A medical practice is a business, but it’s a business like no other. Managing a private medical clinic is a complex job that presents many challenges.
We collected tips from private practice owners and experienced clinic managers about how they keep their businesses humming. Then we added best practices in clinic management to create this helpful guide.
How to Manage a Medical Practice
A private medical clinic has a lot of moving parts, and it’s easy to be overwhelmed. Our experts suggest focusing on six main areas:
- Build your clinic on a strong foundation
- Implement good practice management techniques
- Manage clinic finances wisely
- Manage clinic staff fairly
- Create a great patient experience
- Prevent healthcare staff burnout
1. Build Your Clinic on a Strong Foundation
Many doctors dream of starting a private practice. Putting that dream into action, however, requires a mindset shift. To run a successful practice, they must be able to think like a business owner, not just like a doctor.
Every successful business starts with a strong business plan. When building your clinic from the ground up, you need to first understand the market and your competition.
A business plan forces you to envision and outline every aspect of your new practice — the services you will offer, the facility you require, and the finances you’ll need to make it all happen.
Prioritize Compliance
One of the reasons running a medical clinic is more challenging than some other businesses is the multitude of compliance requirements.
You need a clear grasp of liabilities and risk management strategies. You also need to comply with state and federal regulations about the treatments you prescribe and the records that you keep.
Veteran office manager Kitty Arp of Dermatology Associates of West Texas recommends practice managers get help so they can not just meet requirements — they can exceed them.
By adding a consultant to help with MIPS requirements, she explains, her office maximizes its revenue from Medicare.
“We used to just score neutral enough to avoid penalties,” she says. “Now we’re receiving incentive money.”
Plan for Challenges
2020 had a lot of lessons for healthcare providers. One was the importance of planning for business disruptions outside your control.
What if a public health emergency or a natural disaster forces your office to close? What if your vendors experience a supply shortage? What if a banking crisis upends your finances?
Imagine as many things as you can that could disrupt your ability to serve your patients. You can’t always prevent them, but you can make plans for how you will respond to emergencies and mitigate the damage.
Protect Your Data
Data security breaches happen every day around the world. It’s important to do all you can to keep your clinic’s data safe.
First, ensure the record-keeping tools you use have robust, built-in security measures that are constantly kept up to date.
Second, recognize that most security breaches are caused by lapses within the organization.
Use systems with restricted access so no one on the staff can view information not pertinent to their job. Train employees in skills like recognizing phishing emails and following security protocols.
Finally, create a response plan to be activated if there is a breach. Include emergency protocols to lock down the system, procedures to recover lost data, and how you will communicate information about the breach to patients and stakeholders.
2. Implement Good Practice Management Techniques
In business, small efficiencies add up. Medical businesses are no different.
Optimize Patient Scheduling
Patient scheduling seems basic but it’s actually a prime place to maximize efficiency.
Thoughtful scheduling keeps the day moving smoothly. Clinicians have enough time for each patient, without running over or wasting minutes. This efficiency doesn’t just feel good — it can translate into real revenue.
Jasmine Fenner, surgical coordinator and office manager at Short Hills Ophthalmology, said saving just two minutes on each appointment allows the medical practice to see six more patients every day.
You’ll also have happier patients when you reduce the amount of time they spend sitting around waiting for a doctor. Dr. Mark Epstein of Epstein Plastic Surgery suggests using a patient portal so patients can complete paperwork in advance of their appointments.
Market Wisely
Marketing your medical practice is critical to bringing new patients in the door and to keeping existing patients coming back.
Your marketing plan will probably include both digital and offline channels. You might use paid ads, organic social media content, and influencer partnerships.
Whatever strategies you choose, marketing costs money. And if you’re not careful, it’s easy for a marketing budget to spiral out of control.
Dr. Daniel Mills of Dr. Daniel C. Mills Aesthetic Plastic Surgical Institute recommends using intelligent marketing tools to visualize your sales funnel. This helps you to evaluate how many leads you have, where they are coming from, and how you can move them closer to becoming a patient.
Your tools also track important metrics to make sure you’re getting your money’s worth from your marketing spend.
“Our software showed us several lead sources we had used for years were not delivering positive results,” said Angelica Hesles, practice manager at Personique. “By cutting them, we reduced our spending by 50% and saw our close ratio increase.”
Leverage Technology
It’s a digital world, and successful practice managers and owners urge their peers to embrace it. Dr. Mills recommends bringing all your practice’s functions under a single system for maximum efficiency.
