Home Organization – How to Manage Paper Clutter and Create a Filing System, Part One

Over the years, I have discovered that by far, many people’s number one organizational concern is handling all of their incoming paper: what to keep, what to get rid of, what to DO with it, and how to store it. Paper disorganization is a messy, dangerous business that at best costs you time, and at worst costs you money. The difficult thing is that no matter how many times you clean it up, more paper just keeps flooding in! Follow these tips to find out how to get the problem under control.

1. Eliminate as much paper as possible from your life.

  • Nix all the floating scraps by putting grocery lists, to-do lists, addresses, and phone numbers directly into your phone or PDA.
  • Use your computer as the ultimate storage device by scanning in your kids’ artwork (where they can now be kept forever in mint condition, as well as effortlessly shared with family and friends), take-out menus, medical records, and non-vital documents. Just make sure to back everything up.
  • Visit catalogchoice.org to cut down on unwanted mailings, and cancel any subscriptions that are routinely going unread.
  • Sign up to have your bills and statements sent to you electronically, and pay them online. This will eliminate the incoming paper bill as well as the need for a checkbook, stamps, and address labels, and as an added bonus, your payments will be processed at least twice as fast as sending them by mail.

2. Get your family on board. It is imperative that they be involved with the process, so they can take some ownership of the results. After all, everyone will benefit from this. It’s vital that they are doing their part to keep the papers to a minimum, or they will be creating chaos as fast as you can clean it up. When you have the system in place, make sure all members understand it and can use it easily.

3. Institute a 24 hour handling rule. If you address your papers every day, it takes less than ten minutes; every week, it takes an hour; every month, well, I sincerely hope you are weeding through your papers more than once a month! Ultimately, all organization boils down to keeping up, and there is no magic wand for that. After dinner, take five minutes a day to go through all of the incoming mail, the kids papers, and the scraps in your pocket or purse. This is also a great way to make sure important reminders aren’t literally slipping through your fingers, and that kids’ permission slips and other notices are being addressed right away.

Make sure to read part two of this article series to find out how to handle the papers you decide to keep!

Why Electronic Medical Records Charting Is a More Efficient Process Than Paper Charting

Here’s a way to jump-start your practice into seeing why; electronic medical records charting is a more efficient process than paper charting. Figure out the cost of time working with paper charts. It gives a practical comparison of Paper vs Paperless charting environments.

Start by listing each charting function that is performed in your practice. Some typical functions to list are:

- Trips back and forth to racks of folders in the file room.
- Duplication of work effort because files are incomplete or completely missing,
- Chart pulls for the Physician,
- Chart pulls for follow-up faxes and phone calls to patients or health insurers,
- Prescription faxing and refills,
- Lab reports and follow-up correspondence.

You get the idea.

Have each staff member handling charts check off what is relevant to them in their work flow and the amount of time spent on each task. Now we use a little light math.

The number of minutes each staff member spends performing daily charting task is added up independently. Then multiplied by the amount each staff member is paid hourly. With this number in hand you can quickly see how high recurring cost on poorly managed paper file charting can cost the lost of your hard-earned cash.

Having medical practice management software can eliminate hard material cost. Consider cost of the charting room and its contents: Square footage cost,charts, files,racks, ladders, folders, maintenance, fax copiers,toner and endless stacks of paper!

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid services (CMS) says the average cost per physician to adopt a certified EMR is $53,000. With additional annual maintenance cost of $10,000 per physician. The cost for hospitals can reach $1 million to $5 million for installation plus maintenance cost of $1 million annually.To offset these cost CMS offers financial incentives for certification of your software and exhibiting “meaningful use” of your EMR throughout your year.This is an incentive for early deployment of a EMR environment. By 2015 EMR’s will be a required medical practice management tool throughout the USA with non compliance punishable by law.

So in no way is it free or a wash in costs for the change from a paper chart practice to a EMR chart environment. Never the less it is extremely efficient; saving you lost money and affording you better quality of care to the patient. EMR’s present no physical ergonomic challenges like paper charting; So no lost time making trips around the office burning up time and money. Patient history is completely search-able. Charts are simultaneously viewed and updated instantly.The EHR / EMR software also flags drug history,drug doses, side affects, disease interactions and preventive care guidelines.

