Medical Practice Benchmarking To Grow Your Revenue Cycle

Most physician’s offices are started because a doctor or group of doctors want to do what they know and love: treat patients. Good medical practice management is not just about providing excellent care, however. Sound business practices are required for efficiency and success. Put those practices in place and there will be more time and energy to focus on providing excellent service. Doing that requires a way to measure operational and financial indicators. That is where benchmarking comes in. Benchmarking is a management tool used to measure effectiveness, compare performance and set goals.

With benchmarking a medical practice can get a clear picture of performance in important business categories and rate that performance against industry standards. Benchmarking looks at two broad categories; operations and revenue. Operational benchmarking focuses on productivity, workflows, staffing and procedures while revenue benchmarking is used to analyze medical insurance billing claims, collection rates, payers, reimbursements and expenses. Benchmarking will examine any and all of these issues in a medical practice and compare them to performance measures at other similar practices in the region. This allows for improvement even in areas that where seemingly performing well.

Benchmarking requires a fair amount of research and data collection to be effective. This means studying data from health management agencies like The Medical Group Management Association and The Healthcare Billing and Management Association. These groups provide information relevant to the benchmarking process. Trade journals are a good source of information industry trends. Meanwhile, diligent networking can provide insight into the workings of medical practices of similar size and specialization in your area.

Look to Professionals to Get Your Benchmarking Done Right

While benchmarking can be performed with existing staff, it should be obvious that to do it properly requires large amounts of time and effort. Many practices simply do not have the time and resources to set aside daily business and undertake this kind of project. A good medical consulting firm can streamline the process, insure data is accurate and relevant, and do it all why your practice continues its usual functions.

One important step may be acquiring the right practice management system for your office. A good system will make continuous benchmarking easier by automating some of the process. In particular, the reports that can be generated on the fly can be considered at any time in the revenue cycle. Indirectly, practice management systems streamline workflow which is good for the bottom line.

ProMD Medical Billing has extensive experience benchmarking medical practices of all types and sizes. Aside from being able to readily provide up to date data and industry analysis, our consultants are steeped in industry knowledge. This is what we do every day, after all. Allow us to help your medical practice grow.

ProMD Medical Billing is happy to help with your billing assessment needs so you can maximize profits and increase patient satisfaction. To learn more about how ProMD can make your practice run like a well-oiled machine, call 866-960-9558 or fill out our online form to request a billing assessment.

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