New Business Technology puts the squeeze on Small and Mid Size Firms

Using  technology  to cope with today’s ever changing business pressures varies with business size.

Current trends in business technology in general are smaller, faster, cheaper, free on the internet.

Business of all size are and have been rushing to get there.

• Large companies throw together teams to investigate and implement technology to their advantage.
  • They have the benefit of large budgets and resource pools.
  • Maintaining their operations and customers is not a problem simply because of their depth of resources.               
• Mid sized firms  can outsource for  limited adoption of technology
  • have more limited resources
  • operations and customer maintenance is not significantly affected because they can bring in some resources
  • can use “free” tools but typically do not want to host the “free” advertising associated with free tools
• Small companies have to try to find a way to adopt new technology themselves or utilize so called “free” tools on the web.
  • have typically neither resources or money
  • have overhead and customers to keep happy
  • Have day to day operations/services  to maintain
  • Have to live with the free advertising to get the free tools
• Start ups can carve out a niche and  spend hundreds or thousands of man days developing a specific solution that they can provide cheaper, faster, slicker.
  • Startups have little to no overhead and need only do one thing really well.
  • No current customers to keep happy. 
  • may have deep pockets if they are lucky enough to have an “angel”
  • on the down side they have little to no revenue

Two points can be made from the above observations:

1.  So called “free” internet resources to adopt technology to your business are not “free”. The adage ” there is  no such thing as a free lunch” could not be more true. Utilizing free tools with or without the advertising takes paying for help to implement or hundreds of hundreds of hours  to first implement and configure and then constant on going attention to feed the content and or tweak the configuration .  Don’t get me wrong the internet “free” tools, and low cost services are great. but  they are in no way free.
2. The small to mid- sized firms that create jobs and hire people are being squeezed by new technology more than the Large and startup firms.

We at AdvanTec Information Systems, LLC  recognize this and work with the small and mid- sized firms to help them adopt and adapt to new technology.

www.advantecis.com   www.findsocialservicesoftware.com

Economic issues Impact on Health Care

Economic issues Impact on Health Care

Cutbacks in Medicaid Funding!

• More people applying to Medicaid – due to economy.

“Though many of the proposed Medicare cuts and the ones already in progress are frightening and difficult, at best, to deal with, the thought of more Medicaid cuts puts more pressure on the people that need the program most.”

“The problem is that rather than helping keep the benefits for people, once someone has lost them, the state and county end up paying untold thousands of dollars for emergency room visits that take the place of doctor visits. Keeping people on Medicaid and allowing new ones to get on it save the state and county money, short term and long term.”  The Medicaid and Medicare Center   (http://medicare-medicaid.com/tag/medicaid-cutbacks/)               june30th, 2009

Unemployment

• 10% unemployment is roughly a 5% increase in unemployment over “normal” and therefore causes a comparable 5% decrease in income tax revenue.
• Less revenue in state coffers for (Medicaid) matching funds – due to lower tax revenues
• Unemployment is projected to grow to 10.1 percent by 2/2010 and stay there for a while.

“Looking ahead to next fiscal year, the outlook is that FY 2010 almost certainly will be a very difficult year, with the potential for widespread program cutbacks and provider rate cuts that will affect millions of Medicaid beneficiaries.”  The Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured. January 2009

Federal Stimulus Program misses the mark!

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA)

• Section 5001: Increased Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP)
• Section 5001 of the ARRA provides eligible States with an increased Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP) for 27 months between October 1, 2008 and December 31, 2010
• Even though the Recovery Act provides more federal money the problem is that it requires the states to come up with more money to qualify and the states are stretched thin already by reduced tax revenue.

 

What does the future hold?

• Economic indicators show that the recession has bottomed out and started a rebound.  The banking, Wall Street, and housing industries are picking up.
• Unemployment is a lagging indicator and will not show improvement till later.
• Additional provisions and expenditures of the Stimulus package will go into effect in 2010 and may provide additional help to the economy.

So things should continue to improve.

But what can Service Providers do in the meantime?

All businesses (including health services) consist of the following three components.

• Labor: Professional Services – patient contact hours (labor)
  • Labor can be automated – for tracking and monitoring but professional contact hours cannot be eliminated.  They can be optimized and made more efficient but when it comes to the physical care services they still must be performed by people.
  • Plant:  Physical Goods and Facilities: drugs, materials, clinics, and associated utilities
    • Drugs and materials can be negotiated and cost reductions from bulk purchasing
    • Facility expenses can be reduced by providing services remotely or off-site reducing the amount of physical facilities required.
    • Administration:  Paperwork, compliance, documentation, management, tracking, error prevention, fraud prevention, privacy protection, reporting, certification, training, communications, scheduling, billing, accounting, etc.
      • Administrative  overhead which is a very significant expense is the most fertile area where expenses can be reduced with Information Systems Technology

 

We provide IT solutions for Home Health, Mental Health and Group Homes that can improve your operations and reduce your expenses.

• Schedule / sign up for a webinar on our Human Services solutions
• Call to set up a session with one of our consultants to work up a demonstrable return on investment model (ROI)

We may not be able to totally offset the impacts of the economy and funding cuts but we assuredly can help.

www.findSocialServiceSoftware.com     www.advantecis.com