Practice Management Books

As a student of Medical Transcription and Physician's coding I found this book of great help. It is a great "when in doubt" saver. I recommend it!

Great book for anyone in the clinical field...to quickly look up indecipherable abbreviations. Covers almost all standard short forms.

This handy compendium contains over 1,500 acronyms, e.g., AIDS, SIDS, GOMER "Get Out of My Emergency Room" (not really, just kidding), eponyms such as Lyme disease and Reye syndrome, and multiple meanings for such abbreviations as "MH", which can mean malignant hyperthermia, marital history, medical history, melanophore hormone, menstrual history, mental health, or municipal hospital!
Delong's work will prove useful for medical students, nurses and other healthcare professionals, medical transcribers, fiction writers, and others who want a peek into the arcane world of medical jargon.

(The "score" rating is an unfortunately ineradicable feature of the page. This reviewer does not "score" books.)

Good update over previous edition. Author added some new material, but took away some from the previous edition. This book will get me through the state exam.

i came across this book AFTER i have finished reading Jacobus' Texas Real Estate. i hoped i have seen this book much earlier and tossed Jacobus into trash bin... much much better...

I liked this book because it is well organized and informative. At the beginning of every chapter the author includes a list of key terms; and key words are bolded and defined through out the chapters. In the back of the book, there's a glossary. This book covers the main topics of the Texas Real Estate Sales Exam in a very thorough, organized way.

Doing nothing, being nothing, becoming nothing is the goal of Fukuoka's farming method, an approach to agriculture which he has pursued for over forty years with resounding success. With no tillage, no fertilizer, no weeding and no pesticides he consistently produces rice, barley, fruit and vegetable crops that equal or exceed the yield per acre of neighboring farmers who embrace modern scientific agriculture. The basis of his philosophy is that nature grows plants just fine without our interference so that the most practical approach is to get out of the way. In the course of explaining his reasoning and methods, this do-nothing farmer delivers a scorching indictment of chemical agriculture and the human assumption that we can improve on nature. He explains the beneficial role of insects and plants usually characterized as pests, the fallacy of artificially boosting fertility with petrochemical concoctions, the logical error implicit in the use of farm machinery or draft animals, and why pollution is an inevitable result of misguided attempts to improve on nature. Calculation of the energy input versus the caloric output of various farms results in the surprising discovery (perhaps it shouldn't be) that (minimal) human labor is the most efficient way to produce food. Draft animals add more work and more energy input, small scale machines compound the problem and large scale mechanized agriculture proves to be a vast waste of energy. He calls modern American farmers "subcontractors of the oil industry," and claims that traditional Japanese farmers on 3-5 acres achieve a real net income higher than American farmers on 500-700 acres. (A skeptical friend of mine wondered if Japanese farm price supports were a factor here. Obviously a complex issue, that, but the declining economic viability of petro-chemical farming is obvious when we note that the onslaught of monster tractors and oil based fertilizers and pesticides has paralleled the collapse of the family farm. The author, to his credit, rejects any artificial manipulation of food prices and believes they should naturally be more or less the same worldwide.) Nor is this text pure philosophy, including as it does specific practical advice on the transition from scientific to natural methods. Crop rotation programs for cold or warm climates, and a ten year rotation system for grain and vegetables make this a practical manual for husbandry. As Fukuoka eloquently suggests, the universe is a circle returning to nothing. Nothing is the most profitable object of our meditations. Doing nothing is simply going with the flow. (See also his "groundbreaking" (literally) ONE STRAW REVOLUTION, Other India Press; 1992)

Every now and then there are gifted individuals who come along who see and understand with new eyes and have a thorough understanding of their subject, not only in its own right, but in the context of how that topic fits into the whole. Fukuoka is such an individual and his understanding and practice of farming is genius and he explains how using his methods will make your farm easy to run, outproduce typical American farming methods without the need for chemicals that have been destroying the soil and poisoning our water and poisoning the farmer as well. His methods are incredibly simple, require no special machinery, no big equipment mortgages, are applicable to all size farms and produce results. Not only that, his methods improve the soil and he has simple ideas on how to bring back areas that we have turned into desert due to bad farming practices and animal grazing. I wish his writing would spread to the whole farming community as I suspect his books have not been noticed. His books are priceless and a real gift to food production.

After reading the one straw revolution i really wanted to see how Fukuokas' system worked. I was not disapointed by this well layed out and functional guide to his methods. While his philosophy claims that no list of rules and time tables can acturatelly set out how natural farming should work, the publication of the hystory and methods of his experiment proves vital to the unhinging of common industrial theories on the subject.

This is a must own for any new or seasoned OD professional. I require it in my OD graduate courses. These days, to ask a student to pay this kind of money for a book, that book must be worth it... this one is.

