Common Problems in a Medical Office
As the year comes to a close, I did my usual assessment of office priorities, and came up with the following list of potential pitfalls I think are important for every practice to work on:
- I realize that the front desk is often staffed with underqualified, younger help who can be easily overwhelmed by phone calls and patient demands. Still, it's imperative that all patient intake information (i.e., insurance information and subsequent updates) be properly entered. It pays to go with a more experienced person on the front desk, and I make sure to never have someone new or easily flustered in the position
- Make sure to update your fees and charge tickets annually.
- Have a quality control procedure in place regarding charge tickets. Make sure that everyone is being properly charged for everything. Have separate personnel keep a daily tally.
- Staff your office properly. Make sure the ratio of staff to physicians is adequate. Many practices tend to cut corners on this one, and the workload makes them suffer. Good medicine can't be practiced on the cheap.
- Make sure to follow-up with patients on things such as mammograms and other preventive tests.
Of course, this is an incomplete list. There are endless ways to improve any business, especially a doctor's office. Last month, a patient jokingly suggested we get Starbucks coffee for the waiting room. A member of my staff took the suggestion to heart and researched it. A week later, we had Starbucks coffee in the waiting room, and the response was overwhelmingly positive.
Sometimes we forget that it's the little things which people notice, and when you make something as onerous as a waiting room experience a little brighter, you reap the reward of happy patients. I support anything which makes a visit to the doctor more user-friendly.
Anyway, I'd love to hear any suggestions or comments you might have, as the year comes to a close. Any thoughts on what to look out for in a medical practice? Ways to make it better?
posted by Anne @ 10:49 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Additionally, I like to do the following at the end of the year (in preparation for the coming year):
1. Check insurance and vendor contracts to determine which relationships should continue status quo, which ones need reconsideraton, and one which ones may need discontinuation.
2. Take additional coding classes in your specialty and make sure you know the coding changes and updates for 2008.
3. Work on the ever-present problem of patient bottlenecks by revisiting scheduling templates. Determine how many patients your office sees per day and ask yourself if it matches your capacity.
4. Analyze billing and collections. How many outstanding accounts are there and how old are they? As a rule, my policy is if there are any that are older than 6months old, there is a collection problem in the office.
5. Evaluate and discuss the value of all benefits. Are there any benefits you are paying for not being used by employees? Share with employees financial benefits of each benefit along with their hourly rate to show them exactly how much you pay for their work.
I'm interested in knowing what other administrators do for their year-end evaluation and preparation -- TW
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