Many practice leaders believe that if they can just see more patients, they will be able to increase their practice revenue. However, a higher patient volume comes with a price tag – longer work hours, higher labor costs, increased administrative tasks, increased supply and utilities costs, and often the need to hire new physicians, ARNPs, PAs, and other healthcare providers to handle the patient load. If new providers are needed then additional costs are incurred, such as malpractice coverage, EMR licenses, credentialing labor costs, the time that it takes to recruit, interview, onboard, and train these new providers, and many others.
Attracting new patients is never a bad thing and is absolutely
necessary for a practice to flourish and remain successful. However, these new
patients do come with the costs described above, so other ways of earning
additional revenue should also be considered. One way that many medical
practices have found helpful in remaining profitable is by providing ancillary
services to their existing patient base. Implementing new services helps
achieve several outcomes:
·
The practice provides convenience and better
care to their patients, which helps with patient retention
·
The practice gains an edge over their
competitors
·
The practice attracts new patients who are
seeking out these services, who can then become regular patients
·
The practice earns new revenue streams
·
Some services can help the practice meet quality
measures which will bring them reimbursement increases
When
choosing new ancillary services to implement, each practice must consider
several factors:
·
Would this service be beneficial to our current
patient population?
·
Would this service help us attract new patients?
·
How much can our practice earn by implementing
this service?
·
What is the implementation process?
·
Is there an implementation cost?
·
What is the payer mix of our current patient
population?
·
Is this service covered by the payers with the
highest patient volumes in our practice?
·
Would our patients incur a share of cost or have
to pay for the service out of pocket? If so, would our patients be able to
afford this share of cost?
·
Is there demand in our community for this
service?
If
you are considering adding new services to your practice, starting with these
questions will help you narrow down your search. Some of the services that
medical practices have been able to implement in their practices include the
following:
·
Allergy Testing and Immunotherapy
·
Chronic Care Management
·
Medication Therapy Management
·
Preventative and Diagnostic Testing
·
Electronic Mental Health Assessments
·
On-site Pharmacy for most commonly prescribed
medications
·
On-site Medical Equipment sales
·
Nutrition Management Programs
·
Weight Loss Treatments
If
you are interested in learning more about these services and would like
assistance with implementing them at no cost, email: sonda@lmshealthpro.com.
Sonda
will be speaking at the Florida Medical All-Stars Expo on this topic.
Register
now: https://www.medicalallstars.com/work-smarter-not-harder
Sonda Eunus is the Founder & CEO of LMS Health, a Healthcare
Management and Marketing company that works with medical practices and other
healthcare businesses to help them grow and increase revenue and profitability.
She holds a Masters’ in Healthcare Management and is a Certified Medical
Practice Executive through MGMA. She is passionate about helping healthcare
leaders and entrepreneurs achieve their organizational goals. Visit www.lmshealthpro.com
for more information.
