A recent study conducted by the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), a membership association for professional administrators and leaders of medical group practice, isolated four components that were common to medical providers practicing what they deemed to be superior medical practice management, all of which could be maximized through the deployment of healthcare IT.
The first factor contributing to high performance in medicine is profitability and cost management, as the study cites that better-performing practices reported between $7,000 to $14,000 less in bad debt than lower functioning facilities. This suggests that proper medical practice management allows facilities to maximize their investments by avoiding wasted or poorly allocated spending.
The study also states that high-functioning healthcare practitioners have a better turnover rate within their accounts receivable department, with 50 percent of the top performers successfully collecting 90 to 100 percent of copayments immediately after treatment.
Further, the study mentions that a third component of excellent medical practice management is a high-degree of productivity, often yielded through the employment of qualified nonphysician and support staff that can achieve optimal patient flow. Practices that can care for more patients consequently derive more income, which they are then able to cycle back into the ability to hire the best staff.
The final component of better-practicing medical facilites in the study was patient satisfaction, and the ability of organizations to use feedback to enhance the patient experience.
Analyzing this data, all these components are intertwined to create ideal conditions for both staff and patient satisfaction. In order to generate similar excellence, private facilities should consider the benefits of a software suit like Eclipsys Peak Practice to optimize every component of a practice’s operations.
When deploying third-party software like Peak Practice, an experienced, certified implementation team may best help install the products and ensure staff is thoroughly briefed regarding its proper use. As such, any facility could effectively use the included EMR and billing software to decrease frivolous expenditures, enhance productivity and increase profit to tighten daily operations and potentially earn the practice better-performing status.
