Some Texas Medical Association members already know that the answers to many of their questions are just a phone call away.
“I’ve been using the TMA Knowledge Center for years,” said Susan Strate, MD, a Wichita Falls pathologist, of the call center, which often fields her questions about practice management, payment issues, and regulations. “It’s practical, very useful, well-researched, and fast.”
There’s one essential quality that makes the team so valuable to TMA members, says Associate Vice President of Practice and Information Services Heather Bettridge, director of the Knowledge Center.
“They have servant hearts,” Ms. Bettridge said. “They truly are vested and want to help the members. The things that they’re asked are just all over the board, so on a dime, they have to be able to shift.”
Launched by TMA in October 2003, the Knowledge Center fields anywhere from 100 to 215 questions per week from physicians, their practice managers, and even some patients.
Three Knowledge Center staffers provide answers to each member’s individual queries – including those requiring written email answers and supplemental website links.
Ms. Bettridge notes that 93% of member inquiries are completely resolved in an initial call. For some topics, the Knowledge Center directs inquiries to other TMA staff members with relevant expertise.
“From the members’ perspective, it’s saving them from reinventing the wheel. If you need a patient demographic form, don’t waste your time trying to create something out of whole cloth. We have a sample form,” Ms. Bettridge said. “The Knowledge Center allows physicians to free up their time to work on things: dealing with the practice, with patient care. That should be their focus … just pick up the phone and call us. We probably have it, and if we don’t, we will try to hunt it down.”
While some members generate questions new to Knowledge Center staffers, others ask about familiar topics, and for those, they can share research they’ve previously compiled.
“We can make things easier to understand, pull excerpts out from different sources and put it in one email,” said Gay Anderson, an information specialist with the Knowledge Center. She helps maintain hundreds of shared documents they’ve created (and periodically update) on an array of topics, including the Americans with Disabilities Act, billing and collections, interpreters for patients who are deaf or have limited English proficiency, and closing and selling a practice, plus numerous white papers prepared by the TMA Office of the General Counsel on relevant legal issues (www.texmed.org/legalwhitepapers).
While the Knowledge Center does receive general legal questions, Ms. Bettridge points out staffers cannot give legal advice but can direct members to resource lists highlighting attorneys who may be able to. TMA does not recommend or endorse any attorneys.
The center also maintains TMA’s archive of documents and artifacts, established more than a century ago to help preserve the association’s legacy.
Last Updated On
November 27, 2024
Originally Published On
November 15, 2024
Phil West
Associate Editor
(512) 370-1394
phil.west[at]texmed[dot]org
Phil West is a writer and editor whose publications include the Los Angeles Times, Seattle Times, Austin American-Statesman, and San Antonio Express-News. He earned a BA in journalism from the University of Washington and an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin’s James A. Michener Center for Writers. He lives in Austin with his wife, children, and a trio of free-spirited dogs.