Case Study – Practice Consulting

Background

This highly regarded multi-doctor specialist practice with five consulting suites, 20 doctors and 24 staff had organically evolved over two decades.

Patient numbers and size of referral base had enjoyed successful growth. Yet there were concerns that the business could be doing a lot better and the current administration team were over stretched. Problems included:

Lack of an efficient payroll system
A failing medical billings process
An expensive and inefficient transcription system
Lack of clear business strategy and decision making processes

The problem

Benchmark administration operations and improve processes
Deliver improved profitability
Allow the practice to modernise and take advantage of technological advancements

This is a common issue with medium and large sized practices set-up without a rigorous approach to business or sufficient staff capabilities and training. In this case, there was $13M of transactions per year and a $2M payroll but not a single experienced or qualified Manager. It’s little wonder they couldn’t get benefits from increased size.

The practice had tried a Business Manager who didn’t know a great deal about medical practice management and failed to deliver any improvements over a 12 month period and spend of over $100k.

The solution

We provided a long-term in-house solution – not a 6-month arms’ length consultancy – with a promise to see things through by way of a 3-year plan with KPIs set for each year. Our solution was implemented as follows:

Establish buy-in from all directors and staff
Draw up scope of works and business priorities
Perform GAP analysis over a 3 week onsite deep dive into processes, finances, contracts, and business operations
Provide proposal of services to Directors
Apply routine change management principals designed to work in a medical practice (respecting need for doctors and patients to interact successfully during change).
Consideration of all possible solutions for the practice by our team of experts with input from Billings, Bookkeeping and Transcription Teams.
Delivery of a detailed 18 page report to Directors with problems identified and solutions mapped out for consideration and prioritisation.

The results

As well as Improved profit and reduced costs, we’ve increased resilience and efficiency by removing single points of failure – like a practice manager who is omnipotent but lacks capability as a manager.

We embedded clear organisational Policies and Procedures and the client is now invigorated to have:

Increased staff engagement through more clearly defining roles, expectations and professional development plans
Clearer board room processes and decision-making pathways based around agreed strategic goals.
Reduced bottom-line expenses by $150k per year within first 3 months

IMPORTANT: This article is not comprehensive and does not constitute legal or medical advice. You should seek legal or other professional advice before relying on its content, and practise proper clinical decision making with regard to the individual circumstances. Persons implementing any recommendations contained in this article must exercise their own independent skill or judgement or seek appropriate professional advice relevant to their own particular practice. Compliance with any recommendations will not in any way guarantee discharge of the duty of care owed to patients and others coming into contact with the health professional or practice. Avant is not responsible to you or anyone else for any loss suffered in connection with the use of this information. Information is only current at the date initially published. © Avant Mutual Group Limited 2023

“As doctors, we have limited ability to think of all the important things required to make good business decisions. Having experienced advice, set-up entirely to meet our needs and from a doctor’s perspective, is the only sensible way forward. The ability to commit to joining us on the journey, and provide plug-in solutions is invaluable”

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Medical & Surgical Billing

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PracticeHub Platform

Transform your healthcare business with a software platform that makes managing administrative complexity, simple. Track the administrative health of your business and improve team collaboration with a centralised dashboard for all your important information. So you can focus on what matters the most – patient care.

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Bookkeeping & Payroll

We understand that Bookkeeping and Payroll has become complex and labour intensive – taking time away from your Practice Manager managing staff and working on your business. Our team is dedicated to providing professional bookkeeping and payroll services to help simplify managing the financial health of your medical practice. Our full suite offering includes services like bank reconciliations, customer and supplier invoice management and filing, reporting on balance sheets, profit and loss, payroll, accounts receivable and more.

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Team Medical Dashboard

Our Team Medical dashboard is designed to help streamline the purchasing and budgeting of all your medical consumables in one place. Get a 360 view and easily see what you are spending and saving when purchasing Team Medical supplies via PracticeHub!

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Practice Management Consulting

Grow a thriving medical practice with support from the experts in practice management. From high-level strategic planning, in-depth performance measurement and financial analysis to HR management support, we help you minimise risk and maximise business opportunities. We free up your time so you can focus on providing the best possible care.

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Virtual Administration & Reception

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VoiceBox Intelligent Transcription

Dictate anytime, anywhere and get accurate, on-time transcripts you can trust. Our fully secure and data protected VoiceBox Intelligent Transcription Smartphone App is designed to record and rapidly format transcripts for your approval, file them safely in medical notes and deliver correspondence with ease.