As recommendations are rapidly coming out and changing as the COVID-19 pandemic develops, lactation consultants in private practice and outpatient settings need access to best practices and evidence-based recommendations. Disclaimer: Nothing in this blog post can be taken as medical, clinical, legal, or financial advice.
You may not be aware of this, but one important component of HIPAA is that you must post your Notice of Privacy Practices on your website.
While most clinicians can agree that nothing can replace an in-person lactation consult with a family in need of help feeding their baby, virtual consults are becoming more and more popular as a way to make services more accessible. In order to meet your ethical obligations and stay within your scope of practice as an IBCLC or other lactation credential, you’ll want to keep some key factors in mind.
Few of us could have foreseen how the landscape of our practices would change so abruptly last spring. Many of us found ourselves scrambling to develop new protocols and explore the nuances of telehealth while also managing massive changes in our personal lives. It’s been more than half a year, and we thought it was time for us to sit and reflect with all of you about how we can combine virtual tools with the tried and true in-person visits most of us love. We’ll dig into time management, pricing, usage of each type of visit in the continuum of care, scheduling aspects and much more. This episode is sure to have you take pause and shift your lactation practice. Join us!
Being HIPAA compliant isn’t optional for IBCLCs. Our clients are entitled to insurance reimbursement for our services under the Affordable Care Act. In order for them to be able to submit the appropriate paperwork, we need to have an NPI number, and that number is what transforms us into a HIPAA-covered entity. In order to help you understand your responsibilities under HIPAA, I’ve created this free guide.
Figuring out how to become an IBCLC is often the most challenging part of the whole process. Unlike other related healthcare fields (such as clinical social work, physical and occupational therapy, speech-language pathology, and counseling), there are only a handful of established university programs that include the education component along with the clinical component in an organized and structured way. In other words, you’re not likely to be able to get a master’s in lactation and have your department chair help you land an internship at an outpatient lactation clinic.
“We started just going through what we do on a day to day basis and would just write down the steps for each thing that we did and then that was kind of more your procedures. And then policies would come out of that.”
Today’s episode of Lactation Business Coaching with Annie and Leah is called “Working with Referral Sources.” Having referrals works both ways: it is a priority to service your clients when you are not available and it is also important to cultivate a relationship with others to become a trusted referral for their own business.
Today’s episode of Lactation Business Coaching with Annie and Leah is called “Is an Office Right for Your Lactation Practice?” There are several options to move into an office setting as an IBCLC, from setting up in a physician’s office to sharing an office space to building your own home office. Of course, there are pros and cons to each office setting. It would be wise to evaluate on a quarterly basis to see which option is best for you or if an office setting is even the best fit for your business.
What’s something you wish you were told when starting private practice?