The Digital Way Ain’t the Only Way.

It’s late.

Thought I would check e-mail one last time before sacking out.

The usual suspects filled my in box but one stood out from the others.

It was round two in the discussion of a bill owed for an education class at the local hospital.

I took the class and found it very helpful. It met three times. At no time was the cost of the class discussed. There was a great deal of contact information gathered to include medical insurance coverage.

The three classes took place in June. All information was to be sent via e-mail. I had to sign up for the on-line service. I was not aware that billing would be provided this way and had quickly dispensed with the site as useless when it advised me of the dates of the classes after they had happened.

I did get a dunning letter in the mail but it had information about only one of the classes, arrived in August and said I had to pay via the web site.

I wasn’t sure if it was genuine or a phishing expedition.

Since I thought I hadn’t kept the log in and password. I tried to get them from the site. Didn’t work. So I dug into the little binder I have for this kind of nonsense and found a note scrawled on a post it note.

When I got into the site the billing was nearly undecipherable.

The information about the three class dates were not on the bill. The costs were not shown by date. The allowances for insurance payments were not shown by date. In short, the information was confusing, out of order and difficult to understand.

My response was to request an invoice that spells out all costs by date and description of service rendered, a total and where I can send them a check.

The problem is assuming the internet is the only way to do business and that good business practices are subject to modification to meet digital designer’s requirements.

In one of my previous lives I contributed to how forms were developed and how software was manipulated. I’ve heard the arguments for making it simple on the coders. I’ve seen the stupidity that comes from having people that don’t understand the purpose of what they are working on and heard the protestations of software developers that have the audacity to say that people that are used to seeing things one way should just learn this new way.

The Analog way is the past…but.

I’ve had to spend hours trying to figure out what some digital jockey calls a simple command in use in an industry for over 50 years in order to do what in art technology is called a reverse.

Because the people doing the digital design are not trained in the analog methods they believe that the terminology, practices and logic in place are worthless.

They are dead wrong.

The billing question cited earlier is a perfect example. The decision was made to develop a feature rich web site that could handle:

· Advising patients of schedule dates for classes

· Reminding patients of appointments

· Suggesting immunizations for patients

· Providing a billing platform for patients

· A host to other services I’m sure

The outcome is the true measure.

1. My billing was sent out two months after the fact.

2. The information was so unintelligible I questioned it

3. The response was also undecipherable.

4. The billing did not reflect good accounting practices

5. Once again, a health care provider is going to be paid months late

Understand how something is done currently before you go kiting off in what you think is a better direction.

His consulting practice, founded in 1990, is known for Trust-based Brand development, Positioning and business development for independent professionals on and off-line.

Consulting: www.JerryFletcher.com
Speaking: www.NetworkingNinja.com