It is Time!!! Put your Loupes on…….
One of the most difficult decisions for practice executives and owners is to lay off their employees. Is this the answer? Yes and No.
If you are running into a hard time because of the drop in cosmetic revenue and patients putting off procedures then you need to look closely at your costs. Your biggest expense is payroll for providers then support staff followed by fixed costs like Rent and Utilities. What do you do? Well, the first option is to analyze provider productivity and decide whether each provider is carrying his or her weight. This needs to be determined by looking at how many patients your providers are seeing, how committed they are to your practice, and then of course the big one is how much they are costing you.
Dermatologists should be able to see between 25-60 patients a day with the average being around 40. Your ancillary staff should be seeing at least half of that and they should be freeing up your physicians to see the more difficult cases. There is no easy answer but one thing that you have to is make decisions based on the long term goals of your practice while not losing sight of the short term cash crunch being seen by many dermatologists.
Focus on these areas to see a great return:
- Employee Participation-Get them motivated and be honest with them by letting them know what is expected of them and that you are not doing as well as maybe in times past.
- Optimize your providers schedules- Make sure that patients are not being turned away and that the providers are also participating in the success of the practice not just their pocket books.
- Take a close look at your Accounts Receivables-Collect the money that is out there and be on top of your billers to make sure they are doing their job
- Code correctly and effectively, you are probably leaving a lot of the money on the table and it would be a good idea to have your coding reviewed and audited by someone else just to be sure.
- Renegotiate your managed care contracts and add other insurance companies to increase revenue
- Physicians World Online is now offering coding auditing services by their Certified Dermatology Coders and Dermatology Practice Management Executives.
Hope this helps, don’t forget to leave your comments or suggestions on what has worked for your practice. If things are really bad it may be time for a 10% payroll reduction for a specified time period but don’t anticipate winning any popularity contests. We are in a deflationary economy and this may be a short term fix.
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