47.1 percent of doctors run a private practice.
Though running your own practice can be lucrative, it can be quite strenuous without the right support structure.
Handling the clinical aspect plus the management side is the biggest challenge of running a private doctor’s clinic.
For most physicians, there is hardly any time left after seeing their patients. This is where medical management companies come in.
In this article, we will discuss everything you need to know about medical practice management.
What Are Practice Management Companies?
As a physician, running and growing a private practice can be challenging. This is why many practices are badly run. If you can’t balance the medical aspect and the business aspect of the practice, you are bound to fail.
Both tasks need full commitment.
Like any business, managing a medical practice requires business acumen and a unique set of skills. Unfortunately, these are not skills that are learned in medical school. Consequently, many doctors are ill-prepared to be business owners.
Struggling to handle both aspects of the practice will only deprive you of a personal life and limit the growth potential of your practice.
Practice management companies are a saving grace. These are institutions that provide management services to private practices.
By working with a practice management company, you will get access to a pool of qualified professionals to help you with day to day management. You will also get practice management software to assist you with the same.
As a result, the physicians are left to focus on the clinical side. This, in turn, makes the practice more efficient and better placed to grow.
How Does it Work?
Once you have chosen to work with a practice management company, they will first assess your practice.
This assessment will cover management and financial aspect of the clinic. From this review and the goals you have for your practice, they will develop a strategic plan.
If you don’t have any staff designated to handle the business side, do not fret. The company can hire one on your behalf. If you already have a manager, the management company will provide consultants to work closely with them.
There is more about doctor’s management than consultant services. With management consultants, you will benefit from insight on industry practice as well as the strategies successful practices use.
Again, you will have access to specialized software that will streamline your day to day activities.
The Software
To ensure operations run smoothly and simplify management within the practice, the management company will provide you with a system. This system will assist in storage, access, and retrieval of information. This will benefit your practice in the following ways:
Easy Patient Data Management
For a practice to grow, the service offered to patients must be exemplary. To achieve such high standards, it is important to have the necessary data about each patient and be able to access it when needed.
With a practice management system, it will be easy for you and your team to collect, store and retrieve a patients name, contacts, address, birthdate and medical history.
Such systems also enable you to know a patients insurance provider and check their insurance coverage before their appointment.
Appointment Scheduling
Scheduling appointments for physicians is one of the biggest challenges the clinic staff faces. This often results to double bookings. At times patient are scheduled when the physician has other matters to attend to.
Management software brings all these variables in one place. It gives the staff real-time insight of when each physician will be available.
This makes booking appointments quick and easy. It also reduces the chance of a physician being double-booked.
Such systems can also send text or email reminders to patients. This helps reduce the number of missed appointments.
Assists in Billing and Processing Claims
Medical practices have to issue bills and claims in order to receive payment. It is important that they adhere to the payers – insurance company- regulations. If any of the requirements are not followed the payment will be delayed.
Physician practice management systems prepare the billing statements and generate claims for the patients that have been treated.
To ensure the bills and claims are compliant with requirements, the system scans them. If any error is detected, your staff will receive a notification. You will also receive alerts for any overdue claims or payments.
If your system is cloud-based, it will automatically update when there are new billing and procedural codes.
Medical Management Practice Systems Allow You to Track the Performance of Your Practice
As with any business, it is important to track the performance of your practice. If any aspect of your clinic is not performing optimally, it could affect your ability to achieve your objectives.
Clinic management systems provide crucial data, such as:
• How long it takes your staff to complete certain tasks
• The frequency to which patients fail to show up for appointments
• How long a claim has been in accounts receivable
• The time it takes payers to reimburse claims
• How well the clinic is performing in comparison to objectives
This data is especially important for a practice that is scaling. It allows you to identify areas that need improvement thus increasing your all-around productivity.
Working with a Practice Management Company Can Get You Ahead
The services of a medical practice management company are beneficial to both small and growing practices. As a doctor, your primary focus will be to administer medical services to your patients.
Your practice will also benefit from the vast experience such consultants have to offer. They will bring insight that would have taken you years to gain on your own.
Also, the system that they will put in place will streamline all processes and improve the efficiency of the clinic.
As such, managing and identifying areas that need improvement will be easier. All these benefits will work in tandem to accelerate the growth of your practice.
Using the right tech can make all the difference in your practice. Check out our technology section for some great insights.
