Athene Medical Solutions
10 Big Questions
Oct 02, 2006
This article originally published in the October edition of Independent Practioner magazine.
You can download a PDF version of the article here.
IN THESE increasingly competitive times, consultants cannot hope to maximise their private practice’s growth potential unless they are aware of where their patients are being referred from and which additional referral
sources may be open to them. Very few individual consultants or groups, perhaps under ten per cent, are tapping into all potential sources of private patients.But before taking on more patients, unless you are already entirely private, you will need to assess what time resource you now have available to allow your private patient workload to develop.There are ten key questions that you need to ask yourself before you can effectively start controlling your costs, maximising your income and developing your business model further.
The questions:
1. Do I know which GPs and practices refer me patients?
That is by number, value of procedures,
and potential numbers. It is far better to concentrate the process of building relationships with your loyal referrers than occasional referral sources.
2. Do I know where my self-paying patients live?
This can be worked out through an analysis of private provision networks and household disposable
income by electoral ward.Once you know this information, the practice can then direct its marketing expenditure and activities to those geographical areas where there is a high proportion of self-funding and patients holding comprehensive medical insurance policies.
3. Do I know which medical insurance policies will comprehensively cover the types of patients I am trying to attract?
This will allow you to direct your marketing activities more appropriately. It is less productive to concentrate your marketing to potential patients who may hold low-value and economy health cash plans covering a limited number of procedures as opposed to potential patients with, say, Band A BUPA policies offering much more comprehensive cover and including London Private Hospitals.
4. Do I know all the GPs with relevant special interests within my business referral area business?
This is important because the specialist GPs, including GPwSIs, who will act as referral sources for colleagues may, for example, refer cardiac patients or those with respiratory disease.
By concentrating on those GPs, your returns would be higher than a blanket mailing or telephone approach to build relationships with their practice managers.
5. Do I know which procedures I could do that have the highest profit potential?
It is more fruitful to attract those procedures which apart from being professionally rewarding pay more per surgical or medical procedure.This will lead to you spending your time on those procedures that generate the most profit for the practice. For example, a surgical chamber that I advised was thinking of including some primary care trust-commissioned minor surgery
into its service model. But this had limitations since it meant the mainstream private work, carrying a higher profit margin and reimbursement level, could be displaced. That would be acceptable if out of peak times could be further utilised for this type of work. Private providers can bid against NHS providers for practice-based commissioning (PBC) at up to 15 per cent below the NHS tariff, if they can reduce their cost base accordingly – perhaps by running outreach clinics in GP surgeries under PBC.
6. What are the trends for my pay and non-pay costs and how are these being monitored?
This could lead to you either reducing or increasing your front office or patient support team. An often understaffed area is the patient booking facility when there is insufficient telephone operator support or out of hours answering. An innovative NHS trust I know of offers its telephone services to take calls for medical businesses, outside of standard working hours.
7. Are my staffing arrangements really adequate?
This is about reducing your use of expensive agency staff and building up a bank of staff who can cover your regular team and who understand your business. Absenteeism needs to be rigorously managed due to the pressures that a short-staffed team may face and consequent knock-on effects – like slower answering of telephones, patient bookings and billing.
8. Could I lose patients if I’m understaffed?
Yes. I suspect that in a large number of cases patients are being lost because receptions are either understaffed or an answer phone is used. Market research has previously indicated that if a phone is left practiceto ring for more than five times a patient will inevitably hang up rather than leave a message as a new inquiry. You should at least use call-waiting but preferably a professional call-answering remote solution that uses real people to answer calls that can not be taken either due to lines being engaged or staff being temporarily away from their desk. Another issue with understaffing a front office is that patients may become frustrated at waiting if reception staff are engaged with answering phones constantly.
I noted a real life example recently where a patient walked out, never to return, due to indifferent and preoccupied staff on the front desk. Never forget the adage, first impressions really count.
9. Is my reception good enough?
Reception layout and ambience is critical since it is the first thing that a prospective patient may see.But very few businesses that I have walked into have considered all the factors that influence the impression given to a prospective patient: colour, decor, tidiness, noise level, and cleanliness.I find dust on the floor, dropped items, and papers spread unevenly over reception tables-resembling a busy NHS GP surgery front reception. The use of music, reading material, layout, odour, lighting, and position of the reception staff all needs careful thought.
10. Can I group together with other medical businesses to obtain lower supply costs?
This has been achieved by a consortium, Harley Street Direct, which provides economies of scale in sourcing business support for medical providers.
Mr Clarke is a medical business specialist and director of Athene Medical Solutions Ltd, Sutton, Surrey.
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