“It’s so seamless with everyone in the office using the same system, from billing to clinic to med spa,” he said.
An integrated suite of tools helps staff in every department to get more done in fewer hours, without sacrificing quality. Even doctors can spend less time at the office.
Using a robust, specialty-specific EHR has helped Dr. Brian Flowers of Ophthalmology Associates of Fort Worth to eliminate the hours he used to spend charting after the clinic closed for the day.
“With every chart, when I walk out of a room with a patient, I am done with it,” he said. “After-hours charting is a thing of the past.”
Track Practice Metrics
A successful practice owner knows there is always room for improvement. But you can’t improve if you can’t identify the challenges holding you back.
Each department in your medical clinic should have its own set of metrics it regularly audits. Clinicians might track the length of appointments and the frequency of errors. Billers might track average time from bill to payment. Marketing might track the effectiveness of its campaigns.
Dr. Steven Davison of DAVinci Plastic Surgery tracks his year-over-year schedule growth, cosmetic surgery growth, and the shifts in patient dollars over insurance dollars. Tracking his metrics helps him minimize wasteful spending and invest wisely in his practice.
Meghan Kriner, clinical director of Loden Vision Centers, recommends using the tools built into your EHR to get a bird’s-eye view of bottlenecks in the practice.
“The EHR helps us identify workflow issues, such as one tech taking longer than others to do workups or having issues at testing,” she explained. “We can see if a visit is taking longer than normal and what was responsible — waiting room time, exam room time, etc. By figuring out where these hiccups are happening we can make sure they don’t continue.”
3. Manage Clinic Finances Wisely
Without revenue coming in, your practice can’t survive. It’s important to manage your revenue cycle so the clinic doesn’t run short on cash.
A key lever in maintaining your cash flow is getting the money you are owed faster. Dr. David Salvay of Salvay Vision recommends investing in an integrated coding and billing solution. The integrated system speeds up claim processing and has internal checks to prevent coding errors that delay payments.
Linsey Grindle, VP of business operations and human resource management at North Texas Plastic Surgery, also recommends an integrated system, but for a different reason.
When her practice switched to a fully integrated payment solution from an outdated standalone process, she was able to reconcile financials for an entire month in the amount of time she used to spend reconciling a single day’s transactions.
“Plus, it’s so convenient to see what is happening with financials in every office at all of our locations without logging into a different system,” she added.
To proactively cut costs, Steffanie Peterson, practice manager at Matthew White Facial Aesthetic Surgery, suggests you get the entire staff involved in understanding expenditures on a granular level.
“It was interesting to see my staff really become invested in creative ways to avoid having waste inside the operating rooms,” she said. “They were shocked to find there were things we thought we needed that we really didn’t need.”
4. Manage Clinic Staff Fairly
Staff up a new practice slowly. In early days, patient volume may require just a single provider, one clinical support, and one administrative support, plus some outsourced functions.
Hiring Staff for Your Clinic
Create a plan for scaling your workforce, including the signals that will indicate you need to turn a part-time or outsourced role into a full-time hire. Also have a plan for the least-painful way to reduce staff should circumstances require it.
When setting salaries, remember that market rate is just a starting point. If you want exceptional performers, you will have to pay for them.
If you can’t afford the market rate, explore options like outsourcing before creating a low-salaried position. Low salaries tend to attract less-than-stellar performers, and the role is likely to have a high turnover rate.
Delegating Responsibilities Fairly
Clinical staff should spend most of their time focused on patient care, not administrative tasks. Whenever possible, delegate tasks that don’t require your expertise.
Delegate responsibilities logically to roles, not just to the workers who seem to have the most time. Critical activities like patient communications should be delegated throughout the practice. This ensures patients aren’t left hanging when someone is out sick or on vacation.
One of the most impactful moves you can make is to delegate routine tasks to technology. Automated solutions help you maintain a lean staff without overburdening them.
Training Clinic Staff
Training is key to a staff that is not only competent, but confident in their duties.
Cross-train people in administrative roles to minimize disruptions when workers take paid time off or the practice experiences a busy season.
A lack of training is one of the top complaints healthcare workers have when it comes to their practices’ technology tools. Partner with vendors who have comprehensive training programs and offer ongoing training and support.
“Having (a vendor) who will run you through everything, observe your workflows and see how your practice runs and optimize how you use their system is stellar,” advised My Le, practice administrator at Ophthalmology Associates of Fort Worth.
Communicating With Employees
Nothing is more important to your medical clinic’s smooth operation than good communication between the people who work there.
