Welcome to this edition of “What’s Tasty,” our monthly newsletter keeping you in the know on I.T. support news, cybersecurity trends, high-EQ leadership, company updates, and simple tips to keep you and your business cyber-safe.
So what’s the deal with “tasty tacos”?
First: We love tacos. (Who doesn’t?)
Second: I.T. support shouldn’t be needlessly expensive, slow, unresponsive, rigidly packaged or uniform, inexperienced, passive, reactive, stingy, or a giant resource drain. It should be like a tasty taco:
• Customized – Tasty tacos are crafted for your perfect taco experience, just like our tech strategy that’s completely aligned with your business goals and needs.
• Fast – Tacos are quick, and speed and efficiency are our mantras.
• Flexible – Tacos are an “anytime” food: breakfast, lunch, or dinner. We offer 24/7 support, with no call unanswered.
• Supportive – Like a sturdy taco shell cradling all its delicious insides, every solution we create for clients is interwoven with robust cybersecurity.
• Seasoned – Our tailored IT solutions are like the perfect blend of taco seasoning, sprinkled with deep industry knowledge to fit your unique taste.
• Proactive – Tacos are meant to be eaten fresh not left to fall apart. Our vigilant monitoring keeps potential issues at bay.
• Loaded – Nobody wants a taco that’s half-full. We’re loaded with the solutions you want, and we don’t skimp on services.
• Healthy – Nobody wants to pay for tacos twice (the second time in pain and discomfort). Our ROI is easy to digest.
At Continuous, we’re dedicated to providing IT services that are as enjoyable as your favorite taco. We don’t just want to be an indispensable part of your business operations but a critical reason for your success.
If you have any questions about the “What’s Tasty” newsletter, I.T. news, or our services, contact us directly at tacos@continuous.net.
Thank you for trusting us,
Jason and Ross
P.S. We also accept taco recipe recommendations.
Ross
The Revenue Poop Tornado
Solving
Healthcare’s Biggest Pain Point
Revenue cycle management (RCM) isn’t a service we offer at Continuous. We’re not strategically partnered with any RCM companies. So why do we talk about it?
For two main reasons:
1. Revenue cycle management is directly dependent upon I.T. and cybersecurity to work.
2. It’s known as healthcare’s biggest pain point — an endless poop tornado if you will — and as such has a huge negative effect on the wellbeing of staff.
That makes it “our business,” figuratively and literally.
So let’s get into it. The most common culprits that interfere with healthy, efficient, relatively painless revenue cycle management are:
• Old computers
• Terrible software
• Crappy scanners and printers
• Ad hoc (or nonexistent) processes
• Slow networks
The less-direct effect of all these impediments is a staff that’s:
• Constantly frustrated
• Making mistakes
• Rushing to make up for lost time
• At odds with each other (e.g., the front office vs. everybody else)
• Forgetting or unable to take copays (if it’s a private practice)
• Burnt out, often depressed and anxious, and possibly even suicidal
I’m not exaggerating. I’ve seen frustration with EMR morph into an all-consuming living hell that leads people to life-ending choices.
Collecting money shouldn’t be a regular source of burnout, much less a reason to give up on life ever getting better. Which is yet another reason why the stakes for good I.T. support and healthy cybersecurity are so high. It’s not an exaggeration to say they indirectly save lives.
If you hate EMR or even if you think your EMR software/processes are “fine,” stop and regularly ask yourself these questions (and if you don’t know the answers for sure, ask the people who do):
• How many staff members do you have? (We’re starting easy, folks.)
• Does your staff like using your EMR application?
• How many of your staff members have you sat/spoken with in the past 3-6 months and collected their feedback on this topic?
• In other words, with all due respect, how do you know your answer to the second question is true?
Why the second-degree? Because the first step to helping people in healthcare is diagnosing the problem. I.T. support is no different. If you can talk with the people at the source, diagnose the issue(s), and place the blame where it actually lies, instead of continuing to limp along, you’ll actually be able to solve the issue.
Can you imagine your biggest pain point becoming “easy like Sunday morning”? Sounds a lot better than a perpetual poop tornado.
