Are You Finishing Strong in 2022?
As the year draws to a close, it is a good time to review your practice to make sure you are finishing the year strong and setting your practice up for a successful new year. It is a great time to look back and assess how your practice fared.
This time of year, you and your practice are in the thick of a busy holiday season, so time is precious. It’s important to take the time to review what worked and what didn’t work and where you want to be at the end of next year. This way, you can position your practice for a strong finish and set up for a strong start.
As you know, running a successful practice requires continuous time, effort, energy, and money. It is important to take the time to really assess your practice. So, what are some good things to review? We’ve highlighted a few things to help get you started.
Assess Your Team
A great team is essential to any successful practice. Unfortunately, keeping a highly trained and cohesive team has been challenging due to hiring challenges.
If you’ve had difficulties in this area, think about what’s missing and how you can overcome this problem area. Should you outsource certain functions? Outsourcing can help with workflow, and reduce the amount of space, office supplies, and technology that is required when you have in-house staff. Can staff be repurposed to revenue-generating areas?
Take a look at your staff a really hard look. How well are the existing team members working together? Is there positive energy and are they supporting each other? There shouldn’t be drama, blaming, or bad attitudes. What can be done to resolve any negative situations?
Dive Into Your Data
It is important to know where your successes are and where there needs to be improvement. The first look should be your revenue. Your billing service should run monthly reports for you that detail billings, collections, and encounters by provider and location. This should be a trending report that compares month-to-month and year-to-year.
Of course, an accounts receivable aging report by insurance carrier is equally important. You also need to know which carrier is paying the fastest and the most. The reports that are produced for you should contain pertinent information that you need to steer your practice. If you need customized reports – ask for them and make sure they provide the data, you need.
Revenue is important but you shouldn’t overlook taking a keen look at your expenses. Many times, it is the little things that add up and can be reduced or eliminated. Office supplies can become a sinkhole. Check out Amazon for business.
Customer Satisfaction
When you think of your customers do you think of your patients, your staff, referral sources, vendors, and other hospital and clinic staff? They are all customers and sources of new patients to grow and shape your practice. Yes, even your staff. A front desk person who smiles and positively engages with everyone who has contact with your office can build your practice just like a not-so-great person can hurt your practice. Customer satisfaction is key to developing long-term loyalty, word-of-mouth, and growth. Where are your referrals coming from? What can you do to maximize those?
Conclusion
As you can see, there are many benefits to reviewing your medical practice’s performance over the year. Doing so can help you identify how well your team is doing in various areas, such as hiring, patient care, and operational efficiency.
If you find your practice getting bogged down in non-patient care activities, administrative tasks, or patient care workflow, consider ways to streamline your operations.This can include outsourcing your more technical and time-consuming processes, such as medical billing to experts like Onpoint Medical Solutions.