More software functionality can be acquired and licensed to help with every aspect of your practice. So EMR’s can make your practice manageable and empower your staff to do their jobs with confidence and efficiency.

If you want EMR practice management software but don’t want to manage servers and data backups for EMR software. Software as a Service (SaaS) is a growing software deployment model coming of age and gaining traction in medical practices. “SaaS refers to a type of software deployment in which all of the system’s software and data is hosted and managed at a central data center operated by the software vendor. The physician practice simply uses the system through their web browsers and a broadband Internet connection. The software vendor will manage data backups and updates. The practice will typically pay a monthly subscription fee to use the service, rather than purchase the software up front”… To read more about (SaaS).

Go to our site at http://electronicmedicalrecords.ws/SaaS_right_for_your_practic.html and click on Free Download Now: “Is Software as a Service (SaaS) Right for Your Practice?”

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Managing Paper In Your Life

Do you remember the days when computers were just getting started and we were
looking forward to becoming a paperless society? It just didn’t happen, in
fact we have just as much if not more paper now than before computers.

There is so much paper that comes into our homes and offices we can’t read it
all. We need to be selective and stay focused on what is important to read or
to get rid of, or the tops of our desks, counter tops or tables will never be
seen again, not to mention we will be totally over whelmed by our stack of
things to read or to sort through, which can lead to not getting the important
things accomplished on time.

Some strategies we can use to help eliminate the paper struggle is: deal with
paper that comes into our offices or homes every single day, there will
always be more ‘important’ things to do and paper stacks will continue to
collect, making it harder to find the important papers among the clutter.

As you pick up each piece of paper immediately sort it by importance. Three
piles are usually sufficient. Make one for urgent things, important but not
urgent, and not important. Work on the urgent things first, and then the not
so important but needs attention at some point. Do not get in the rut of
reading junk mail; put it in the recycle bin or shredder as soon as you pick
it up.

Make it a habit to keep your desk, counter or table paper free. Make sure all
paper is in its home at the end of the day. When you get in the habit of
taking care of all paper at the time you pick it up it will become a habit
which eliminates piles of paper and information getting lost. If you keep to
this routine in a few weeks time you will have formed the habit of taking
care of paper and eliminating clutter. The reduced piles of paper will free
up time in your life and space in your office or home. You will enjoy the
freedom you will feel by not having paper cluttering you space, time and mind.

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Data Management – Paper Overload & Lost File Reproduction Result in Time Lost

Red lights glare into the morning “System Overload” and sirens scream. Not a day goes by that an office doesn’t feel the heat of rising emotion when lost files must be reproduced or found, and time management slips out the window. If your office is constantly on paper alert, you need to read this list of solutions.

Paper Solution #1: Cut the Clutter

95% of office clutter results from overprinting documents. Unless you need it, don’t print it. You don’t need printed copies of every document. Some documents simply need a place to rest on the computer. Use online file storage systems and store your information online.

Paper Solution #2: Cut the Costs

As per solution #1, you’ll find not printing documents will save you money in ink, paper, and printer replacements and cleaning. It will amaze you how much less you’ll spend on paper, ink and printer costs when you don’t print those pages and pages of paper piled up around your office.

Paper Solution #3: Email v. Snail Mail

Whenever possible, email. Most people these days have email, and would actually prefer to receive messages via email. At the touch of a button the message can be deleted when they’ve responded, filed if they need to keep it, or printed if absolutely necessary. Most messages do not need to see the light of day. Email!

Paper Solution #4: File System

If you must print it, prepare a single place to protect it, using file folders, logical titles, and solution oriented storage systems that make retrieval of documents possible. When you file it away if you have no filing system, you’ll never see the document again anyway, so why waste your time filing. Use a friendly retrieval system when filing information.

Paper Solution #5: Binder Options

Some documents require more than file storage, and should be kept in labeled and available binders. Shelving for binder storage is a requirement for most offices. If you must print those ebooks, formal documents, and research information, store it in binders to ease accessibility. Three ring binders store well, ease access and open up new solution options.