A Fake Fairytale
(In Which I Tell You
My “Hero” Origin Story)
TMy parents were both teachers, so I grew up with a love and admiration for explaining things. That might’ve set the stage for where I am now, the CEO of an I.T. support and cybersecurity MSP, which happened less like a Disney fairytale and more like one of the original Brothers’ Grimm fairytales.
I could pretend there was one singular moment that made me pivot to specialized I.T. support for exceptional healthcare — to focus solely and intentionally on helping healthcare organizations. But, like most things in life, it was a messy, convoluted, conglomerate. Several realizations followed by forgetting them, followed by re-remembering them, followed by your standard busyness, chaos, and the like. But one such realization stands out:
A few years ago, I was at my doctor’s office for a sick visit, and he began asking me a series of questions in order to diagnose me.
“I ask the same type of diagnostic questions of my clients and prospects,” I thought. “We do the same thing — one for the body, one for organizations.”
The parallels between health and I.T. struck me square between the eyes. Their purposes, critical importance, strategies, operations, and even their language were so similar. So I did what any person would do with such an important epiphany. I promptly forgot about it.
… Until it kept coming up, and eventually, I knew what I had to do: help healthcare organizations simplify their tech, make compliance straightforward, and provide support that had a clear return on investment.
The reason Continuous’ approach is paired with an emphasis on cybersecurity is even less poetic but maybe even more valuable. In 2009, the company I’d been growing for four years was breached. Overnight, we lost 60% of our client roster. It took five months of working around the clock to salvage and recover.
The clincher?
It’s painful to admit, but I’d been warned about our tech vulnerabilities and hadn’t done anything. Until it was too late. The prolonged, painful costs of that breach motivated me to not only take cybersecurity seriously, but to also become an expert in it and offer protection to my clients — to you.
If there’s any takeaway here (and it might simply be that this is a fair-ly crappy story), it’s that dedication and expertise are often born out of experiencing the same pain as your customers, and having a deep understanding of their businesses and a sincere desire to help them succeed.
(And they lived happily ever after.)*
*Not a legally binding guarantee.
Get Free Money in 3 Easy Steps
Score $500 for every qualified referral you make
We help SMBs located in New Jersey, NYC Metro, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. Know someone who needs IT services? Getting $500 for that connection is as easy as 1, 2, 3:
1. Introduce us. You can use the form at https://www.continuous.net/referral once they’ve agreed to meet with us.
2. We meet them, hear their needs, and offer solutions without being pushy or obnoxious.
3. You get $500. Make it rain. (And repeat.*)
*There’s no limit to the number of referrals you can make and get paid for. If #1 and #2 happen, #3 keeps happening, whether each referral becomes a client or not. We’re grateful for your support!
Questions? Need help planning how you’ll spend all those Benjamins? Email us at tacos@continuous.net or call (201) 579-2086.
Leadership Resource Spotlight: Legends of I.T.
Ross’ New
YouTube Content
If you’ve been looking for a shameless plug and hilarious YouTube video thumbnails, you’ve found both.
We mentioned in a recent newsletter that Continuous CEO Ross Brouse was relaunching his YouTube channel content, @ LegendsofIT. It done happened, baby. He’s nine new videos in with no sign of stopping, including not-yet-viral hits such as:
• Is Your Company Spying on You? (tech savvy and paranoia rolled into a burrito)
• Shell-Shocked by OCR Audits: 7 Ways to Stay Prepared
• Do Long-Term Healthcare Facilities Know This? (key considerations in a digital world)
• Introducing Value-Based I.T. in Healthcare - Less Tech Issues. Better Outcomes. Check out his channel today at youtube.com/@legendsofit.
How Often Do You Need HIPAA Training Refreshers
(No, they’re not a tasty drink)
Have you ever asked an expert (or a less-than-expert) for their advice, and the advice they give is so long and detailed and demanding that you wish you’d just shut up and stayed ignorant?
HIPAA compliance information probably makes some healthcare professionals feel that way. For example: You wonder, “How often should my healthcare organization be holding training refreshers, and what should they include?” Let’s say you then visit a credible, helpful online resource, the HIPAA Journal, find an article on that exact topic, and proceed into the Land of Overwhelm. Why?