An excellent compendium from the leaders in the field of Organizational Development. A fine reference.

Edited collections at this price point can be a problem. But compared to its competitors, this NTL Handbook is an outstanding volume, written by some of the biggest names in OD for practitioners at all levels. Great value after you get over the sticker shock.

As a skimmed the book I was amazed by the new insights that leapt out at me, by the clear, jargon-free writing (relatively, after all it's a professional book) and by the generous references and citations. History, ethics, techniques, it's all there. While the formatting of tables is sometimes inconvenient (I found myself turning the book sideways more than I should have had to), it's a small price to pay for the comprehensiveness of the treatment.

My only disappointments were the two chapters on large group interventions. One covers the familiar territory the familiar way (refer to the books you already own). The other gives a partial account of the newest, technology-enabled 'town meetings' without grounding the story in the theory of why they work (or should) and how cost-effective they are as OD interventions, as opposed to political rallys. The rest of the book is fresh and new, even of topics that we practitioners think we know like the back of our hand. I marvelled at the new life some chapters breathed into traditional material.

This book from NTL Institute should be in every consultant's library, as a refresher and, more important, as a source of new inspiration as you work with organizations and the people in them.

K.J. McCorry covers everything you need to know about organizing your work day, beginning with deciding how you'd like to spend it. The electronic organizing information is essential--manage Outlook better, organize your email files, use your electronic calendar. Loaded with easy to implement how-to's and easy to understand instruction, this book will help you put things where they belong so you can find them again. It will help you save that useless time spent hunting for things!

With this book, you can form a new organizing habit in 21 days by tackling things in "small chunks".

Best tip: Train your mind to clean up before you move on to another task.

My favorite chapters are "Improving your relationship with Email",
"Creating the Perfect File System" and
"Using your Contact Software to Its Full Potential"

I am going to start with the email chapter and see if i can't get rid of some of these 1,000 emails in my inbox-ughhhh

This book caught my eye because my work style is very disorganized.
My email clutters up, my contacts are not in any categories and I am so tired of dealing with all the paper work by the time 5 p.m. comes that I am too tired to go home and clean anything at all.

I really need this book. I hope I can follow through with all these suggestions.
I have decided to take one chapter a month.

What a great book! Whether you are an organized or disorganized person, you will be able to find useful and practical information in this book. There are so many factors that can affect our workday and this book addresses them. From paper and electronic filing systems to managing e-mail overload, the tips and time savers takes the unmanageable and makes it manageable. If you are looking for an easy to read and easy to implement book that deals with the real day to day issues, I suggest you read this book.

Michael Gorman's book provides an inspiration and rejuvenation for mid-career professionals as well as motivation for anyone just entering the field. The meditations can be considered one at a time, with plenty of time for thought, or read one after another for a deluge of professional wisdom. This book is recommended for all librarians, anyone desiring to learn more about becoming a librarian, and everyone who loves books, reading, and libraries.

Just recently I was trying to explain to someone, not familiar with library work, what it was I did, and why I did what I did. I recommended Gorman's book to them to read. You can read the book straight through or just open it up anywhere and receive ideas and inspirations.

Michael Gorman has achieved prominence in librarianship, first through his major role in the total revision of cataloging rules, and second, more recently, as the co-author of the provocative Future Libraries: Dreams, Madness and Reality. This new work is a total departure from anything he has done before, being a collection of 144 "meditations" for librarians. Each meditation consists of a quotation, from authors as diverse as Jean Anouilh and Justice Potter Stewart, a short essay, and a final resolution. Topics range from "Occam's Management Theory" to "Burnout." As is all of Gorman's writing, this is first-rate, and recommended for lovers of books and libraries, as well as for librarians.

This is a very helpful book and I highly recommend it for church leadership teams who have been struggling with growing their church. In the 18 years of existence of the church I am at now, they have never had an average annual attendance of more than 187 in a sanctuary that seats 320. The principles in this book will help us grow beyond this. All of my elders are reading this book and we are discussing it together and will put into practice what it recommends. They are excited about having some practical answers for this long-standing dilemma.

Thank you Michael for writing this book. Straight forward approach to overcoming church growth barriers. I had my deacon board read this book and we discussed the issues and had great feedback. Very insiteful reading.

This is probably the best church growth book Ive ever read.I have read this book 4 times and im still learning. Very clear, to the point, and full of hands of do it now nuggets and principles. Words will not do this book justice, especially if your in the 100/200 barrier. Ive searched the web endlessly for resources on barriers but have found very few resources, but when I found this book, I found the goldmine.Get it, you wont regret it..promise!

