With all the changes coming down the pike with the healthcare reform bill, you should be strategizing on how to accommodate these changes into your practice, while still maximizing patient care and profitability for your practice. While this seems like a tall order, (only because it is) you do have time until the majority of mandated changes take place in the healthcare insurance industry. Most of the effects of the healthcare reform don’t take place until 2014, with only a few beginning in 2012. Read the rest of this entry »
Archive for category Business Trends
Last time, I covered including complementary care providers into your clinic. These providers included: physical therapists, massage therapists, and other providers within the medical community, who can offer additional services to your patients. This week, I will cover incorporating alternative care providers into your clinic, which may be more of a challenge. Read the rest of this entry »
Depending on your specialty, there are times during the year when you’ll inevitably experience a decrease in business. It’s normal to experience the annual ebb and flow of patients but you may be experiencing slower times than usual given the economy.
You can certainly augment your marketing efforts through emails or newsletters and you can send out reminder postcards to be sure that you’re capturing annual visits. These can both be effective for increasing your daily patient count but let’s talk about a way to be more proactive without investing any money and that’s through maximizing your current patients. Read the rest of this entry »
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Each month, I get a variety of newsletters sent to my email inbox. They include one from a garden club, one from my mortgage broker and one from an employment agency that I use periodically in our medical practice. I read them all on a regular basis but not for the reasons you might think.
Yes, each of them contains relevant information about gardening, bank loan percentage rates or available candidates for hire. However, what keeps me interested is that they don’t just talk about those things. They include the latest events around town, a weekly forecast, recipes and even a joke of the day. I probably wouldn’t even remember my mortgage broker’s name 6 years later if it weren’t for this newsletter that keeps her in front of me in a non-threatening way. Read the rest of this entry »
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Attending to students at your local high school can bring business to your practice.
Are any of you promoting your practice to the High School sports teams in your community?
If so, what are you doing?
Please respond by posting your comments below.
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Last week, we talked about the gradual decline of the patient-physician relationship and how email is becoming increasingly popular in filling the communication gap.
The plethora of social networking options have also created new avenues for communication and marketing but you would be wise to weigh the pros and cons before diving in. Let’s focus on the largest and most well known social networking site: Facebook. Read the rest of this entry »
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In these busy times, it’s no surprise that the patient-doctor relationship has eroded. Increased productivity requirements have shortened the amount of time you have to spend with each patient so many physicians are opting to communicate with patients via email. Read the rest of this entry »
What would you think if your doctor told you he was now charging you an annual fee to be his patient? Read the rest of this entry »
It’s comparable to not participating in your company’s 401k to get the match. It is simply money left on the table. That’s how you need to look at point-of-service drug dispensing. It’s easy, with low investment, and your competitors just might be jumping on the bandwagon faster than you are. Read the rest of this entry »
Do you have the right patient mix?
Patient Mix is a tricky road to navigate. Many practices just assume the more patients it sees, the more money it makes! Well, what if you could see different patients and make more? What is patient Mix? Patient Mix is the equation that leads to all the patients you see in your practice. Simply put: How many PPO patients, HMO patients, cash patients, and Medicare patients do I have? For example a typical General Practitioner runs about 85-90% on the large HMO patient mix structure. Meaning you are contracted with the top 5-10 HMO/PPO in your area because they control a large patient base. You contract with them and they fill your waiting room with patients. But are the reimbursements what you want? Usually not. You may think you make up for less money with more volume but this approach is a formula for disaster.
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