Private practices are under increasing pressure to find ways to simultaneously boost productivity and enhance the patient experience. While it’s not the whole equation, productivity in medical practices is typically measured in terms of time and revenue. Patients, on the other hand, assess (and refer) practices by their patient-centred approach to care and efficiency. We’ve put together a list of the top 5 proven ways private practices can improve efficiency and increase their bottom line. Healthbridge is a leading healthcare technology company that has been helping medical practices build their businesses for over 20 years. Click here to speak to us for more about how to boost your productivity and increase your profits.

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1. Enable Online Scheduling 

One seemingly simple but effective way to improve productivity is to incorporate online appointment booking functionality as the norm. This drastically reduces the time staff spends on phone calls back and forth with patients to set appointments, but also patients appreciate being able to book appointments at a time that suits them. Numerous practices have implemented online booking platforms such as RecoMed and in addition to saving time, they’ve also reported a reduction in errors when it comes to capturing patient information.

2. Send Text and Email Reminders and Confirmations 

Instead of your staff spending hours following up with patients to remind them about upcoming appointments or outstanding invoices, your practice can make use of text and email to communicate with patients. The reality is that patients are busy and prefer digital communications over voice calls. Automated SMS reminders can make a measurable difference in reducing missed appointments and following up on (and reducing) bad debt. It is an easy-to-use, cost-effective way to boost productivity and profits. 

3. Integrate Clinical & Billing 

You may have already made the decision to go paperless at your practice but if you are using two different systems to manage clinical and billing functions, you are not fully realising the benefits to your productivity. Logging in and out of systems to capture patient notes and billing instructions is time consuming and prone to error. Healthbridge Clinical with myMPS allows you to manage patients and billing from a single system. This eliminates duplicate data entry, saving time and boosting productivity beyond what is possible with two disparate systems. 

4. Don’t Be Afraid to Delegate

A common bottleneck in owner-operated businesses is that you are responsible for routine tasks that could be delegated to practice staff. Delegating doesn’t mean losing control, and especially not of practice finances. Using a system that allows you to easily view and track revenue and productivity is essential to delegate tasks while still having control of critical parts of your business. Engage with your staff about how to reduce your administrative workload to see more patients. 

5. Use Automation to Reduce Workload 

If your staff is still spending time calling medical aids for benefit checks, reminding patients about appointments and manual reconciliations, your productivity is hampered and as a result, so is your ability to improve your practice’s profitability. Automated benefit checks, automated reconciliations, and SMS appointment and payment reminders frees up a substantial amount of time for your practice staff. And you don’t just save time in the short term, you also reduce the likelihood of errors and additional admin burden that would result from growing your patient population and offering a better patient experience.