Because here’s a summary* of the article’s answer to that question, broken into three main parts:
1. When should HIPAA training start?
It depends, but delaying training is almost always a mistake. (Whew. That one wasn’t too bad. Right?)
2. How often should training refreshers happen?
It depends and is informed by a number of factors, including:
• Material changes
• Roles and functions
• Risk assessments
• HIPAA violations
• Corrective action plans
(This one is a little more gnarly. Did you break into a cold sweat yet? Well, hold on to your pants, cause there’s more.)
3. What should be covered by training/ training refreshers?
• HIPAA overview
• Definitions
• The HITECH Act
• Main regulatory rules
• HIPAA Omnibus Final Rule
• Privacy Rule basics
• Security Rule basics
• Patient rights
• Disclosure rules
• Violation consequences
• Preventing violations
• Being a HIPAA-compliant employee
(Tell the truth. You ran away screaming after “definitions” and made yourself a blanket fort to hide in.)
Here’s the deal:
I’m not going to tell you to ignore these lists. Many of their line items are required; they’re also good, important things to know and do. But here are two important caveats to their chunky overwhelm:
1. Your staff will not be able to remember all that information on a daily basis and especially not if you try to force feed it to them all at once, annually. So microtrainings (to go back to an earlier newsletter article) are a must.
2. The best, most important aim you can have when it comes to HIPAA compliance is to MAKE HUMAN SHIELDS OF YOUR STAFF against cyberattacks.
If you need help with either, we’ll be here, continuously.
*These suggestions are summarized from the HIPAA Journal’s article How Often Do You Need HIPAA Training? and supplemented by the brain of our President, Ross Brouse.
Are You “Basic”?
And would you want it for yourself?
by Continuous President, Ross Brouse
Imagine going to the doctor with a serious, painful ailment. You leave the doctor’s office without answers. Your symptoms worsen, and you end up at the doctor’s office a few days later.
“Oh, you should’ve asked for a _______ test,” the same doctor said. “That would’ve told us everything we needed to know.”
“What?! How was I supposed to know what to ask for or what I need?” you holler.
A good doctor won’t say that; that’s insane. That’d be like me saying, “I’m not gonna check your security training because you didn’t ask me to. If you don’t tell me what you need, then too bad.”
In this sense, performing only the “basics” (the least you can get away with) is almost criminal behavior. And in I.T. and healthcare alike, “basic” is often presented as “best.” Don’t believe me? You’ve seen the lists:
• We protect your network. (No, duh.)
• We patch your systems. (As you should.)
• We back up your data. (What else would you be doing?)
• We’re proactive. (Versus ignoring us?)
“Truly proactive I.T. support works diligently to understand the ins and outs of your business.”
What is often positioned as “exceptional” is really just the BARE MINIMUM. And it inflates and misrepresents words: Truly proactive I.T. support works diligently to understand the ins and outs of your business.
If we applied this same practice to healthcare providers, for example, we’d be discussing the patient experience, including mapping the answers to these questions:
• How do patients interact with your staff, process, and tech?
• How does your team use technology: the EMR, wireless networks, or workstations?
• Are these tools creating a more efficient experience for everyone?
This is just one of the many business-focused conversations that help us identify how tech impacts your ability to deliver better outcomes.
In other words, specialized I.T. for exceptional healthcare (and exceptional anything) demands much more than the basics.
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Win a $25 Chipotle Gift Card
The first recorded mention of the term “phishing,” was found in a hacking tool called:
A. Goat poop B. Bat poop
C. Human poop D. Elephant poop
The first person to email: tacos@continuous.net with the correct answer wins!
CLIENT HIGHLIGHT:
Menella’s Poultry Co.
“The reason I’ve been so loyal to [Continuous] is because [they’re] exceptional at troubleshooting and tailoring a program and equipment that fit our needs.
Since we rely on our computers for everything, having them be able to monitor us and make sure everything is running smoothly is a great benefit. They can forecast if we need more equipment or an increase in storage space before it becomes a problem.
