The page has turned on another year and now we begin the hard work of writing a new chapter. As the clock counts down to midnight, people all over the world reflect on past successes and mistakes and looking forward, imagining what they can do to improve upon themselves and their lives.
It’s a smart idea, setting up resolutions for the new year. And for those with their own businesses – specifically medical practices – it’s an absolutely crucial idea to staying one step ahead and planning for the future.
Here are a few medical new year’s resolutions that will help keep you at the forefront.
1. Diversify Your Patient Population
In general, most analyses suggest that no one payer should hold more than a 25% share of a practice’s populations of patients. The reasoning here is simple: you don’t want to be left holding the bag if that patient and their insurance company can or will not pay for your services.
Beyond that though, it’s wise to have a varied mix of ages within your patient population.
If you’re serving primarily Medicare patients, it would be a wise plan to start reaching out to younger people in high schools and colleges especially with those under the age of 26 now predominantly under their parents health care plans.
2. Simplify Payments
Go around and look at some of the biggest companies and how they handle payments. You’ll notice that they have taken extraordinary steps to make it as easy to pay as possible with as many options as possible. Companies learned quickly that the easier you make it for the customer to pay, the more likely they will pay.
So for your medical practice, offer as many options of payment as possible, from cash to credit cards. However, you’re most likely aware that many practices don’t take credit card payments due to the fees. Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express each charge a fee for each transaction, but that’s not employing long-term thinking.
Sure, a 2-3% percent fee is felt over multiple transactions. But you have to consider the price of having that payment now versus a check a month from now. Having to float for those 30 days, you’ll find the instant payment option worth that small percentage.
3. Invest in Technology
The most powerful way to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your medical practice is to employ new technologies. Specifically ones that will help automate and streamline common tasks.
An inventive option is using speech recognition software. Dragon Medical, for instance, is designed to ensure physicians document their services more accurately. Furthermore, being able to increase productivity, revenue, and decrease documentation mistakes.
Practices employing this technology have reported noticeably higher satisfaction rates. With medical vocabularies comprising more than 90 medical specialty and sub-specialty terms. Additionally, a 99% accuracy rate out of the box, is a great way to improve in this new year.