Banding Bulletin – June 2021

Banding Bulletin – June 2021

We hope that this edition of the “Banding Bulletin” finds you well!  Happily, since our last Bulletin went out, COVID case numbers are way down, vaccination numbers are way up and things continue to open up around the country.  Many practices are seeing a surge in patient demand from the long backlog that developed during the past year.  With this in mind, this month we are going to introduce our new program, BandLeader, designed to help you see more hemorrhoid patients while investing less of your staff’s time, and pass along some tips and tricks to increase efficiency in your office caring for your anorectal patients. 

Increasing efficiency and capacity to treat patients:

We will list some of these techniques in bullet-point form.  If you’d like more information re: any of these suggestions, please contact ME and we’ll help in any way that we can!

• Pre-screen your banding patients.  All too often, a patient comes in to your clinic, advertised as a straight forward hemorrhoid patient, and you find out that they are also really tender from a coexistent fissure.  You start the patient on their appropriate treatment to cool things off, and bring them back in 2 or 3 weeks to begin their banding at that time.  Many to most of these patients have already been seen by the practice, and this fissure was overlooked.  Often this scenario can be avoided by doing the following:
  

• • Perform a quick DRE in endo when a patient with ANY anorectal complaints is about to be scoped, PRIOR to giving the patient any sedation.  If you use propofol, ask the anesthetist to hold off on giving the “white stuff” for a few seconds – long enough to do a DRE.  If the patient exhibits any tenderness at the introitus, and if they don’t have an abscess, thrombosed external hemorrhoid or fistula, the odds are that they also have a fissure.  Starting treatment at that time will likely have the patient ready to go at the time of that first banding visit.
  • Spread the word within your practice to other “non-banders” who are sending you patients to care for.  That same quick DRE can pay benefits as above.

• Tune up your EMR template.  There is nothing more frustrating than performing a quick, simple procedure, and then spending forever trying to document things!  Some of the EMR’s that are out there do have banding templates, and some of those really need a bit of tweaking to get things right where you want them…but it is well worth the effort if you can modify things appropriately.  Some practices that don’t have the kind of support necessary to punch up their EMR will use the sample progress notes that we used in our own clinics, and then scan them into their system.  We’ll mention some of the other paperwork available below. 
  
  
  • The 3 most important things to document in your note include:
    1. 1. What you saw on your anoscopy (so you typically won’t need to repeat it at subsequent visits, making life easier for everyone
       2. Where you placed the rubber band
       3. Is there anything else ongoing that you’ve addressed (this goes towards the coding and billing for the procedure and visit)
          
          
• Have CRH provide “refreshers” or “in-services” to you and your staff.  We are always anxious to interact with our Partners to provide whatever support might be helpful to you and your staff.  During the past year and a half, we’ve learned the value of “virtual visits”, so we can offer both in-person and virtual sessions to any that might be helped.  If you are interested in having anyone new trained, or would like to set up a visit or a “Zoom” call, please contact ME and we’ll get you on our calendar.
  
  
• Streamline your patients’ visits to your clinic.  Patient education is obviously a very important part of any interaction, and hemorrhoids, fissures, etc., are not exceptions to that rule.  CRH has developed all sorts of patient informational materials, including “post-banding instructions”, “NTG instructions”, fiber recommendations, questionnaires for your medical records, etc., etc., etc.  They are each in Word format, and so easily customized and dragged onto your own letterhead if you’d like.  They are also available in multiple languages, and make your office both more efficient and more effective in educating your patients.  You can find all of this and more HERE
  
  
• Include your partners and Advanced Practitioners in the banding process.  We’ve been seeing a big uptick in the number of practices that, frankly, have the docs tied up in the ASC trying to catch up on all of the endoscopy that had been delayed during the heart of the COVID pandemic.  We’re training an increasing percentage of NP’s and PA’s in the use of the CRH technology as well as giving tutorials on diagnosis and treatment of other anorectal issues.  This has allowed the doc to be in endo, doing what only the doc can do, and meanwhile, all of your anorectal patients are still able to be treated back in the clinic.  Again, this makes life easier for everyone, especially the patient that would otherwise have to wait in a queue to be seen and treated!

Introducing BandLeader: More Patients, More Revenue, More Time

BandLeader is a turn-key program designed to allow you to treat more hemorrhoid patients with minimal effort or investment.  With BandLeader, we thoroughly analyze your practice before creating a business plan that quantifies the opportunity and provides a clear road map for success. If you’re interested in a quick call to find out more, click here.

How Does BandLeader Work?

Identification and Outreach
The BandLeader program begins with activating and educating existing patients, while simultaneously driving new patients to your practice. We have developed an outreach process and tool to identify and qualify patients based on EMR data. We also use digital marketing and referrals to reach new patients and grow brand awareness.

Screen and Educate
Our systematic approach serves to both screen and educate patients, as this is often the first time they learn of banding. Our expert patient advisors call patients to screen for symptoms and provide information on hemorrhoid banding as a treatment option.

Schedule and Hand-Off
When a patient is interested in booking an appointment, we capture all relevant information before making the live transfer to your practice to schedule treatment.

Ongoing Support

In addition to ongoing patient screening and identification, we provide you with continuous reporting and analytics on how BandLeader is performing in your practice, as well as all the tools, training and support you need to be successful.

Contact us today if you are interested in a no pressure consultation to see if BandLeader is a good fit for your practice.

Thank you so much for checking out this Bulletin!  Please let me know if we can help with anything, and we hope to catch up with you soon.