Below is a portion of an article (and a download of the entire article itself) published in Imaging Economics, that gives 4 good points on improving your medical imaging practice.
1. Pull a Lever: There are two levers you can use to improve the bottom line of any business:
A. Increase Revenue: In a declining reimbursement environment, the only way to grow the top line is to grow your patient volume to overcome the rate at which your reimbursement (per exam) is decreasing—a simple concept that is not easy to enact when additional controls are being implemented to ensure appropriate utilization. Think billing efficiency and automation. Do you bill for everything you already do? Chances are the answer is “I don’t know.”
B. Reduce Expenses: Decreasing expenses is not as simple as laying off staff. You’ll need those skilled resources to help accommodate the increasing volume. Sophisticated data and study are needed to understand where you are beating benchmarks and where you need more work to get expenses
in line.
2.Standardization: Consistency is a great way to think about standards, checklists, and repeatability. Health care is moving quickly toward documenting best practices we can and should learn from. Checklists, not unlike those used by pilots or military personnel, ensure forgetful humans don’t miss something, and guarantee everyone operates the same way to safeguard repeatability and drive quality. Groups across the country are diligently working on all inclusive standardized reports. It is this kind of thinking along with the insights clinical integration will provide that will get us there.
3. Data & Benchmarks: Knowing the minute by minute condition of your operations and your performance as it relates to your peers defines where you should make changes to stay competitive. Think benchmarking. Almost everyone benchmarks hundreds of times a day without realizing it. What do you think when you get passed on the highway? “That person is going faster than I am” or “I am going slower than that person.” Your perception of a situation will drive your decision process, whether you
should increase or decrease your performance in order to remain competitive.
Making use of industry tools and using real-time data to benchmark, learn, and drive operational and clinical decisions is the future of health care. Get started now.
4. Relationships: How well do you know your referring MDs…personally? When is the last time
you had a meeting with a payor to talk about quality and process improvement, not price?
Population-based health care, another name for accountable care organizations, is marching on. How imaging fits into this new model has yet to be fully defined. What we do know is that people buy from people, not companies. Step back and take an honest look at the relationships around you. Is there a dialog between you and your payors? How about your referring physicians? What do they really
think about your services and are they seeing real value from the exams and interpretations? What types of intangible support do they get from you?
A. Increase Revenue: In a declining reimbursement environment, the only way to grow the top line is to grow your patient volume to overcome the rate at which your reimbursement (per exam) is decreasing—a simple concept that is not easy to enact when additional controls are being implemented to ensure appropriate utilization. Think billing efficiency and automation. Do you bill for everything you already do? Chances are the answer is “I don’t know.”
B. Reduce Expenses: Decreasing expenses is not as simple as laying off staff. You’ll need those skilled resources to help accommodate the increasing volume. Sophisticated data and study are needed to understand where you are beating benchmarks and where you need more work to get expenses
in line.
2.Standardization: Consistency is a great way to think about standards, checklists, and repeatability. Health care is moving quickly toward documenting best practices we can and should learn from. Checklists, not unlike those used by pilots or military personnel, ensure forgetful humans don’t miss something, and guarantee everyone operates the same way to safeguard repeatability and drive quality. Groups across the country are diligently working on all inclusive standardized reports. It is this kind of thinking along with the insights clinical integration will provide that will get us there.
3. Data & Benchmarks: Knowing the minute by minute condition of your operations and your performance as it relates to your peers defines where you should make changes to stay competitive. Think benchmarking. Almost everyone benchmarks hundreds of times a day without realizing it. What do you think when you get passed on the highway? “That person is going faster than I am” or “I am going slower than that person.” Your perception of a situation will drive your decision process, whether you
should increase or decrease your performance in order to remain competitive.
Making use of industry tools and using real-time data to benchmark, learn, and drive operational and clinical decisions is the future of health care. Get started now.
4. Relationships: How well do you know your referring MDs…personally? When is the last time
you had a meeting with a payor to talk about quality and process improvement, not price?
Population-based health care, another name for accountable care organizations, is marching on. How imaging fits into this new model has yet to be fully defined. What we do know is that people buy from people, not companies. Step back and take an honest look at the relationships around you. Is there a dialog between you and your payors? How about your referring physicians? What do they really
think about your services and are they seeing real value from the exams and interpretations? What types of intangible support do they get from you?
| Uphill Climb- Imaging Economics |
