Blog

Coding and billing pro John Gwin shares the most useful key performance indicators (KPIs) to help your practice grow and succeed. Hear John’s money-saving insights on: Advice for dealing with the complexities of insurance billing The need for strong financial controls and regular checks on your accounts How to decide whether your practice should accept insurance or focus on cash pay services How to protect your practice from risks like embezzlement and fraud Why it's crucial to stay on top of your practice's finances and plan ahead for potential challenges

Embezzlement within healthcare practices may be more prevalent than you realize, and the consequences of ignoring appropriate security measures can be severe. Medical Group Management Association surveyed nearly 1,000 medical practices and 83% reported being victims of embezzlement at some point in their operation. International Business Machines Corporation also reported in 2021 that healthcare breaches cost $9.23 million per incident — a $2 million increase over the previous year.

If you flip a coin, the chance of landing on heads is the same as the statistical probability that the United States will enter a recession this year. In fact, about 50% of economists predict we’ll see a recession in the next 12 months.

In a recent blog article, we examined how your payments solution could be costing your practice more than you realize. In one section of that article, we touched briefly on the costs associated with point of sale (POS) hardware. And cost certainly remains an important factor. These terminals are not cheap, after all, and are commonly priced anywhere from $150 to $1000 dollars. However, when it comes to payment terminals, there is more at stake than simply just the up-front costs of purchasing the hardware.

While obviously providing exceptional patient care is an important goal for your practice, you are also trying to run a successful business. To accomplish this, your practice needs to be able to do what all successful businesses do—MAKE MONEY. These days, the ability to efficiently bring in revenue means having a digital payments solution. Unfortunately, when it comes to certain payment processing solutions, many practices are not getting much when you consider what they are paying.

Poor management of a practice’s collections can have a number of negative effects, including reduced or delayed revenue as well as owed balances spending too much time in Accounts Receivable. By implementing some simple training methods and best practices, however, your practice can improve collections management.

Fraud is one of those topics that no one really enjoys talking about. It can be uncomfortable to think that someone in your practice, even someone you are close to and believe you have a strong relationship with, would steal from you. But it happens. And you need to be aware of it because fraud and theft are far more common in healthcare practices than you might expect.

Slow lead response times could be resulting in lost patients, and as a result, lost opportunities for future revenue. In fact, one study found that the odds of even being able to contact a potential lead decrease by over ten times in the first hour. In this blog, we will take a look at the importance of prompt lead response times and illustrate how failure to maintain them could be costing your practice new patients (and the future sales revenue that comes with them).