Case Study – Practice Consulting
Background
This highly regarded multi-doctor specialist practice with five consulting suites, 20 doctors and 24 staff had organically evolved over two decades.
Patient numbers and size of referral base had enjoyed successful growth. Yet there were concerns that the business could be doing a lot better and the current administration team were over stretched. Problems included:
- Lack of an efficient payroll system
- A failing medical billings process
- An expensive and inefficient transcription system
- Lack of clear business strategy and decision making processes
The problem
- Benchmark administration operations and improve processes
- Deliver improved profitability
- Allow the practice to modernise and take advantage of technological advancements
This is a common issue with medium and large sized practices set-up without a rigorous approach to business or sufficient staff capabilities and training. In this case, there was $13M of transactions per year and a $2M payroll but not a single experienced or qualified Manager. It’s little wonder they couldn’t get benefits from increased size.
The practice had tried a Business Manager who didn’t know a great deal about medical practice management and failed to deliver any improvements over a 12 month period and spend of over $100k.
The solution
We provided a long-term in-house solution – not a 6-month arms’ length consultancy – with a promise to see things through by way of a 3-year plan with KPIs set for each year. Our solution was implemented as follows:
- Establish buy-in from all directors and staff
- Draw up scope of works and business priorities
- Perform GAP analysis over a 3 week onsite deep dive into processes, finances, contracts, and business operations
- Provide proposal of services to Directors
- Apply routine change management principals designed to work in a medical practice (respecting need for doctors and patients to interact successfully during change).
- Consideration of all possible solutions for the practice by our team of experts with input from Billings, Bookkeeping and Transcription Teams.
- Delivery of a detailed 18 page report to Directors with problems identified and solutions mapped out for consideration and prioritisation.
The results
As well as Improved profit and reduced costs, we’ve increased resilience and efficiency by removing single points of failure – like a practice manager who is omnipotent but lacks capability as a manager. We embedded clear organisational Policies and Procedures and the client is now invigorated to have:
Increased staff engagement through more clearly defining roles, expectations and professional development plans
Clearer board room processes and decision-making pathways based around agreed strategic goals
Reduced bottom-line expenses by $150k per year within first 3 months
Medical & Surgical Billing
PracticeHub Platform
Bookkeeping & Payroll
Practice Management Consulting
Virtual Administration & Reception
VoiceBox Intelligent Transcription
Disclaimers
IMPORTANT: Scenarios in this article based on Avant’s experience to date. Certain information has been de-identified to preserve privacy and confidentiality. This article is not comprehensive and does not constitute legal or medical advice. You should seek legal or other professional advice before relying on its content, and practise proper clinical decision making with regard to the individual circumstances.
Persons implementing any recommendations contained on this webpage must exercise their own independent skill or judgment or seek appropriate professional advice relevant to their own particular practice. Compliance with any recommendations will not in any way guarantee discharge of the duty of care owed to patients and others coming into contact with the health professional or practice. Avant and Avant Practice Solutions are not responsible to you or anyone else for any loss suffered in connection with the use of this information. Information is only current at the date initially published. © Avant Mutual Group Limited 2024.
