Good scheduling can improve bottom line

Practice Pointers. By Karen S. Schechter, AMNews contributor. May 21, 2001.

PRACTICE POINTERS

Answers to questions about the business side of your practice

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Question I am an internist who has been in private practice for several years. My patient office hours are always busy and feel very hectic. My monthly revenues, however, do not seem to reflect the amount of work I perform.

The practice collection rates and accounts receivable ratio are within the norms that have been established by other internists in my area, and I see an average number of capitated patients. What else can I look at to help identify the source of this problem?

Answer It is clear that you have spent time analyzing the practice's billing and collection process.

One area that is often overlooked is the appointment-scheduling process. An efficient appointment-scheduling process can enhance the profitability of the practice. At the same time it can help minimize the "hectic" feeling you mentioned.

The first step to analyzing this aspect of your practice operations is to determine how many appointments are scheduled each day and how many patients you actually see.

The expected average number of patients seen per day depends on the length of the practice's office hours and the medical specialty.

The Medical Group Management Assn. Web site (http://www.mgma.com/) and other regional and local organizations can supply that information.

In addition to looking at daily numbers, it is important to look at trends over several weeks and/or months. You may even want to study the differences (if any) between each weekday. Determine the "no show" rate over a set period as well. [...]