Whether you’re a physician operating a solo practice or are a partner in a group practice, your responsibilities go far beyond providing excellent patient care. You also have to know how to run your practice as a successful business that can grow and earn more revenue over time.
Despite having a practice manager that handles many of the daily operations, it’s up to you to come up with the big ideas to make your practice a success and watch it grow.
From perfecting processes to increasing revenue, here are seven big ideas to help you improve your medical practice.
- Schedule and Confirm Appointments Online
Allowing patients to schedule appointments online is a benefit to both the patient and to your front desk staff. The less time front desk staff spend on fielding phone calls to schedule upcoming appointments, the more time they can focus on the patients that are physically in the office waiting to see a physician.
In addition to scheduling appointments online, adopt a HIPAA-compliant messaging system to confirm appointments as well.
Missed appointments are lost revenue, and having your staff calling patients to confirm costs valuable time. An automated text message or email serves as both a way to remind the patient of their appointment and a way to get confirmation that the patient will show up when expected.
- Update Medical Equipment
Without updated medical equipment it can be difficult to attract new patients to your practice. It can also be difficult to retain the ones you have.
While having the most up-to-date technology and equipment is key, it’s important to do a cost-analysis of the benefits of every new piece of equipment you buy.
Also, if you’re regularly operating x ray machines and other radiology services, you can get the best x ray accessories to improve your operations and enhance the safety of your technicians..
- Invest in a Secure Messaging System
Just like scheduling and confirming appointments, front desk staff can spend hours per week answering phone calls for refill requests and test results. With a secure online patient portal, you can save your staff time and provide your patients with a way to request refills, ask questions, or read test results 24/7.
With a secure messaging system, physicians can block out hours at the beginning or end of each day to read all of the day’s messages, which can save time and keep the daily appointment schedule on track.
- Reduce Unnecessary Expenses
You can increase revenue simply by reducing costs and expenses, and there are a variety of ways to do so.
Consider renegotiating the cost of medical supplies and equipment with your suppliers. If you can’t get better prices you might want to modernize your inventory management system so that you have more items on auto-ship and less items (that might expire) in your storage room.
If you’re constantly having to pay hourly staff to work overtime, consider hiring an additional staff member to ease that burden. It can be more cost-effective to hire a new part-time employee than continuing to pay your full-time staff time-and-a-half or double time in overtime pay.
- Hire the Best People
One of the best ways to improve your practice is to surround yourself with the best staff, and you can attract the best employees by offering a salary that’s slightly higher than the competition.
If you’re trying to reduce expenses, paying a higher than average salary may seem counterintuitive. But doing so allows you to hire better, more experienced staff and be a bit more discerning about who you offer a position.
In need of an additional clinician?
You can save money simply by adding a nurse practitioner to the team rather than another MD.
When you do add a new physician or NP to your staff, be sure to have them sign a physician employment contract. Checkout this guide from Physicians Thrive to learn more about what should be included in a physician employment contract.
- Provide Patients With Various Sources of Information
The more information you can provide your patients, the better. Having pamphlets and informational materials in your waiting room isn’t enough. You should offer patients access to valuable information online as well.
Post informative articles on your website. Send informational email newsletters to your patients once a month. Interact with patients on social media by posting wellness videos or addressing concerns and treatment options about various health conditions. Improving your patient engagement experience overall is always going to be beneficial for your practice, many service providers have experienced this in partnership with Experity Health.
- Monitor Patient Feedback
There are many review sites and grading sites where patients can post reviews of your practice or of a specific physician within your practice. Read those reviews and comments to know how patients are grading you and discover where you can make improvements.
If you’re not receiving many reviews or grades online, send out patient surveys as a way to collect direct feedback.
You can also collect valuable information by surveying your staff or holding monthly meetings where every staff member is given an opportunity to express a concern or make a suggestion as to how to improve a process or increase productivity.
In Conclusion
Providing top-quality patient care may be the core of what you do as a physician, but when you have a stake in the practice, you have to do even more.
By making better use of technology, hiring the best staff, and collecting feedback as to where you can make improvements, you can grow your practice this year, next year, and beyond.
