Every year, patients continue to see an increase in out-of-pocket expenses for medical care. Unfortunately, their health insurance providers are offering less coverage.
More than ever, the quality of your services as a medical practice is vital to keeping your patients. Without a thorough understanding of your operations, you may be missing out on opportunities to cut costs and improve processes.
Whether you’re a large or small medical practice, there is always room to improve your business. Here are five ways a medical practice assessment can ensure your practice is successful for years to come.
What Is Medical Practice Assessment?
Is your practice operating at peak performance? You may be tracking patient feedback but sometimes there are issues that you aren’t aware of until it’s too late.
A professional medical practice assessment can help you reveal missed opportunities or potential liabilities that you didn’t know about. There are a variety of aspects an assessment will cover.
For example, are you charging enough for services and are your practice’s collections high enough? Is your workflow as effective as it can be?
An assessment will also evaluate each of your services to determine which one will be the most profitable. This way you can focus additional efforts on areas that are worth it.
1. Enhance Office Culture
Your office staff is one of your biggest assets. They can make or break a patient’s experience. That’s why assessing and enhancing the office culture can be a huge benefit to your practice’s success.
The culture of your practice may be the most difficult aspect to measure and track but it is one of the most valuable. Not only will dedicated staff improve office operations, but patients will feel confident returning to a practice of familiar faces.
High turnover rates are costly. You waste valuable time retraining staff and rebuilding a relationship with patients. An assessment can help you find ways to increase office morale and better manage its culture.
If you haven’t taken a look at your staff’s productivity and efficiency, then an assessment can analyze areas of improvement. You may be able to make minor adjustments that will instantly increase your staff’s effectiveness.
It’s not always easy to see flaws in your office’s workflows when you’ve been doing things a certain way for a while. Or maybe you are just starting your practice and wondering where to begin. PLEASE USE THIS LINK, we’re going to migrate to it: https://www.doctorsmanagement.com/practice-assessment-2/ An assessment will breakdown every step of your processes and see if there are ways to make it more efficient.
2. Improve Patient Experience
If you could make your patients’ experience more pleasant and stress-free, would you do it?
Every step of your patient’s interaction with your office is vital to keeping them as a customer. From the first phone call to make an appointment, to their time spent in your office as well as their out-processing, your customer’s experience is essential to your practice’s success.
Maybe you are caught up in your current method of documenting, coding, filing, and billing your patients. There are so many complex steps needed to complete just one patient’s services. This is why streamlining this process for the utmost quality can be tricky.
An assessment will help you take a step back and really understand what it’s like to be one of your patients. What is the quality of their care? How are you currently trouble-shooting issues?
3. Master Your Workflow
You may not even be aware there are problems with your workflow until you’ve had an assessment. It will also help you begin to track productivity moving forward. In what ways can your staff’s time be better utilized? Along with giving you measurable goals to compare against.
If you have specific areas of concern, a qualified third party assessment service can hone into the issues you are most interested in resolving.
What’s great about a medical practice assessment, is that it can be catered to fit a variety of types of practices. Whether you are a solo physician, own a multi-specialty practice, or a dental practice, your assessment will provide insights into how you can improve operations and profits regardless of how unique your setup or situation.
4. Evaluate the Competition
How your practice operates is not only important when getting new patients, but also for keeping them. If your patients are unhappy with their service, it goes without saying that they will seek out your competitors.
With a medical practice assessment, you’ll receive professional help and insights. Your assessment will take a look at local competitors and help you learn ways to gain an advantage. You never know when a new practice will come into your area. With an assessment, you can remain ahead of potential threats to your business.
In addition to other nearby practices, your assessment should also take a look at industry benchmarks on the MGMA website to see how you compare. This is a helpful tool that will show you how your practice is performing as compared to national industry averages.
This will lead to determining factors like overspending on staff, overhead expenses, as well as expectations for revenue and patient flow. You may be surprised by your data versus the industry’s average.
5. Build Your Plan
Once you find out what areas of your practice are in need of attention, you may be wondering what’s next?
After your assessment, get ready to map out your plan of action. This is when you come up with the solution through step by step guidance. The efforts you make now will have lasting benefits on your practice for many years to come.
You may need to make large organizational changes that can be difficult in the beginning. However, by implementing these recommendations, you have the opportunity to increase your practice’s efficiency and growth.
These changes and new processes can result in impressive profits.
Ensure Your Practice’s Success
Ready to get started on improving your medical practice? There are so many ways that a medical practice assessment can improve your business. A professional consulting firm provides an objective view along with unbeatable expert advice.
If you want to ensure your practice is successful for many years to come, check out our variety of services. We can offer you the evaluation you need to reach your goals.
