How to Increase Revenue and Patients in a Medical Practice
Do you know how many Americans are eligible for medical health insurance? The numbers have reached from 11 million to 20 million now! It’s happening because of the enrollment of the Affordable Care Act. Public enrolled via state and federal insurance exchange. The pandemic shocked everyone. The treatments were free at one point, but if conditions worsen, then your health insurance needs to kick in. But it can cover only so much. For a medical practitioner, these times are crucial more than ever. Pandemic and post-pandemic side effects are resurfacing, so people will be looking for a medical expert in their local areas. So if you are one, you can increase your revenue and patients in medical practice. It means you need every tool at your disposal to make any of your medical ventures possible and profitable.
You must be wondering how to make the impossible, possible. Relax. In this article, we have formulated very convincing strategies that will help you improve your revenues and patient counts in no time at all.
7 Convincing Ways to Increase Revenue and Patients in your Medical Practice
Even if yours is a business, the foremost concern is to generate revenue, right? In the medical field, you will face lots of competition. Whether it’s about administrative tasks or medical practitioners, there are tactics you can use to your own advantage.
Down below are some quality tips to enhance your medical practice.
Customer Reviews are Legends
For customers at least, this bit is true. We all know the internet has proved to be a hot spot for service providers and buyers. It’s a common interaction platform for businesses. Most internet users these days are either generation X or millennials.
The younger generations are hard to satisfy. They investigate the pages, website, comments, etc. to ensure they have the right pieces of evidence whatever medical service they plan to choose in the end is worth their money.
A quick view of a positive review by a patient on your website will do wonders for your medical practice. Also, websites like Yelp, Healthgrades, etc. have listed top medical practices. Customers can leave a review, and therefore these listing websites rate the service provider based on the customer experience.
So the first and foremost thing to do is to focus on the long-term patients. Take their opinions and suggestions seriously about your practice. Ask them to share their experience with your medical practice on your official website or social media page.
Which Type of Social Media to use
Everyone is aware that for a healthy business to prosper and increase revenue, you need to have a strong online presence.
Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. are most likely used by businesses to attract more business clients and other customers. For a medical practitioner, sharing, sensitive information can be quite critical. Patients are not always forthcoming when there are billions of prying eyes on their personal screens.
Facebook provided a safe remedy for this too in the shape of Groups.
Facebook groups are popular these days among various communities. For instance, you can create a healthcare group. Be very selective with the users you allow in the group. You can also give limited access, making it a private group instead of a public group. Users have the opportunity to ask you questions “anonymously” too if they feel uncomfortable. They can contact you via inbox too.
So you see? This methodology is really simple.
Or else, you can create a strong portfolio on LinkedIn, a high-domain social site for professionals. Your connections can help create new connections in the related field. And who knows, you may find your future patients or business clients by keeping an active profile.
Using Bilingual Staff
Usually, the medical staff is bilingual. In most fortunate cases, they are multilingual as well. You may get a patient who is transferred from another medical facility. In such a case, it’s quite possible to face a situation where the patient speaks a foreign language.
Chances are any staff member could be familiar with that language. Hiring bilingual staff is always fruitful. Not only are you opening doors for diverse job-seekers, but you will create a good reputation for yourself among the locals too.
Also, do not hesitate to hire medical interpreters as well. They are of extreme help in emergencies.
They can act the best as customer representative agents. Imagine a 911 call for a severely burned patient is received, and the person does not speak or understand English. In such dire circumstances, your smart hiring may work in favor of your medical service.
Besides, doctors and pharmacists are always in need of accurate medical translation to fully understand the patient’s medical history. It helps your medical practice prosper, too.
Offer After-Hour Visits
A medical practitioner’s routine and schedule are pretty much tied up. But offering after-hours patient visits means increased revenue as well.
It means you can fit more appointments in a day too outside of 9-5 average practice. Besides, it will also provide the chance to keep patients in their comfort zone too. They will realize if the doctor is really making an effort by putting in an extra shift or an added hour, they value their patients.
But of course, if you want more work-life balance, then this idea is not favorable for you. But those who are looking to increase their revenues and retain patients longer can benefit a lot.
A patient is more likely to stick to a doctor who is available even at short notice, too. If not available for personal visits, then an online video consultation can also do the trick.
Highly Motivated Staff
Staff is a valuable source for the healthcare industry. The policies should be created in a way that compensates the staff, making them happier employees.
But how will a happy employee help earn revenue?
This is the case with good word of mouth. Not all fingers are equal, at some point, the medical practice may lack some quality insights too. Staff is usually ignored due to tight work schedules. They are usually overrun, which is a sad reality. However, to keep the staff highly motivated, make their work schedule as forthcoming as possible.
Words of encouragement lead to moral and emotional support too. Make them feel they are also being listened to.
Give them the voice they need to remove the miscommunication that can affect your business’s good repute. Some of the most common motivational strategies for employees may include;
- Performance-based reviews
- Fostering and nurturing a team environment
- Small gifts of appreciation can go a long way
- One-on-one meetings
- Celebrating success or achievement of milestones
- Extra hours are paid and so on.
Improvised Appointment Schedule
What sort of appointment schedule are you following? How much time do you have on minutes to detail with each patient? How do you keep your patient flow organized?
These are some of the serious questions you need to ask yourself. Traditional practices i.e. in-person visits are most common. But the pandemic taught us to not rely on only one means of communication.
Virtual checkups are a reality now. You can schedule an in-person checkup with a virtual follow-up and vice versa. It allows the patients to avoid traveling back and forth, especially if they have to travel long distances. It can save them a trip to the hospital or clinic.
Plus, the patient does not need to walk in, even if it’s a last-minute appointment. Virtual checkups allow flexibility for both the doctor and the patient. So online technology helps to maintain appointment schedules in a better way too.
Besides the time span, you spend on listening, diagnosing, and following up on the previous visit matters. On average, a doctor may need 10-20 min at max to check a patient. A last-minute hour or a 10-minute visit may be enough considering it’s the extra hour. You can reduce the time slot.
Patient Collection Strategy
It’s one of the major concerns for medical practitioners. Especially the rise in insurance plans makes the taxes and collection of amount receivables more complex.
Almost 20% of total medical revenue is generated by patient co-pays. Physicians are hardly able to collect only 60% of the due amount. So managing the books is quite a hurdle too. To avoid missing payments, it’s best to hire remote accounting professionals who can do the math for you.
If you run a small clinic, you may not feel the need to hire a full-time accountant or a bookkeeper. So outsourcing a remote/part-time professional is a good option to maintain the financial statements, cash flows, ledgers, etc.
Your billing practices will be ordained in a chronological manner. You will be surprised how much a balanced book can help you save from tax deductions at the year’s end. Also, with properly managed books, you can file tax returns with a good claim.
Bottom Line
If you want to keep up with your medical practices, you can follow all of the above tips, considering these are well-tried and tested. Whatever strategy you end up implementing to grow the revenue, do not forget the power of language. It’s your way to communicate with the employees and patients and other vendors.
So once you start focusing on the language, you can take slow but consistent steps to improve your medical practice.
