It’s Time to be Grateful

The holiday season has arrived.  It's full of hustle and bustle and year-end activities that occupy our time.  Despite economic concerns and regulatory issues that continue to impact the way we operate our medical practices, it's still a time to be grateful.  Be grateful for the patients that put their trust in you and recognize there are many opportunities to grow the practice and the bottom line in 2011.   Here's a few things to consider: Thanking your referring sources still has a lot of power and is a true expression of your appreciation. PQRI, the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative, offers an opportunity to be eligible for year-end bonuses if you are reporting on standards of care when submitting claims.  To find out more, go to the CMS website. For practices that have more than an occasional missed appointment, you can add an impressive amount of revenue to the bottom-line by managing the schedule better and taking corrective actions to ensure patients are committed to keeping their appointments. Look at your 2010 performance and set the benchmark higher for 2011 in key areas such as increasing the number of new patients,  improving collections, and managing or even reducing staff overhead (the highest cost on your income and expense report). If your staff is accumulating over-time hours it's costing you plenty. Find out why and solve it. Honor your patients.   In January send your patients an appreciation card for selecting your practice.  It's also a good time to remind them to  take good care of their health by scheduling annual check-ups and follow up appointments. We are grateful to our clients and the trust they have in us.  Here's wishing all of you a prosperous 2011.   Capko & Company is one of the nation's leading practice management and marketing consulting firms.