Run a Profitable Practice with These Tips

These days, to run a successful medical practice, it is important to take into due consideration several other factors. Mentioned below are some key areas that are in need of your dire attention.

Make sure that you seamlessly incorporate these for booming results:

Undertake Customer Service as a Part of Effective Marketing and Promotion

To glean in more revenue for your practice it is essential to be welcoming and patient- focused as these are the pillars towards creating your shop window.

When people step into you practice, the first person they will come across is the receptionist. Now, it is very important that the receptionist has a warm and welcoming aura and the layout of the practice room is well planned and inviting. If these factors are on point, there are increased chances that people will register with your practice.

Meeting, greeting and addressing the patients who enter is the key to establishing connect. If the receptionist is seen busy on calls or taking up administrative jobs at the desk before speaking to the patients, there are chances of losing potential customers and the income they are likely to bring to your practice.

Practices that are known to achieve top patient feedback have one receptionist employed solely for the purpose of meeting and greeting while admin and telephonic duties are taken to the back office. In case of busy practice programmes, you can call in patient reference group members who can support the meet and greet process to further enhance the overall patient experience.

Visitors, who are not patients - for instance pharmaceutical representatives or non-medical contractors, should not be given priority above patients at the desk.

Make sure that your services are made public and the new ones are actively promoted within the practice and by means of the local media and key patient groups and national outlets such as the NHS Choices.

Many practices have resorted to using social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook to endorse news and services. These practices are looking out for additional innovative methods to send information to the hard-to-reach-groups frequently through patient reference group volunteers.

Medical Reports and Fees

It can be beneficial for practices to produce medical reports and handle the administrative process efficiently. Reports that are maintained are to be of the highest quality to warrant repeat business and value for money for the patient or organisation. You can also employ practical steps to further improve the efficiency of the process.

A member of the staff, preferably the practice medical secretary who is in charge of typing out all the reports, should be responsible for logging these items in and out.

Medical Examinations

The entire practice team, including all the nurses and in certain cases the doctors, plays an important role in securing booking of appointments for medicals. These comprise medicals for insurance, employment and driving, postnatal, leisure and insurance.

If errors are committed, they are likely to be costly to the practice. Convincing the doctors to work overtime to deliver these are guaranteed to reap dividends – as will ensuring the efficiency of the process, timely deliverance and quality of the work done. If the team fails to offer convenient and quick appointments from a simple phone call, then business income can be easily lost and local competitors will gain an upperhand.

Expenses Resulting from the Practice – Good House Keeping

Every effort dedicated towards eliminating waste, cutting down unnecessary phone calls, curtailing gas/electricity bills or saving staff cost by covering for an absent colleague will prove to be invaluable in your quest to maintain profitability.

Get your staff involved in considering practice expenses by way staff suggestion box or reward scheme could be introduced instead.

Releasing Clinical and Administrative Time through the System

Doctors and practice nurses should chiefly be involved in clinical rather than administrative procedures. Similarly, the clinical caseload needs requires assessment throughout the system to ensure protection of proficiency for complex cases for more senior staff.

The appointment of healthcare assistants can reduce the number of simple medical procedures being done by experienced GPs and practice nurses. Smoking cessation, asthma checks, phlebotomy, vaccinations and the likes, can all be performed by trained healthcare assistants. General health advice and simple procedures such as blood-pressure checks can also be done by healthcare assistants. This is likely to back up QOF target achievement.

Examine all areas of practice activity to free up administrative time so as to allow doctors and nurses more time with patients. Effective summarisation and establishment of clear templates for audit and QOF purposes will cut down administrative time for clinicians.

Waiting Room Initiation

Practices are increasingly utilising their waiting rooms to a good extent so as to generate additional income. One can consider placing coffee machines and payphones within the practice, but additionally boards for advertisements, sponsored videos, pictures and floral displays are also worth considering.

Practices in some areas have also gone to the length of setting up fruit stalls and free vending machines in London to support health promotion. Again, your staff or your patient reference group can be in charge for this area of practice activity.

These are just a few examples of the role of practice staff in maintaining profitability. Other aspects such as reviewing of insurance contracts, premises leases, rent and rate arrangements and so on will also affect income generation.

Finally, investing in practice team’s training and their input in making the business efficient is essential to ensure financial success. Time invested towards team development, especially on training for profitability and financial flows will generate dividends for the practice business.