To enhance your experience at the American Academy of Orthotists and Prosthetists’ (the Academy’s) 2016 Annual Meeting & Scientific Symposium, being held March 9-12 in Orlando, Florida, this Online Exclusive presents additional details about several sessions to take you beyond the program.
At the End of the Day, Numbers Don’t Lie-Staying Profitable in the World of O&P
Presenter: Rob Benedetti
With the headwinds facing O&P, staying profitable is more challenging and more vital than ever. In this session, Benedetti will share some common financial myths and pitfalls associated with running an O&P company, and the methods to avoid them. Each attendees will gain insight into how to provide quality patient care, avoid financial mistakes, and maintain a profitable business by clearly understanding the specifics of his or her company’s finances.
With detailed financial examples, the session will include details about using an operating budget to expose wasteful, redundant, and incumbent expenses; avoiding accountant’s fees for financial reports; and using monthly reports to regularly gauge your company’s financial status.
Knowing how to accurately define profitability, beyond simply cash in your checking account or a full patient schedule, is a key point of the presentation. Benedetti will help you understand how to create an entrepreneurial niche and expand your market share, all while controlling costs. Addressing the effectiveness and efficiency of your marketing efforts as an important entrepreneurial focus will be a point of discussion, as will cash management and strong leadership as principles of profitability.
Respect Your Mom, Respect Your Money, Respect Your Business
Presenter: Rob Benedetti
In this business-based session, Benedetti will help you answer one question: What steps can I take to keep my company financially viable? The answer involves three criteria that are vital to success: the people you employ, the processes you use, and how you control your costs. Making sure your business has the right number of employees and the right person for each job, as well as ensuring those employees best use their skills and training, are all keys to success. But the owner of a financially strong business must also know how to use financial data to analyze business processes to make the most efficient use of resources and to control the costs of doing business. The session will focus on the steps necessary to ensure that you’re respecting each of the pillars so you can be confident your business is financially viable.
The Next Step for Outcomes Measurement
Presenters: Brian Kaluf, CP; Tony Gutierrez, CP; Kyle Sherk, MS, CPO, FAAOP; Cheryl Byers, MHA, CIP, CHRC
Outcome measures have become more routinely adopted in O&P clinical practice in part due to previous iterations of the Outcome Research Committee Organized Session. Historically, the focus has been on analyzing single patients to make more informed and evidence-based clinical decisions. With clinical outcome measures now becoming more commonly implemented, data generated from routine administration of these measures provides an opportunity to improve clinical processes, compare interventions, optimize business practices, and contribute to research evidence. This session will focus on what the next steps could be for outcome measure assessment.
Gutierrez will introduce best practices and how to change habits to routinely document outcome measures in a real-world clinical environment. Sherk will demonstrate ways to evaluate outcome measure data from groups of patients using statistical approaches that are easy to implement. Byers will discuss topics related to case study and retrospective chart review research as they relate to Institutional Review Board oversight. These expert panelists will provide the attendees with the skills and knowledge needed to take the next steps and get the most out of outcome measure data from their own clinic.