Michael did a great job of hitting the nail on the head when it comes to barriers to growth. I also appreciated the way he said it consisely and his points could be quickly absorbed. His insights fit what I have experienced in my own church involvements. I think any church who is struggling with growth could benefit from reading this book. While there are other factors which can contribute to church health (and thus growth), this book highlights some of the intangibles that might not be revealed in church health assessments.

This book is an excellent staple in the library of people pleasers. Carter outlines many situations I've seen myself or others in, and gives practical solutions to setting boundaries for oneself and the demands of others. I especially liked the end of each chapter where he provides introspective questions and even space to write your answer. I didn't write my answers in, because I wanted my husband (who is also a people pleaser) to read it, and also I'm keeping the book to read and review again in a few years, and my answers may be different then.

All in all, this is a straightforward, easy-to-read, practical guide for people who are really overwhelmed by trying to please others (usually unsuccessfully). When I applied some of the techniques I learned in this book, I was astonished at the power I felt over myself and situations where I had previously felt helpless.

For example, I was having lunch with a friend, who was yet again complaining about her "horrible" husband, but never giving him any credit for anything good he does (he's not a bad guy, just has a big nag for a wife). During the course of the conversation she said something like "my husband is just so demanding and stubborn!" to which I replied, "as are you!" This is something I would never have said previously, but I was sick and tired of agreeing with her to try to make her feel better. She instantly shut up, the conversation turned from there, and I subsequently had a nice break from her company for a while. :)

Another not-so-user-friendly, but very helpful book I would recommend is "Why is it Always About You? The Seven Deadly Sins of Narcissism," by Sandy Hotchkiss.

I thought this was an awesome book. It really really hit home for me. Now I know that I've been a people pleaser since I was a child, how it happened and what to work on to change it! This is the most important book for me that I have ever read. I practically highlighted the whole book!
It's so great to be able to put a label on it. Being a people pleaser can make you miserable and depressed and it can also be a turn off...

Yesterday I purchased this book with the intent that I would not like it and would take it right back after reviewing it. It less than 1 hour of reading it, it has become my salvation! I have been so unhappy and did not realize why until I read Les Carter's PEOPLE PLEASERS. In a flash I am cured of my curse of being sickeningly helpful - all to my detriment.I thought I should see a therapist, because I cound not understand why I felt I had to be so nice and helpful to everyone and almost nobody ever returned a kindness. This book was easy to understand and extremely helpful and though I will continue to be a pleaser, I have learned how to successfully please without hurting myself. I wish Les Carter had come into my life sooner. The rest of my life is now in control and I feel more confident -- the book made me realize I had to change -- it wasn't about other people it was all about me. Thank you Mr. Carter!

You could probably run a small country with the money sales organizations spend on standardized training. Unfortunately, most of it goes right down the drain, according to sales guru Derek Gatehouse, who says many of today's highly touted sales methods don't make much difference. To him, they are all so much voodoo. Gatehouse believes that instead of wasting money on ordinary training and cookie-cutter processes, companies should focus on hiring only people with "naturally born" sales talent and enlisting only the very best sales managers to supervise them. Then, they should carefully structure their pay programs to give salespeople true incentives. Gatehouse developed his robust sales acumen while toiling for three decades in America's toughest sales trenches. Given this lucid manual, getAbstract finds that he has a lot to teach most companies about organizing and running topflight sales teams.

Derek Gatehouse has spent more than 30 years working at every level of sales in many industries. This book distills what he has learned about what works in sales and what he teaches to his clients as CEO of Vendis, Inc. The foundational idea of the book is that there is no secret to sales that you can give to people without sales talent that will turn them into top performers. Instead, he argues, you need to understand the kind of talents your company needs in its salespeople and hire the most talented people of that type that you can. He urges you to study your most successful salespeople and guides you in what to look for in their work. By learning what they do right you can hire more people with the same abilities. The key is to be more dispassionate and not hire someone because they seem good to you or that you like them. You need performers. So, learn what makes such people tick and hire them.

The book has 9 chapters and an appendix with a 50-page case study of a real company that illustrates the entire process he lays out in this book. And a good index.

The nine chapters cover:

1) The Perfect Salesforce - he makes his case for native talent over the notion of teaching sales.
2) The 6 Best Practices - The 10 Selling Talents, Sorting Stages for Talent, Talent-Based Hiring, Pay and Quota, Sales Behavior Training, Result-Based Management.
3) The 10 Selling Talents
4) Sorting Sales Stages for Talent
5) The Talent Based Hiring Process
6) The Pay Plan and Quota
7) Sales Behavior Training
8) Result-Based Management
9) Growing `The Perfect Salesforce'

While the first 3 of the best practices are likely to be the most different for you (at least they were for me), the author lays out his principles very well. He also provides online forms and even a bookmark you can print out to help you.

