Tips to Protect and Maintain Your Practice During this Pandemic “Economic Rainy Day!”

Get your team working on at least 3 of these 4 tasks, Now!

The current economic climate has been an eye-opening financial experience for every practitioner in America! Like Mr. Wonderful always says on Shark Tank, it’s all about “cashflow!” Financial disaster planning and recovery at this scale, as part of business development and continuity planning, was not considered as something within the realm of possibilities therefore has been overlooked by nearly 100% of our nations physicians and it looks like, many of our hospitals as well. The good news is that we are all in this together, NO ONE could have imaged something like this could have ever happen. 

COVID19 has caused an economic crisis for physician practices at the heart of our Nation’s healthcare system. Every dollar saved and new dollar made, must be stretched to the ripping point to manage through this crisis. If you are still one of the few who don’t believe they need to worry, it’s far better, and safer, to be prepared.

This means reevaluating how you protect and maintain your practice so you can survive to live another day and long enough to come out the other end of this strong enough to rebuild and grow.

So… what should you be doing now?

4 Actions to Consider

Here are a few things we suggest you get done or begin working on. Right now, you and your team may have a little idle time available to work on optimizing revenue and expenses, if you don’t, find some. Also reach out to area hospitals/health systems you currently work with to find out what resources or expertise they have available to help you through this. It could be anything from financial support, practice management expertise, economies of scale or leverage strength with vendors, and/or marketing to name a few.

Unfortunately, some physician practices have also been left out in the cold by hospital administration to fend for themselves. If that’s been your experience, tell them to give them the opportunity to fix it or at the very least, explain their rationale. Then if you are still feeling unappreciated, consider reaching out to their competitor or perhaps this might be a good time to search for a fresh start in a new community with an organization that appreciates your value.

At MedCV we have begun pulling together trusted Teaming Partners and Top Employer Partners with proven track records of uncovering hundreds of thousands of dollars for their clients or for those of you considering a fresh new opportunity, take a look at the MedCV Top Employers too. Below are a few action items you should consider with an intro to a few Teaming Partners already on the team:

1 – Practice Financial Performance: Maximize Reimbursement & Minimize Expenses

This is probably the fastest and easiest thing you should take care of with the most immediate impact on your practice/medical group finances. It wouldn’t be surprising for you to uncover 10-30% more cash! Most teams have a bit more time on their hands these days, put them to work on this! In collaboration with ValueHealth CEO John Rezen, MedCV created a 12 part series on Practice Financial Performance. Each of the series are short 2-3 minute reads you can sink your teeth into, full of exactly what you need to know and what to do about it. We are now working on Tip 8 in the Series on Non-Provider Staffing Payment Levels. Go to the MedCV blog library to find 1-7. Often times, the “what you need to know” is simply knowing what needs to be worked on and making sure someone on your team is and that they can report back to you that all is WNL or what is being done to get it right. Accountability!

If your team can’t do it or they just need some help getting started, we encourage you to get a solid bolus of experts to begin tackling this immediately, contact some of our proven partners or find someone like them now.

• ValueHealth is led by CEO, John Rezen, they help capture the full value of your Physician Enterprise. Their focus is on helping you build a high performing organization, driven by disciplined performance measurement, and a relentless pursuit of improvement.
• Bill Dunbar & Associates CEO, David Dann and his team are the very best at maximizing reimbursement!
• HealthMonix’s sole purpose is to make sure you navigate complicated Medicare requirements for Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS). Without proper reporting you could be leaving up to 31% of your Medicare Part B FFS reimbursements on the table!
• Tryon Clear View Group (TCVG) is another Teaming Partner you should explore, their focus to help drive down overhead expenses related to data, storages, supplies, telecom,… by offering buying power resulting from scale.

2 – Add New Revenue Streams to Your Practice

Another consideration should be to find additional new “Bolt-on” services to compliment your practice by enhancing your patient experience. Adding new capabilities to your services lineup/mix might include expanding or broadening your specialty area, or adding new patient support services to expedite illness or procedural recovery, or to support your value-based preventative health initiatives.

Team MedCV is just getting started in finding and qualifying Teaming Partners but one company we know will help both you and your patients is AllHealthCHOICE and their Remote Patient Monitoring (RMS) offering. Adding RMS to your practice service offering is a “no brainer” add-on on that yields on average another $150,000 per year in net collections, not to mention the increased practice brand reputation and patient satisfaction.

3 – Patient and Referral Network Marketing and Communications

In an article we wrote in June in collaboration with Duncan McCall titled “Get Your Patients Back! Practices Must Communicate with Their Patients,” we talked about marketing and communications ideas, professional resources, email communication tools like KiBSender, MailChimp, or ConstantContact, and even social media during and post COVID-19.

Now is the time to gear up your messaging and making sure you have the tools in place to invite your patients to come back Let’s not forget the importance of constantly keeping your referral network of clinical colleagues up to date too, maybe even sharing practice performance tips and ideas you have initiated or uncovered. Almost certainly you need to step up marketing. 

4 – Perfect Time to Seek A New Opportunity

We have heard from many within the MedCV network making comments like “now is the perfect time to find a new place to practice and for my family.” The reasons vary but most commonly included: “I expected more from the people I was working with’, ‘my practice can’t survive as it is’, and ‘now is a good time to move closer to family.”

Whatever the reason, keep in mind that there are many feeling the same way but great opportunities with stable employers are more scarce than ever. Be prepared to compete and make sure you demonstrate how you are part of their long term plan and solution. Our Employer Partners all have a long standing proven records of stability, success, and trust by their medical staff and their communities. Learn for yourself, click on their links to see what they have to offer and talk to them.

Even if you join a new organization, remember to talk to them about what they have in place for items 1 – 3 above. Those that can answer and demonstrate they have them covered or are working on it, should give you comfort.

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