One of the most complicated aspects of the office is dealing with insurance.  There are hundreds of insurance companies, all with their different rules, not to mention government regulations and guidelines that all must be followed to the letter.  Then there are forms, forms, and more forms.  It takes nearly a college education just to manage all the medical billing forms.

Did  you know that when a claim is sent in, nearly 50% are rejected, often due to errors on the forms?  This is where the new software really comes in handy.  There is one company, UB-04 Software, that specializes in making software that is specific to medical insurance form.  The  ub-04 software makes it easy to get those forms filled out, and done correctly the first time.

Using  the ub04 claim form, not only does the doctor save time, which allows him/her to see more patients, but it also  saves the staff time, which keeps costs down, and allows your doctor visit to cost less.

“For any outcome that you want, there is certain way of thinking and acting that will get it for you. You have to find that way of thinking and acting, and adopt it.”

-Bill Harris

So being able to tap into the experience and knowledge of a group is essential for success.  We share information on how to write a business plan, how to manage money, how to do market research, how to market via the internet, facebook, linked in, etc.  We’ve had meetings on insurance, and principles.  One of the members there recently told us about his credit card processing services. Credit card processing is something that we all need, and it can be a bit complicated. We were all interested, as each of us obviously has a product or service to sell, and everyone wants to use credit cards. So, learning more about  POS systems (point of sale) was valuable for us.

If you do not belong to a business networking group, I highly recommend it.

My system for filing receipts and such is not really that good, and although I am familiar with QuickBooks, I don’t use it.  I do use TurboTax, which I have found to be really useful and easy to use.  If you use TurboTax every year, it will remember what you did last year and automatically import all that information.  That alone saves you a lot of time.  You can also see what your deductions were for last year, and if there is a huge discrepancy, you might want to take a look and see if you have overlooked something.  I like TurboTax, and will use it until my business gets so much bigger that I need a bookkeeper.  Then I guess, it’s his problem. 

My husband and I have been streamlining our home utilities and the first thing we did was go to Cabletvadvisor.com and up our package. I knew I wanted some extra movie channels and he was dying for the NFL stuff so we did that in lieu of renewing our home security alarm. We live in a really safe area and it just didn’t make sense for us to pay that money. Another thing we did to cut back was get rid of the weekly gardeners. Our yard is small enough that we should be able to do it ourselves without too much work and we’re even thinking of planning a small garden out back to save some money on produce! I can’t believe there are times in our lives where we have to be so careful with money but I guess right before you decide to bring a baby into the world is as good a time as any to really buckle down and try to save. There’s something to be said for being stable!

Safer?  In what way?  Computers do crash, although not with the frequency that they used to.  I have had my computer totally wiped out by a stupid computer repairman!  He was supposed to clear out viruses, and instead, he wiped the hard drive clean!  How safe was my digital information then?

Anyway, I tend to print out important stuff.  The problem here is that I tend to consider way too much stuff important.  This lends itself to using up a lot of paper and ink.  Paper is not a problem, getting a ream for $4.00 seems quite affordable.  But the cost of ink was driving me crazy! For a while I tried refilling the original ink cartridges
but that was a mess.  Then I tried buying refurbished ink cartridges from the local “ink” store, but they lasted about 1/4 as long as the   genuine ink cartridges .  So now, I just get a good deal online .  I have both an ink jet, and a laser printer so I get  genuine toner cartridges online too.

Although it doesn’t look like I’ll stop printing out my documents for safely, I am getting to trust the digital format more these days, so I guess I’ll be cutting back a bit.  Progress comes slowly.

Is your office horrible?  Out of date?  Old technology?  Too small?  Too crowded?  Impossible?

Well, here’s your chance for a do-over!  There’s a contest going on for the worst office ever. 

It’s called the  Pimp My Cube Contest  and is being done by the Contest Factory.  All you have to do is upload a video of your cube or office space and talk about all the reasons why it is so horrible.  Let them know why it is important that you need your work space redone.