I think what Gatehouse says about sales makes sense and much of it agrees with my personal experience. There are naturally talented salespeople, and there are different sales requirements at different companies, for different sales assignments, and the way you set up their pay and quote matters and great deal. And I like his emphasis on sales training having something to offer in adding refinements to talent and management by emphasizing the positive. His saying that under performing salespeople are miscast is spot on. What others call firing he calls releasing and I like that wording a lot. I did the same thing when I found people who just couldn't get a job done. My emphasis was that they deserved to be successful, but the job they had was not going to help them be successful.

A thoughtful and helpful book.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI

Ignore this book's title. Surely Derek Gatehouse knows that there is no such entity as a "perfect sales force" but indeed there is much of great value to be learned from what the book's subtitle suggests: "the best practices of the world's best sales teams." However, questions immediately arise: Which are they? Who selected them? According to which criteria? How recent was the information when the selections were made? (Note: Most of the companies that Peters and Waterman praise in In Search of Excellence no longer meet the criteria by which they were selected and several of them have since been acquired by another company.) Gatehouse shares the results of the Gallup organization's 30-year study of top performance, which includes more than 3,000,000 people thus far. He asserts that people rather than processes process sell, and, that those who are "natural born" sales people will "sell circles around all the rest."

How to develop such a sales force? "The only feasible growth system for a sales force, and the only way to build a sales force of top performers, is to learn the language of selling talents. This will let you cast the exact right talents into each stage of your particular sales type, and then gain an understanding of what specific conditions generate autonomous top performance from these gifted sellers." That in the proverbial "nutshell" is what Gatehouse's book is all about: explaining "the formula for a top-producing sales force, one that is made up primarily of those salespeople that sell four times more than all others." This formula takes into full account three separate but interdependent components: "natural-born" sales aptitude, performance enhancement training, and the environment (i.e. "external conditions")in which people sell.

With regard to how Gatehouse organizes his material, he introduces the six best practices of "the perfect salesforce" in Chapter 2 and then devotes a separate chapter to each. For example, #1 consists of ten "selling talents" that Gatehouse examines with rigor and eloquence and #6 consists of best practices in results-based management. In the final chapter, he explains the need for a Perfect SalesForce committee that has only one purpose: to ensure that initiatives "stay on track" as the six best practices are adopted during what amounts to a two-phase process: determination of the changes that need to be made and then the on-going, daily operations. "This latter phase is where companies go off track; everyone is too close to the daily grind to step back and see things objectively. It is here that your committee best serves." Gatehouse then offers a detailed case history of an actual company, Dilan Ink, with which he was closely associated. He explains a four-stage process that begins with an assessment of the current situation and concludes with training.

For whom will this book be most valuable? Certainly anyone who serves on a "Perfect SalesForce committee" whose membership should include a C-level executive, someone from HR, the sales manager, at least one top sales performer (preferably more), and the company owner(s), if appropriate. Others who should read this book are those who are sales administrators or aspire to become one. My own rather extensive experience in sales and sales management suggests that most "natural born" sales people, those who "sell circles around all the rest," would rather be selling than reading about others who do...one man's opinion. However, I think CEOs should be among those who read this book because Gatehouse offers some valuable perspectives on how those in the salesforce, out on the proverbial "front line," in active and frequent contact with current and prospective customers, can provide invaluable competitive intelligence, especially about market trends.

Gatehouse encourages those who purchase his book to check out a wealth of resources at www.theperfectsalesforce.com that include articles, training videos, tools, his daily blog, and a members' forum.

Good price for this book. I saved $27 by buying this book through Amazon instead of buying it directly at school.

Great overview of billing and coding. Good for a beginner. not as useful for a provider who needs the appropriate codes for billing. Best for an medical billing office personnel

This book is designed as a practice companion for The Guide to Medical Billing and Coding and it is an ideal self-teaching text for those who use or plan to use MediSoft Patient Accounting. It has six sections that cover computer basics, MediSoft Patient Accounting training, simulated work program, sample documents, simulated cash and window payments, and simulated patient file forms. Each chapter has clear learning objectives, MediSoft Screen captures, exercises, summary, and end-of-chapter exercises. Upon reading the text and completing the exercises, the medical billing student will certainly know how to run a basic billing function in a practice using MediSoft Patient Accounting.

The Practice of Medical Billing and Coding sets a standard for hands-on training manuals and entry-level texts in medical billing.

Yuval Lirov, Practicing Profitability - Billing Network Effect for Revenue Cycle Control in Healthcare Clinics and Chiropractic Offices: Collections, Audit Risk, SOAP Notes, Scheduling, Care Plans, and Coding