comes another bombshell that will take health care totally by surprise. Microsoft has announced that as of April 8th, it will no longer support Windows XP, an operating system that is still in use in one-third of Windows-based computers across the world. This change also means is that Microsoft will no longer release security patches for Windows XP—the updates that combat hackers. In fact, Microsoft has said, “PCs running Windows XP after April 8, 2014, should not be considered to be protected.”

Why They Buy

Reluctant Customers

By Lynn Steffes, PT, DPT

Think back to the last time your water heater broke, or you had to replace a major appliance. I bet you were not thrilled to spend the money or be inconvenienced by the time it took away from your busy schedule. I am not sure people seeking physical therapy services feel much better.

Good Things Happen to Good Clinics

As reimbursement becomes a challenge and profits are tight, the decision to support community efforts often becomes one of the first budget cuts.

Bob Worden, PTA, ATC, MS, MBA, CAGS

Looking back on our first decade as a clinic, Pinnacle Physical Therapy (a member of the Pinnacle Rehabilitation Network), we can say, “Good things happen to good clinics.” Surviving the infiltration of hospital- and physician-owned clinics in our community has been challenging. Maintaining our patient volume with a volatile physician-referral base has required a steadfast commitment to our guiding principles.

Secret to Success

Lessons learned during the first year of private practice.

By Jeanette M. De Witt, PT, MPT, LAT, ATC

From July 1998 through January 2012, I practiced in a wonderful hospital system in Ohio that allowed me to gain experience, attend educational seminars, and advance my career from a staff physical therapist to a supervisor. Although I was content with my position, I always held high hopes that I would own my own clinic “one day.” After a family vacation to Wisconsin and falling in love with the state, my family decided to move, and I returned to a staff physical therapist position. However, after seven months, I found myself missing the supervisory responsibilities I had once enjoyed at the hospital. I elected to give private practice a whirl and reached out to a company that assists therapists in opening their own clinics and decided to pursue my dream. After a month of interviews, I joined the company’s network and embarked on my first year as a clinic director. This was a large leap of faith from which I have greatly benefitted. My practice was truly built from the ground up as at the time of signing, the clinic location was not even confirmed yet!

Improving Performance

Can value-based purchasing in health care live up to the promise?

By Jerome Connolly, PT, CAE

May 5, 2014

On March 4, 2014, the RAND Corporation released a new report concluding that after a decade of experimentation with reforms that give health providers financial incentives to improve performance—so-called value-based purchasing—relatively little is known about how to best execute such strategies or to judge their success.

The report—authored by Cheryl L. Damberg, Melony E. Sorbero, Susan L. Lovejoy, Grant Martsolf, Laura Raaen, and Daniel Mandel—which was designed to assess the state of knowledge about value-based purchasing programs in health care, found that evidence thus far is mixed about whether using such payment schemes can help improve quality and lower costs.¹