4 Tips for the Traveling Healthcare IT Professional

This week I’m on the road for 2 conferences in 2 cities. Then, I’m back for a week before being on the road for another 2 conferences in 2 cities. I’m not quite a road warrior like most healthcare IT consultants, but I’ve certainly learned my fair share about traveling. Here are some tips that have helped me enjoy the travel a bit more.

1. Uber and Lyft – I can’t imagine anyone doesn’t know about these already, but if you don’t you need to get to know them now. If you’re still taking cabs then you’re needlessly suffering. Uber and Lyft are such better experiences. You can get a free ride on Uber and $50 on Lyft if you sign up with these links. You’ll see first hand how much of a better experience it can be. My favorite part is the automatic payment from your credit card. That’s so much better than your cab driver being pissed at you for paying with a credit card.

2. Set a Calendar Notification for Airline Check-In – This doesn’t matter if you’re a true road warrior with great status. However, I always forget to check in for my flight. Plus, with some airlines it pays to check in right at 24 hours before your flight. In order to remind me to do this, I set a calendar notification email (I use Google Calendar) to send me an email reminder so I remember to go and check in for my flight. This works well for me since I’m a 0 inbox email guy.

3. AirBnB – If you’ve never used AirBnB, you should try it out. It’s not perfect for every city and location, but it’s getting there. I’ve gotten a full house on AirBnB 5 blocks from time square in New York City for $110 a night. The house was way better than any hotel I’d have gotten and cost way less. Almost all of them come with full kitchens and rooms that make it nice for working on the road. There are idiosyncracies about places on AirBnB, but you can usually discover those by reading the reviews. It takes a bit more time, but is worth the savings. You do miss some of the conveniences of a hotel, but most of them don’t matter much. AirBnB has also been creating more business-friendly options that are worth checking out if you manage this for your business. You can get a $35 credit to AirBnB with this link.

4. Leverage Twitter for Good Customer Service – This is one of my favorite tricks with travel. When something goes decidedly wrong, I head to Twitter. Don’t just complain to complain, but if something is really messed up and should be fixed then I’ve found Twitter to be a phenomenal way to get help. A simple example was a flight where the wifi was awful. I’d paid, but the wifi never worked. I tweeted about it and they credited me back what I’d paid. Worked like a charm.

Those are 4 tips I’ve been using to make my travel experience better. What do you do?

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

   

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