First, make sure everyone knows who is in charge. Clearly define and document key decision makers, limits to authority, rules for approvals, and best practices for the clinic’s operations.
Every person on your staff should clearly understand their role, responsibilities, authority, who to notify when issues arise, and when it’s appropriate to take action on their own.
Encourage staff to communicate across departments. When people feel comfortable asking questions, they get valuable clarity on why it’s important to do things a certain way. This free exchange of information can also lead to creative ideas to improve the practice.
5. Create a Great Patient Experience
Healthcare is increasingly consumer driven, especially when it comes to specialty practices.
Providing a stellar patient experience keeps patients coming back and encourages positive reviews that bolster your clinic’s reputation.
Elevate the In-Office Experience
Put yourself in your patient’s shoes. The flow through scheduling, check-in, waiting, seeing their provider, checkout, and scheduling the next appointment should feel smooth and almost effortless.
Susan DeGroot, clinic director at Vance Thompson Vision, says it’s important to keep wait times to a minimum, both in the waiting room and in the exam room. Keep an eye on where patients are at various points in time and on how long each stage of the visit takes.
Many people complain they wait for months to get an appointment, only to spend mere minutes with their doctor. This lack of facetime makes them feel unseen and undervalued.
Dr. Marina Su, COO of Fromer Eye Centers, recommends using charting and scribe tools with intuitive interfaces. This lets you focus your attention on your patient, not your iPad.
Support staff can also use technology to make patients feel important. DeGroot says the clinic’s administrative staff makes notes in the system about things like patient preferences and upcoming life events.
“When we can identify things that help us strengthen relationships, we are able to delight patients even more,” she said.
Offer Telemedicine
Since the COVID pandemic, patients often expect practices to offer a telemedicine option for times when an in-office exam is unnecessary.
Telehealth visits allow a practice to see more patients without stretching its resources. Dr. Joel Schlessinger of Joel Schlessinger, MD Dermatology and Cosmetic Surgery said telemedicine was “a lifesaver” during the pandemic. Even post-pandemic, his practice sees 40 to 50 patients virtually each day.
Empower Patients With Their Own Portal
Robert E. “Gene” Morgan, project manager at Dermatology Associates of Atlanta, recommends implementing a patient portal for lightning-fast efficiency. He says his practice’s portal shortened patient check-in and onboarding from 30 minutes to one.
Besides efficiency, patient portals are convenient. They give patients a central repository to keep track of appointments and test results. They offer a way to communicate with the care team when there’s no time to call during office hours.
And when stocked with informational resources, they provide a more reliable place to look for answers than Google.
‘Talk’ to Patients With Chatbots
Chatbots benefit your staff by decreasing inbound call volume, allowing them to focus on more productive tasks.
But more than that, they elevate the patient experience by offering conversational information in real time.
Chatbots can walk a patient through paperwork and answer questions about a diagnosis or treatments. They provide 24/7 access to information, putting patients’ minds at ease.
6. Prevent Healthcare Staff Burnout
In 2021, nearly half of U.S. physicians reported symptoms of burnout. Their staff don’t fare much better. Recognizing the problem is an important step in creating a culture that prevents it.
A 2019 Medscape survey revealed that half of physicians work 60 or more hours per week. Yet little of that time is dedicated to patient care. Most, in fact, is spent on administrative tasks.
By being mindful of automation and of appropriate staffing levels, practice owners and managers can make overtime rare.
Explore technology that reduces the administrative burden on both doctors and staff. Today’s tools can automate most routine tasks faster and more accurately than they could be completed manually.
Establish policies that offer workers a degree of flexibility and control over their schedules and how they do their jobs. Burnout isn’t just a result of working too many hours; it also comes from feeling like one lacks autonomy.
Finally, encourage staff to use their paid time off, and lead by example. When workers see the people at the top of the hierarchy skipping vacations, they may feel an unspoken pressure to do the same.
The Right Tools Make Everything Easier
Nextech’s specialty-specific EHR and practice management software can lighten the load on nearly every aspect of managing a medical practice.
Our integrated, intelligent solution offers practices in dermatology, plastic surgery, ophthalmology, orthopedics, and med spa safe, fast, secure automations of both clinical documentation and administrative tasks.
Schedule a demo to see how Nextech can help your practice.
See You in San Diego
Plastic Surgery The Meeting | San Diego | Sept. 26-29 | Booth 1236
Learn how Nextech’s EHR and practice management solution helps your practice accelerate revenue growth and focus on patient-centric care. LEARN MORE
