While your primary goal as an OB/GYN is to provide high-quality healthcare to women in your community, if you run a private practice, it is important to remember that you are also running a business. Any business needs steady revenue to continue to function and even thrive, and improving your revenue may also improve the investments you can make in improving care for your patients. Follow these steps to give your practice’s revenue a boost.
1. See more patients
More patients mean more revenue. It’s as simple as that. Finding ways to increase the number of patients your practice sees will improve your revenue. You can do this by tightening up your scheduling and fitting in one more patient each day or by hiring more staff and having limited weekend hours to suit your patients’ schedules better. We also recommend investing in effective marketing practices to make sure at least 10% of the patients you see are new patients.
2. Keep up with filing deadlines
One of the most common ways for OB/GYN practices to lose money is through claim denials, and one of the common reasons for claim denials is missed deadlines. Deadlines can be hard to keep up with as each provider has unique deadlines. For example, Medicare’s deadline is 365 days from the date of service while Medicaid’s deadline is only 95 days. Make sure your staff know each provider’s unique deadlines to prevent your practice from losing revenue.
3. Outsource or train staff
Billing is a complex process and simple mistakes can be costly. If you choose to handle your billing in-house, make sure you hire well-trained staff to focus on accurate billing processes. Staff handling billing for your practice will need to pay attention to details such as accurate procedure and diagnosis codes, dates, and eligibility and benefit coverage. You may also want to consider outsourcing your practice’s billing to a reputable company that specializes in billing for healthcare and OB/GYN practices.
4. Use technology
Some practices have seen improvements in revenue by making better use of online services. In 2022 this may look like telemedicine or online patient portals where patients can fill out medical history ahead of time, pay bills online, and more. Secure and reliable billing and record keeping software is also a requirement for most modern medical practices.
