Oct 23, 2007
Doctors - Instantly Make an Extra $5,362 Every Month
| By Russ Carpenter If you have a normal medical practice, you're most likely losing thousands of dollars every month. That's money that can go straight to your bottom line. How is this possible you may ask? The answer lies in your waiting room. Sure you run a busy practice and it seems that your waiting room is always full, but you know that every day you have patients who don't show up for their scheduled appointment, for one reason or another. Not that big of a deal, right? Think again. Let's do a little math. Let's say you're a general practitioner and have a busy family practice. On an average day, you see about 25 patients. Let's also assume that your average ticket for treating a patient is $75. If everyone shows up, you should bring in $1,875 a day, which adds up to $41,250 per month. But what about the no-shows? A recent study by a national medical group association estimates that the average no-show rate for a family practice is 18%. So, if you take 18% of your monthly revenue away due to no-shows, that's $7,425 you are losing every month! No-shows and the need to reduce them are not a new phenomenon. Practices have always struggled with this. The traditional approach to reducing no-shows has been mailing out reminder cards or having your staff place reminder calls. While this can reduce no-shows, this approach is not free. Practices tell me that it's not uncommon to dedicate a full-time employee to this chore. Devoting a full-time employee (FTE) solely to this task will likely cost you $25,000 to $30,000 a year. When you add this cost in, you're probably about break even. Luckily for you, there are alternative methods for reducing no-shows. The most cost effective (and therefore profitable) solution is an automated appointment reminder system. There are many flavors of this solution on the market. You've likely received a few computerized reminder calls yourself. To get the most bang for the buck, you'll want a system that can be integrated into your existing practice management software. An integrated reminder system will automatically read ahead in your patient schedule and make the calls for you. To take advantage of this nifty approach, you'll need a practice management solution that is capable of working with automated reminder systems. How effective are automated appointment reminder systems? Recent research has shown that a properly executed reminder system can bring no-shows down to as little as 5%. Let's crunch some numbers again. When your busy family practice brings no-shows down to 5% from 18%, that 13% boost in patient traffic averages $243.75 in extra revenue per day. Given an average of 22 workdays per month, that puts an average of $5,362 in your pocket every month. I don't know about you, but I could certainly find a use for an extra $5,362 each month! Russ B. Carpenter is a nationally-published author and expert on medical practice management software and electronic medical records software. Find more about reducing no-shows at http://www.netpractice.com/netreminder.htm Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Russ_Carpenter |
posted by Morok at 6:17 AM
