Time Is Money

Time is money. This old adage is most true in the field of medical practice, as most practitioners will attest. The math is simple: you have a certain amount of time to see patients in a day. The more patients you treat, the more money is being generated. Obviously the reverse is also true.  Time is precious, and as you spend time chasing a paper trail, it will impact  the number of patients you treat which will ultimately reduce your revenue.

A solid and robust practice management system can generate real cost savings as well as enhance revenue. Read more

Less time documenting = more patients without extending your work day.

Administrating the patient flow can be time-consuming.  When using a software package that integrates appointments, scheduling, claims submitting, remittance advice, etc. you can easily save 5 minutes per patient.  It takes 5 minutes to document a patient visit by hand.  If a few clicks on a well-integrated and easy to use practice management solution can save 5 minutes per patient, you can make the following savings:

Average time saved in documenting visit

5 min

Average appointments per day

10 (we are using a conservative estimate)*

Total minutes saved per day

50 min

Total days worked in 12 month period

240 (5 days p/week x 48 weeks)

Total hours saved per year

200 (240 days x 50 min)

In this case, 200 hours translate to 4 hours saved per week.  You easily schedule extra patients in the extra hours, and of course extra patients per week mean more revenue per week!
 

More efficient billing = more revenue

When a medical insurance claim is rejected, you have to track down the relevant file, copy them.  Attach notes, and resubmit the claim.  The claims also have to be resubmitted within a certain time period.  A well balanced practice management application can handle the whole process of submitting claims within seconds.  According to recent studies, reducing the time spend with rejected claims can save up to 20-30 minutes per day.

Time saved handling paper

20 min/day

Total days worked in year

240 (5 days/week x 48 weeks)

Additional patient visits per year

72 (1.5 per week)

You don’t have to be a mathematical genius to calculate the extra revenue per year!
 

When choosing a practice management solution, it is easy to go for the cheapest option.  Remember however that a good solution can actually generate more revenue.  A solid practice management system is truly an investment.

* We calculated roughly an hour per patient per day.  In certain cases you may need less time per patient, but this is a very conservative calculation to demonstrate the minimum savings per year.