Rising Costs? How to Add Automated Revenue Drivers to Your Speciality Practice

By Chloe from Clearwave | March 20, 2023

According to a recent survey by the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), 90% of medical practices have claimed that their expenditures have increased more quickly than their earnings, while just 10% said the opposite. Given the economic uncertainty, the healthcare industry anticipates challenges such as rising inflation, reduced reimbursements and increased expenses for supplies and labor. These external factors are likely to impact the budgetary plans of the entire sector.

To withstand these challenges and emerge stronger, rapidly growing healthcare practices are turning to patient revenue solutions and automation. It is crucial to have a proactive approach and an effective solution that can enhance your practice’s productivity and revenue while providing patients with the experience they desire. Keep reading to discover ways to maximize revenue opportunities and unlock your practice’s growth potential!

1. Enable Faster Time to Revenue   

A comprehensive patient engagement platform can enable faster time to revenue for medical practices by streamlining patient registration, eligibility and communications. One of the most important ways your practice can enable faster time to revenue is by reducing claims rejections with automatic eligibility verification. By automatically verifying patients’ insurance eligibility and benefits before they arrive at the office, practices can reduce the likelihood of rejected claims and minimize the need for staff to spend time on follow-up tasks. Eligibility verification can help practices streamline their billing processes and reduce the time it takes to receive payment for services rendered.

Another way practices can achieve faster time to revenue is by reducing no-shows with appointment reminders. By sending automatic reminders to patients prior to their appointments, practices can reduce the number of missed appointments, which can be a significant source of lost revenue. With a comprehensive patient engagement platform, practices can customize the timing and frequency of appointment reminders, making it easy to ensure that patients are adequately prepared for their visits. Reminders can not only improve realized revenue but also patient satisfaction by reducing the inconvenience of missed appointments.

A comprehensive patient engagement platform can also help your medical practice improve patient retention by enhancing patient satisfaction. With features like self-service registration and electronic consent forms, a patient engagement platform can help practices create a seamless, modern, and efficient experience for their patients. 

By reducing wait times, minimizing the need for physical paperwork, and making it easy for patients to complete medical history and clinical intake, a patient engagement platform can make visits more convenient and less stressful for patients. The outcome can lead to higher patient satisfaction and retention, which can result in more frequent visits and increased revenue for the practice.

2. Accelerate Patient Acquisition & Retention  

Today, 89% of US adults state that “Ease of Access” is a major factor when choosing healthcare providers. Practices should ensure scheduling, among other functions, is easily accessible for patients. A patient revenue platform™ that enables 24/7 online patient self-scheduling can help you accelerate patient acquisition and retention. 

Recent studies show  that 67% prefer online booking online. Furthermore, 40% of appointments are booked after business hours. In order to meet patients’ digital expectations and compete against other practices in your area, consider offering 24/7 online patient scheduling. 

Online scheduling not only increases convenience for patients, but it also frees up staff time that would have been spent answering phone calls and scheduling appointments. Patients can easily schedule their appointments online without having to call the medical practice, meaning less call fielding for you staff or voicemails to review. 

Consider a patient scheduling platform that also offers an online waitlist tool, which can minimize scheduling gaps and help you bring in more patients. With automated waitlist tool, patients can be added to a list to become NextUP for their a preferred appointment time, which may not be immediately available. As other patients cancel or rescheduling and appointment slots open up the smart waitlist will automatically notify patients when their desired appointment becomes available, letting them book that appointment right from the message. By providing patients with this type of proactive communication, medical practices can build stronger relationships with their patients and increase overall satisfaction rates, while filling critical appointment gaps. Consider how patient self-scheduling and a waitlist can help your practice increase patient retention rates and ultimately drive growth for the medical practices

3. Maximizing the Power of Front Desk Operations 

According to a recent study, labor cost per patient increased 19% in recent years. Evaluate how your practice can maximize the power of your front desk operations, without increasing costs. A patient revenue platform can be a valuable tool for medical practices to accomplish this goal. By automating tedious tasks like patient scheduling, waitlists, check-in, communications, and insurance eligibility, the platform frees up staff time and enables them to reallocate their responsibilities to high-value tasks and patient care. 

With a patient engagement platform, patients can schedule their appointments online, eliminating the need for front desk staff to manually schedule appointments over the phone. Patients can also check-in electronically, which reduces wait times and gives staff the opportunity to focus on patient care. It’s imperative to find a patient revenue platform that  automates insurance eligibility verification, which helps prevent claim rejections and saves front desk staff time in verifying patients’ insurance information. Additionally, a comprehensive patient engagement platform that enables staff to communicate with patients via email or text messages can reduce the need for time-consuming phone calls and patient call backs. By automating these tasks, staff can focus on more high-value tasks, such as billing or patient payment plans.

A more efficient workflow can also initiate a positive increase in patient satisfaction and enhance the patient, provider and staff experience. Consider, less hours spent on tasks that can be automated means schedules run on time, and your staff have less overflow of work that needs to be done. Additionally, when patients visit a practice that seems well organized, with staff that are not frustrated or flustered by many tasks, it can create a more relaxing and enjoyable experience. 

Make This the Year You Fuel Significant Practice Growth

Are you interested in learning more ways you can combat rising costs at your practice? You may find value in this on-demand webinar on how to unlock hidden revenue during patient check-in!

Clearwave’s patient engagement platform is a powerful tool that maximizes the power of front desk operations, enables faster time to revenue and accelerates patient acquisition and retention for medical practices. See why Clearwave is a game-changer for high-growth practices looking to streamline their operations and ultimately grow their business. Clinical Systems Manager at Southview Medical Group, Daniel Chattom, shares his experience and the results their practice drove, in this recent webinar.