Eyeworld Daily News

40 | EYEWORLD DAILY NEWS | MAY 18, 2020 DAILY NEWS ASCRS VIRTUAL ANNUAL MEETING longer. As an employer, you're responsible for reporting to unemployment if you offered to rehire someone. If pay cuts are being made, this may also play in. She said that fear of ill- ness may be a genuine concern for staff members as well, so it's important to be transpar- ent about policies in place for cleaning, etc. You may want to allow staff to use PTO or take unpaid leave, she said, but you should bring your staff into the discussion because they may also have a solution that you may not have thought of. Ad- ditionally, childcare issues may come into play for employees as practices reopen, so it's important to be mindful that people are dealing with this. There are a number of new and updated policies that will need to be implemented when reopening, Ms. Shuman said. These could include a sick leave policy, uniform policies, medical screening of employees, flexible schedules, work from home, masks (for both patients and staff), and confidentiality/HIPAA. For the safety of staff and patients, Ms. Shuman highlighted the importance of things like temperature checks, exposure questions, doctors' notes, and a disclosure policy of how to handle a potential exposure. This ASOA webinar series will continue on May 18, May 27–28, and June 2–3. Re- maining webinars will address topics like team recovery and pivoting your practice for enhanced revenue. There will also be follow-up Q&A webi- nars on topics already covered in the series. All webinars and supporting tools and resources are archived for future view- ing and download. For more information on ASOA's webinar series, visit the ASOA Learning Center. office, the number of patient visits, the number of diagnos- tic testing units, and services being offered. Ms. Waddle also suggested considering if any jobs in the office could be done remotely, even after practice operations resume. Work schedules are an- other factor to consider, and practices may want to look at alternative hours and perhaps extended hours. Patients may still have some fears to get over before demand increases, but eventually, there will be pent-up demand, she said, and it won't be possible to see near- ly as many people in the office as previously, so the extended hours may be needed. She also highlighted the importance of staff training, particularly regarding cleaning protocols and PPE. Wrapping up the session, Ms. Shuman shared infor- mation about understanding some of the legal implications of getting back to practice. When opening the practice and deciding which employees to bring back first, she said there are several things to consider. If you're not bringing every- one back at once, make sure you have objective reasoning, and you also have to consider protected classes. Additionally, you have to consider which employees are exempt vs. non-exempt and know how this may factor into your new practice plan. It's also important to con- sider that some staff members may not be ready to return to work. If it's a question of want- ing to stay on unemployment, Ms. Shuman stressed that each employee must qualify for unemployment, and in most places, if they are offered their job back, they may not qualify for unemployment any Ms. Monroe shared a reopening checklist that BSM Consulting has created that may be useful for many prac- tices, and she gave several key successful factors when using the checklist: • Use the tool as a living docu- ment—update and customize for your practice. • Be thoughtful about setting realistic goals and timelines. • Allow staff to "own" tasks and to share in goals/respon- sibilities. • Maintain on shared drive for team member access. • Use tools during meetings to organize priorities and next steps. Ms. Waddle continued the discussion on staffing, first focusing on considerations for staffing levels. She noted that there are many things to consider, including financial implications, alternate work schedules, new staffing models, training, building staffing re- quirements based on volumes, and paperwork. You need to be transparent and over communicate with staff about why you're making the decisions you're making. She also said to emphasize that it's about patient/staff safety first. Ms. Waddle went into detail on a question that many practices have: Should we bring everyone back? She im- plored practices to think about this before making a decision because many will not have the revenue currently in place for payroll and other expenses as they had previously. Staffing is the single big- gest expense, she said, so take some time and take a thought- ful approach. Some factors that may determine staffing models include: the number of doctors in the practice, the available exam lanes and layout of the by Ellen Stodola Editorial Co-Director O n May 11, the fourth webinar in the ASOA webinar series—"Re- suming Your Practice … A Digital Journey of Dis- covery to Restore Normal- cy"—titled "Operations Part 1: Staffing for the Other Side," covered information on staffing as practices begin to resume operations. This webinar was followed by Operations Parts 2 and 3, which are available on demand for those registered and cover patient scheduling and safety. This webinar series was developed in partnership with BSM Consulting and is sponsored by Allergan. Elizabeth Monroe, COE, BSM Consulting, Phoenix, Arizona, Amanda Shuman, DangerLaw LLC, Boston, Massachusetts, and Maureen Waddle, MBA, BSM Consulting, Sacramento, California, spoke during the session. Ms. Monroe first discussed the importance of developing a plan. She suggested creating a task force to identify experts in various practice areas, inviting collaboration from team mem- bers, and focusing on people who "get it done." Your plan, she said, will need to look at the entire scope of things, and you have to think about safety and volume in the clinics, as well as which employees to bring back. Ms. Monroe said to think about your reopening plan in a phased approach. Create a written plan to or- ganize the team, she suggested. This could include outlining a systematic approach to reopen- ing the practice, establishing protocols for patient and staff safety, and providing the ability to assign reopening tasks to staff. Resuming practice operations discussed in ASOA webinar

• Cover