Before adding new services, practitioners, products and/or treatments, it is a good idea to first optimize the revenue that you already take in. In doing so, you may uncover key areas where costs or overhead can be reduced.
Here are a few suggestions from our Practice Development experts to help you get started!
Optimize the revenue potential that your practice already takes in—not just in hundred dollar bills, but in $20s and $30s. On top of co-pays, these little extras can add up while offering excellent service to your patients:
- Telemedicine phone calls
- Coaching calls
- Small product purchases like lip balm, sunscreen or herbal teas
Schedule staff and patients strategically—keeping costs in mind. Make good use to time, money and people to stay profitable. Consider the best use of your highest paid people. Optimize the staff schedule and develop the best strategy for scheduling patients.
- Delegate: Review how you use your highest paid practitioners and staff members. Is the physician spending time on the work that only he/she can do and delegating less important tasks to others?
- For example, a physician who regularly takes 15 minutes to give instructions on a treatment, procedure or product could delegate to someone else on a lower pay scale. Over the week, the time spent giving instructions could cost as much as $2000 total, compared to $300 for using a good assistant. Schedule appropriately so that another person is ready to assist.
- Group similar patients on the schedule, so that supplies, staffing and other costs for certain types of patients are minimized.
- Maximize use of part-time contracted practitioners by grouping the appointments in the best way to keep the acupuncturist, massage therapist or nutritionist busy and engaged in important work. The cost of time gaps for practitioners as well as the risk of demotivating talented people is important to consider. A key ingredient to a profitable practice is passionate, enthusiastic people who get to work with a steady stream of good patients.
Tighten-up collections. As a rule, it is important to resolve payments face-to-face while at the practice, and not later by phone. Research shows that half of patients who walk out of the practice without paying a co-payment will never pay it!
- A clear fee schedule or price list that includes items like follow-up phone calls and additional dietary coaching will go a long ways toward making it easy to collect on services rendered.
Negotiate discounts on labs, supplements and supplies so that your margins are greater. Power2Practice clients are automatically set up with special pricing through group-purchasing discounts, which save up to 80% on lab tests and an average of 40% on medical and office supplies. There is power in numbers!
How much money is your practice leaving on the table?
Find out by taking our complimentary Supplemental Revenue Practice Assessment here, then get a free downloadable PDF guide, loaded with even more tips to help your practice get—and stay—profitable!
Power2Practice is the only EMR and business solutions platform designed specifically for Integrative, Anti-Aging and Functional Medicine practices. Click here to see all the reasons why Power2Practice is different from traditional EMRs or watch our short online demo video here.
Have questions? Please give us a call at 1-800-590-7459 or email us: sales@power2practice.com.