6 finance boosting tips for General Practice

In this article, patient engagement software AutoMed’s founder, Peter Demaio, explores six key ways to empower your practice to be more financially efficient, stable and maximise returns.

Keeping on top of the day-to-day tasks of a busy practice can be challenging enough, but having the financial and accounting strategy can be critical for maintaining and growing your General Practice.

As the owner of a large, multidisciplinary General Practice, I can see that difficult times are ahead for the industry. We have the prospect of a rebate freeze for a further four years, which means a 20% decrease in our real income. At the same time, practice expenses are on the rise thanks to an increase of both fixed and variable costs.

As I see it, the only way to remain afloat is to increase efficiencies, increase income within the MBS guidelines and decrease administration running costs where possible.

Here are my top six tips to achieve this:

1. Review your expenses

It’s a great habit to do a regular ‘health check’ of your expenses. Take a detailed look at your daily, weekly, monthly and annual expenses and think about new ideas such as:

• Forming a buying group to benefit from mass buying;
• Looking at standard costs such as banking fees, telephone costs, the costs of sending letters out for recalls rather than an SMS; and
  Ensuring that your outstanding debts are as close to zero as possible.

2. Add more services

Value-adding to your existing services can make a significant impact to your reputation and your growth as a practice in the long-run. Explore the possibility of providing value-added services such as:

• Executive medicals;
• Special women’s clinics;
• Cosmetic services; or
• The rental of rooms to specialists and paramedical services when spaces are empty; for example, on Saturday mornings.

It’s also important to ensure that you have the skills and facilities to perform minor procedures as well as having ready access to X-rays and pathology.

3. Automate tasks

Automating and streamlining repetitive tasks can significantly boost efficiency and reduce time and money wastes on manual or administrative tasks. A major cost for any General Practice is staffing. These increase each year, and if you have mixed billing, then you need to ‘double handle’ the patient, then you’re also doubling your reception costs.

However an automated reception system, such as AutoMed Systems has proven to substantially decrease reception costs, while improving the patient experience. The use of quality software that allows patients to make appointments online, and also sends recalls via SMS, is another easy way to decrease administration costs.

Fully integrated with MedicalDirector’s clinical management solutions, AutoMed’s comprehensive self-service system allows patients to check in online or on the phone and allows data confirmation while checking for outstanding accounts. AutoMed Systems also allows the patient to pay at the kiosk and enables the booking of follow up appointments, all without attending the front desk.

4. Ensure you are billing correctly

A way to improve viability is to charge the proper fee for a consultation. Charging for items such as 36, HCPs MHCPs, SIP Diabetes and SIP asthma ensures your doctors’ work is being valued and the practice is properly remunerated. Make sure you review the HCPs regularly so that your team is billing appropriately.

5. Follow up with your patients

Establishing an efficient recall system to review patients and follow up abnormal results is essential for quality, personalised patient care, continuity of care and relationship building. A considered solution will ensure that patients won’t fall through the gaps.

6. Monitor your basic practice data

In today’s digital environment, monitoring important statistics and data around the efficiency of your practice is simple to do, but often overlooked. To accurately assess and improve your returns, it is essential to review your billing profile as well as:

• Patient numbers per hour;
• Billing per hour; and
• Costs versus patient numbers.

These statistics are essential in running not only a successful and ongoing General Practice, but an efficient, financially sustainable and scalable business as well.

It’s a matter of paying attention to the details while also thinking big picture, and realising that both patients and staff will embrace change, when they see it’s a positive for all. By being current, efficient and proactive, I believe every practice can not only survive, but thrive.

AutoMed is a patient engagement platform that offers a comprehensive suite of solutions for General Practice including online appointments and SMS reminders, patient registration, self check-in and caller ID.

AutoMed is fully integrated with MedicalDirector’s clinical management solutions. For more information about how MedicalDirector drives innovation with a wide range of partners, visit: https://www.medicaldirector.com/marketplace