Office Solutions are often found in Article Marketing sites where content is provided, updated and maintained within a system of storage and retrieval that allows you to provide content for the Internet. If you’ve got more data than you want to maintain, perhaps you’d want to share the content using an Article Marketing System. Share your content with others as Articles Online. To learn more about this option of maintaining data, visit

http://advertizeyourbusiness.com and learn how Article Marketing can use your data as content.

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Document Management – Practice Good Time Management and Organization Techniques

Managing paper in any office is an overwhelming task, because there is a seemingly ever-increasing mountain of paper files.

Whether you’re a small or large company, you must practice good time management and office organization techniques in order to control costs and provide excellent service. Constantly increasing staff productivity is a must. What is needed is a simple, but effective document management solution.

David Lawrence of David Lawrence and Associates said in a previous article, “Consider how much it costs to maintain inefficient paperwork and filing systems. If, as a direct result of not having efficient systems, it costs you and/or your staff one hour each day (this is probably conservative), and you used a $50-per-hour cost factor over the course of an entire year-the cost of inefficiency could top $12,000 in lost time ($50 x five days per week x 48 weeks).

There is an old saying in business that goes, As much as is possible, handle a piece of paper only once. Those of us who scan through paper mail and set it aside in an inbox, promising to deal with it later, may find that same piece of mail a couple of months later buried in a pile. Deadlines can be missed, important mail can be commingled with unimportant (or junk) mail…”

In that Financial Advisor Magazine article entitled ‘Conquering The Paperwork Mountain,’ Mr. Lawrence recommended a document management software and filing system. This software is found to be an invaluable tool for helping people to better manage their office and get organized to stay on top of the virtual mountain of paperwork that they must deal with each day. You get all the power of the computer WITHOUT the risks and time commitment of paper scanning.

This software is a file indexing tool that allows you to go ahead and set up hanging files with numbered tabs, so they are ready to drop your paper filing into.

When going through mail, decide what needs action, what should be filed, and what should be tossed. Stacks of paper files all over the office lead to frustration and inefficiency, which is costly in both time and money, so you must prioritize and decide on procedures to handle the paper that comes through your office. To create an even more efficient office, be sure to document your paper handling system and retention guidelines. (the schedule of the life cycle of documents in your office) This will ensure that everyone is organized in the same way and training on these procedures will be a sync in the event of employee illness or staff turnover.

-Decide what is junk, and toss what should be tossed immediately.

-For items that need to be filed, the best practice would be to open the document management database and input Item Name and Keywords for each item, then immediately drop the file into the corresponding hanging folder.

Or you could have a tray or folder on your desk where you can immediately place items to be filed. Then set aside 15 minutes to clear your desk at the end of each day, enter the necessary information regarding the ‘to be filed’ into the document management database, and place the files into the corresponding hanging folder. (remember, the hanging folders are already set up, so you don’t have to worry about finding folders and making tabs)

-Prioritize action items. Decide if the action can be done immediately. If not, either delegate or check the deadline. Decide how long it will take you to complete the task, and work backward on your calendar. Schedule this action start date on your calendar. Input the Item Name and Keywords information regarding the action file into the document management database, and select the Action date to start. Place the item in the corresponding Action Item hanging folder.

Document management software is great for short-term action files, as well as long-term storage of files. Of course, purging of files should be a task that is done regularly according to your office retention guidelines and compliance with regulations to ensure your filing cabinets do not overflow with unnecessary or outdated files.

When you’re ready to purge files to archives or to recycle/shred, simply conduct a Transfer of the file(s) in the database, print a report if desired, and then remove the physical files from your filing cabinet or desk drawer. (If transferring to archives, don’t forget to set the action date when a file should be removed from archive to recycle/shred. That way, you’re sure to keep up with the life-cycle of your document management system.) Then box the files you’ve removed and send to your archive location or recycle/shred, whichever the case may be.

Making decisions regarding how paper should flow through your office and the life-cycle of document management and retention will go a long way in your staff’s time management, increased productivity and organization. As mentioned previously, when you document your paper handling system and retention guidelines, you will reduce cost and legal liabilities. Keeping unnecessary files will result in over-stuffed filing cabinets or storage space. In addition, different types of files need to be kept or destroyed based on legal reasons and time-lines, which could result in civil or criminal issues.

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