By Jean Hansen, COO at Umbrella Managed Systems
Several times over the past few months, colleagues and former co-workers have approached me to ask, ‘Why Umbrella?’ – curious about what seems like a 180° career move.
My typical response: Honestly, I couldn’t be more thrilled.
A Little Bit of History
Umbrella has been part of my professional landscape since 2008, when I met Heath at the Greater Kansas City Medical Managers annual conference. The service Umbrella offered was intriguing to me as a practice administrator. Why? Because in 2006, most practices were struggling to implement Electronic Medical Records (now we call them Electronic Health Records).
At that time, very few clinical staff used computers. Most of the electronic work was done by the business office and practices lacked on-site professional IT support. The industry had a technical skills gap, and it was frustrating. This meant I jumped at the chance to partner with Umbrella, who quickly evaluated our needs and set achievable recommendations that made sense for our practice.
What started as a simple vendor relationship quickly grew into a partnership. Umbrella helped me navigate the implementation of an EHR and provided ongoing support. A simple and complete technology solution.
The Client Perspective
This next piece isn’t ground-breaking material. Most business books boil down to this concept:
“Understanding your customer is critical for success.”
Simple enough, but the concept is easier said than done.
In practice, the core group of decision makers are not just juggling meetings. Providers and business teams are interacting with patients, handling insurance claims and prior authorization requests, and working with another practice to pass along patient information. And that’s a slow day! To further complicate things, the game can change from one medical specialty to another. The complexity of a physician practice can strain relationships with vendors – who don’t always understand the full breadth of regulatory, business, and patient expectations a practice must juggle.
Leaving patient care to work with a healthcare IT company was a tough decision, but I’m glad to have made the change. From the start, Heath and Trent have asked me to share The Client Perspective.
Moving Forward
Coming to Umbrella as a former client and accepting the role of COO proves to me that this company is serious about client experience. Umbrella continues to partner with its clients, ready to offer even more resources and knowledge that matters and makes sense to clients.
I am excited to be part of this journey!