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 Forget the 2-hour power lunch; these days, we're lucky to find time to pop a Lean Cuisine in the microwave. Any coder, MT, cancer registrar or HIM director will tell you: there simply aren't enough hours in the day to get everything done, let alone work on long-term career goals. But what if you could take 5 minutes out of your work day to do, well, anything? Instead of surfing YouTube or lingering at the coffee pot, put those measly minutes to good use; here, successful HIM professionals share the best ways to advance your career in the time it takes to send an e-mail.
After you check out this list, take (another) 5 minutes to read our print edition, where you'll find a fresh batch of hints from health care buffs.
Read Up
"Learn a new word every day and put it into practice. You can sign up for a free word-a-day newsletter at http://www.vocabvitamins.com/."
Natalie J. Copeland, RHIA, CTR
Owner
M-ROCS
Lexington, SC
"Learn one new term every day, or one new item of interest that impacts your job. Open a medical dictionary and read a few terms and definitions. Visit a Web site like http://www.hipaa.org/ for an update on what security or confidentiality measures may be on the horizon. Visit the FDA Web site, or even a governmental site to see what new legislation is in the works that impacts your profession. Add intriguing sites to your 'favorites' folder, which comes in handy when researching a term or procedure."
Pati AR Howard, CMT, AHDI-F
Senior transcriptionist
Orlando Health
Orlando, FL
"Read your professional journal to stay informed on topics related to trends and changes impacting your profession."
Brenda J. Hurley, CMT, AHDI-F
Director of industry relations and compliance
Medware Inc.
Winter Springs, FL
"Take time to read a brief article about issues impacting or changing your profession. If the article is too long, take several days to read through and summarize. Discuss articles and share tips with your peers."
Sherry Doggett
Director, corporate transcription services
Health Alliance
Cincinnati
"Visit your professional association's Web site for any updates or news pertaining to the profession. Become familiar with the association Web site and how it can benefit you in the health care documentation field, no matter what you do. Also, visit other associations that are partners in the health care documentation profession for anything that may be beneficial to you. Stay updated at all times!"
Jacque Taylor, AHDI-F
Secretary/director, AHDI
Online instructor at the TRS Institute
Salt Lake City
"Save time to read every day and transfer the information you need to a folder on your computer. Keep up with medical necessity, new procedures and drugs by getting free medical news and Medicare updates. WebMD and the Mayo Clinic have good newsletters. Drug and medical equipment manufacturers will also send info, and RSS feeds for medical news are available on MSN and Yahoo. Along with knowledge useful for coding, this helps keep your medical terminology current."
Jean Kitzmiller
Medical Necessity Reviewer OP Coder
Mercy Medical Center
Des Moines, IA
"Take 5 minutes to review the Web sites of oncology industry leaders, such as National Comprehensive Cancer Network, Association of Community Cancer Centers and the National Quality Forum (NQF). Familiarize yourself with the reimbursement initiatives (such as pay-for-performance), the quality measurement systems (such as NQF) and other accreditation standards that may affect your hospital cancer program or cancer center. Consider joining newsletter mailing lists to receive information on a regular basis."
Toni Hare, RHIT, CTR
CoC-trained independent consultant
Vice president
CHAMPS Oncology Data Services
Cleveland
Reach Out
"Take 5 minutes to connect with someone every day, whether it's by e-mail, phone call, a text or dropping a note. Establishing good working relationships pays off in the long run. You never know who you may need or who knows who."
Letitia Patterson, MPA, CPC, CCS-P
Consultant
A Coder's Resource
Chicago
"Every day, take 5 minutes to support your colleagues. It'll turn you into an optimist. If you mentor a newbie, help solve an employee's problem or take a moment to show respect and admiration for a job well done, you are building a better tomorrow for yourself. Your attentions build goodwill and positive attitudes that come back to you 10-fold."
Sheri Poe Bernard, CPC, CPC-H, CPC-P
Vice president, clinical coding content
American Academy of Professional Coders
Salt Lake City
"Take time to share your knowledge! As we conduct our day-to-day work, we all tend to learn something, whether it's a nugget of information, a new contact or some advancement in the HIM field, etc. Many times this sharing of information or knowledge can prompt 'group think,' which can result in big benefits to both you and your organization."
David Sweet
Director, library services
Foundation of Research and Education Library
American Health Information Management Association
Chicago
Network
"Network every day in some way. We all get bogged down in our regular routines and with our current job, and it's so important to stay in touch with each other from old classmates to old instructors, past supervisors and former employers. Stay in touch."
Deresa Claybrook, MS, RHIT
President/consultant
Positive Resource
Moore, OK
"Take 5 minutes a day to talk with a colleague in another facility and ask them about the things they're working on and are most proud of. Contact someone who has recently written or been the subject of an interesting trade journal article. Participate in a community of practice, blog or other interactive discussion group. By networking with leaders in your area of expertise and related fields, you'll become more knowledgeable than any one of them and at some point, may very well be the very best in your field."
