Problem: With less than a week’s notice, the Centers for Medicare Services (CMS) advised that a key healthcare form would be changing. After the effective date, the prior forms would be out of compliance and, if used, would jeopardize reimbursement for care. This form was already printed and waiting to be used in thousands of new-patient packets, as well as in the homes of all current patients. The clinicians who fill out these forms needed to be both educated on the necessity of the new form and equipped to use the correct one.

Solution: I leveraged a tight partnership with our print and fulfillment vendor to evaluate potential solutions in terms of both feasibility and cost. In the short term, we initiated a print/ship order of thousands of forms to be sent to every branch office. For further peace of mind, a later order was initiated to ship a small quantity to the home address of every employee who conducts patient care, along with an explanatory letter detailing the importance of using the new form. I compiled the necessary information, mailing lists and over a dozen unique print files for the vendor to effectively complete the mailings and invoice different branches for proper attribution. In the long term, all remaining stock of the new-patient packets was shipped with stacks of the new forms included, and the source files were updated for future printings.

Result: A total of 28,000 new forms arrived at branch offices prior to the effective date of the new form. The remaining stock of new-patient packets were updated as they were shipped. Responsibility ultimately fell on the employee to use the correct form, but the organization had done everything in its power to provide the necessary information and supplies to effect the change.

Bonus content: The full rundown of the week is a rollercoaster.