Adding Leverage to a Physician Practice

From the Healthcare Marketing Institute: http://www.healthcaremarketinginstitute.com"

The key to success in any business is leverage. Leverage lets you create lots of value with a little bit of effort. Here are ways that you should be creating leverage in your practice:

1. Use leverage to negotiate on more favorable grounds with payers. There are at least five sources of leverage with insurers/payers, and you should know how to use all of them.

2. Use clinical information and processes that deliver a consistent quality of care for all patients.

3. Use financial information to ensure that your practice collects its receivables in a timely fashion.

4. Use financial information to manage your practice profitably and efficiently.

5. Create service standards, and meet them, for the patient and with referral sources.

6. Put in place automatic systems to follow up with patients and referral sources to stay in touch.

7. Create a marketing system to become the professional in your community.

8. Manage your time efficiently. Eliminate time-wasters that do not help you achieve your goals for your practice.

9. Build "relationship capital" with your referral base so that they always think of you first.

10. Use information technology to save time and get data about how your practice can be more profitable and offer higher quality of care.