Gwen Hughes, RHIA, CHP
Director of eHIM consulting
Care Communications Inc.
Chicago
"Networking is something that can take little time but move you forward in a big way. If you sign up for a couple list serves and begin to ask questions or share your own knowledge, or even just take 5 minutes to read the current discussions, you will find people you can connect with on and off the list when you need help or can offer help to others. You can slowly build up a nice circle of people to have chats with who will completely understand where you are coming from."
Denae M. Merrill, CPC-E/M
Owner
Merrill Medical Management
Saginaw, MI
"To move your career forward, take 5 minutes to view the structure of other departments. Identify areas for potentially diversifying your experiences. If you identify areas of interest or other leaders with titles of interest, you may choose to pursue 30 minutes of their time to discuss their roles, goals of their departments and current challenges or priorities. This will give you first-hand knowledge of whether you would like to advance your career within your current organization."
Dwan Thomas Flowers, MBA, RHIA, CCS
Unit manager, charge capture and coding
Patient financial services
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, FL
Get Organized
"Sit down at your desk first thing in the morning and take 5 minutes to construct an outline of what you strive to achieve or complete by the end of the day. After the list is completed, develop a roadmap that outlines how you are going to accomplish all that you set out to achieve and accomplish. The next morning when you come in, evaluate what you did and did not accomplish, determine why any of the tasks were not achieved and learn what you can do differently to increase success the next time around."
Glenn Krauss, BBA, RHIA, CCS, CCS-P, CPUR, FCS, PCS, C-CDIS
Senior coding and chargemaster consultant
QHR
Brentwood, TN
"Open mail everyday instead of having it stack up."
Mary Mills, RHIT, CCS
President and CEO
Documentation Solutions LLC
Dearborn Heights, MI
"Every morning, write down all the tasks that you have to do that day and then prioritize them. Add any new task that may arise during the day to the list and work accordingly. This helps with time management, satisfaction of achieving tasks, prioritizing the next day's schedule and assessment of work load. At the end of the month it helps in reporting the department status report, and also helps self evaluation."
Uzma Rizwan, BS, CCS, CTR
President, Oncology Registrar Association of NJ
Commission on Cancer coordinator
CentraState Medical System
Freehold, NJ
Take a Break
"Take 5 minutes to leave your desk, find a quiet place and then pick and read a verse of Scripture and meditate on it."
Steve Dunkle
President and CEO
Proveros Inc.
Bedford, NH
Make Life Easier
"Take 5 minutes a day to quickly scan a recent e-newsletter or magazine. Look just for articles and ads that have immediate or near-term importance to you. Don't read the entire article; you don't have time! For articles and ads that are of interest to you, simply tear them out of the magazine and place in a folder for that topic. You'll quickly have a ready-made library of recent articles, ads and reference materials."
Beth Friedman, RHIT
President
The Friedman Marketing Group
Lynchburg, VA
"Take 5 minutes to add five words to your word expander/shortcut program. If possible, pick one word and add five variations of that same word, like 'has, had, have, was, were' could be 'hs, hd, hv, ws, wr.' Add any words you repeatedly mistype, like 'the' vs. 'teh.' If you type words that always require the use of the shift key, create an expander. Remember, saved keystrokes are like money in the bank!"
Kathleen "Kat" King, AHDI-F
President of AHDI-Oregon
Vice president
Iridium Services Inc.
Rogue River, OR
"Take 5 minutes a day to make a note of the tough words that you had to look up, especially medications. Eventually, you will have a nice electronic and searchable reference file for yourself, and you will save lots of researching time in the long run."
Christina Benjamin, RHIA, CCS, CCS-P
Independent coding and education consultant
East Dublin, GA
Update
"Take 5 minutes each day to check all the various cancer registry-related Web sites to ensure all manuals are up to date. This would include the American Cancer Society, Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results and the American Joint Committee on Cancer, to name a few."
Vickie J. Ladner, CTR
Interim director of oncology services
Precyse Solutions
Wayne, PA
"Monitor the master patient index (MPI) daily. This can be done before and after an MPI clean-up. Use a daily reporting tool (if you don't have one, create your own). Each day, determine how many duplicates were created from the day before. At the end of the week, add up your weekly total. Once you have a total, you can calculate how much time and money is being spent on managing duplicates. This can be reported back to administration."
Robin Altendorf, MA, RHIA
Project manager, smart identity management solutions
QuadraMed
Reston, VA
"Take 5 minutes each day to focus on what is new, unknown or unclear in your chosen profession and how you can incorporate this information into your daily routine. By remaining focused on current practice, you can become the 'go to' person for questions and answers on unclear topics."
Laurie Hebert, RHIA, CCS, CCS-P, CTR
Director of cancer registry services
CARE Communications Inc.
Chicago
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