Once you get your video up, send the link to your friends and family so they can vote for it.  You’ll get sweepstakes points in 4 ways- for registering, for voting, for commenting, and for inviting others to register for the contest.  If the judges (and other voters) decide you have the best (or worst) video and compelling reasons to change it, you could win a total office makeover!

You could win the grand prize with a value of $1200! They will come and upgrade your office with one of these choices:

o New high end computer system
o New Desk, Chair and Decorations
o New Entertainment Package with high end stereo, espresso machine etc.

There is a second prize that will be chosen at random for $200. Not bad for just making a video of your crappy office space.  Make sure to be witty and funny and crazy in your video, cause people love that; the wackier the better!  But you’d better do it soon, as the contest period is almost over.  It closes on January 31.

Just visit the Pimp My Cube site, register for the contest, and upload your videos to enter.  And then, after the video is approved, be sure to have all your friends and family support you by voting for it. Put it on Facebook, and in your blog. Tell the world.  It just might be worth a new office makeover for you!

It has fun features that let me take pictures that don’t even look like pictures, they look like pencil or pen drawings.  One setting is called “punk”- it’s kinda strange, and I probably won’t be using that one very much.  But other settings are more than useful.  Of course, the camera takes video, and one setting actually stabilizes the picture! So if I’m a little shaky, or perhaps there is a wind, the video still comes out great- or at least better than it would otherwise.

I like to take pictures of landscapes and waterfalls.  So, I have to travel around to get shots.  Sometimes, I’m hiking a bit to get where I need to go, and I have to take my camera with me.  The kind of videos that I need of waterfalls require a bit of time, and there is no way I can hold the camera still for that long, so I also have to take a tripod with me.  This is where a good travel tripod comes in handy.  I used to think that just anything that would hold the camera up would do, until a friend showed me his Benro.  I guess you just don’t know what you’re missing until someone shows you.  Anyway, I obviously needed a better tripod, so I spent some time cruising around the net, visiting sites with camera reviews and camera equipment reviews, and finally decided that the one I wanted was, indeed, from Benrousa.com because of the obvious quality.

If you have a need for a travel tripod, I suggest you check them out- you may not even know what you’re missing!

It will store your data for a day, or for a decade with total integrity, and perfect protection.  Your data can be stored on the premise, or in the cloud, or both if you wish.

Of course the storage complies with all governmental regulatory requirements, so you can feel secure offloading your expensive primary storage, and make room for active data that needs to be accessed on a daily basis.

But for me, the very best thing is its ease of use.  Individuals will not need to change their working systems, as the archiving is totally transparent, the all files and folders appear to be in the same familiar locations, even though they are offloaded.  Once configured, there are shortcut links that access the needed data with a click.  Its easy to search the entire archive, and restrictions can be put in place so that only the people who should get access to files are able to do so.

Yep.  Sooner or later,  you’ll need to deal with data storage issues, so let this be your heads-up!

This has meant a lot to me over the years, as I went to work feeling gnarly or grumpy, and just wishing that the world would go away.  I would remember that I had a choice in how I greeted the people in my life, and that being cheerful, putting on a smile, and being courteous was a CHOICE.  I found that I could do it by choosing to do so, and then, by doing it, somehow, I actually did feel better.

This principle, that we have control over our feelings, our actions, and our internal states, is a crucial one to understand, if we are to have the lives that we desire.  No matter what life has thrown at us, we can still choose to respond in this way, or in that way.  Which way we choose will have a profound affect on not only our internal state, but on how the rest of our outer world is also.

Unfortunately, we are not taught this in school, or even in our culture.  Many of us are floundering around at the mercy of random events, feeling out of control, frustrated, and miserable, because our lives just haven’t turned out as expected.  We were never taught to cultivate an anchor of personal happiness that comes from controlling ourselves within.  We were never taught How To Be Happy .
Learning how to have internal control is a real skill, and can be learned. It is not the same as taking some pill, or slapping on a temporary bandage, or deadening the pain temporarily with a drug, or even with some activity that acts like the placebo effect . We can, if we decide to learn how, begin to control our lives on the outside, by controlling our lives on the inside.