Charge fees where possible to curtail poor patient behavior (ex. surgical no-shows)
Reading Time - 2 min
Why you should spend 2 minutes reading this:
"Mis-behaving" patients impact your bottom line, physicians and other patients
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There’s a cost associated with behaviors. For example, if you had a patient scheduled for surgery and they do not show up here are some costs:
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Time is taken to get authorization, schedule the patient etc.
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Time lost not billing another surgery / helping another patient
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Frustration for the surgeon stemming from non-predictable schedules and impact to their bonus
You’ll need to exercise judgment on what behaviors you want to curtail and how you’ll do it. For instance, you could:
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Increase communication/reminders before the visit
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Send a courtesy letter after missing a visit
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Charge a monetary fee after missing a visit
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Refuse future care after missing X number of visits
In the end, what you want to ask yourself is:
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Which patients exhibit this behavior
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How much is it costing me
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If I try to curtail the behavior via a certain program, what will be the impact to my bottom line (this will stem from the difference between, the decrease in long-term cost from the decrease in long-term revenues as some patients may leave)
If patient behavior is costing you, fill out the form below and we can work on ways to decrease those costs.
High-level actions you can take based on this article:
1. Identify what patient actions most negatively impact your operation
2. Develop new systems/processes to curtail those actions
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