Run Biller Run

Now that the Olympics are behind us, our nights are now free to focus on other issues. I was thinking about the swimming competition and realized we could learn many lessons from the French. As a fellow swimmer, one of the first things that we are taught is how to pace yourself. If you are not able to plan and reserve energy for the distance, you will sink or be unable to finish the race. The French started out too fast and then petered out, which allowed the American team to swoop in and capture the gold in the individual medley. Okay, it didn't hurt that the best swimmer in the world was on our side and that the clock was able to capture 1/100" of a second. Most of us are never going to be Olympic athletes. But in sports, as in business, it is important to keep your eye on the goal and build endurance. You want your business to thrive and be around for the long term. The same principles of athleticism and sports can apply to running a successful medical practice. What businesses can learn from any sport is that it's just as important to work hard as it is to work smart. There is a lot to be said about efficiency.

Imagine how lucrative our practice could become if we had a clock that could calculate 1/100" of a second of how much time is spent wasted on activities that didn't generate money for your practice. I am not including the time spent playing solitaire on your computer. Not only do we not calculate time, but most of us also do not calculate how much it's costing us to do many of the things we do in a day. The average physician never calculates the actual costs of performing billing in their office. Are you aware that it costs the average doctor $15.00 in labor costs, postage, forms, time, etc., to bill a patient for a co-payment instead of collecting it at the time of the visit?

On average, a physician in solo practice spends about 10-17 percent of their overhead on billing costs. Many of these costs are incorporated into the entire overhead expenses of a practice. Estimate how much rent, employee salaries and benefits, along with telephones, printing costs of forms, etc., it is costing your operations to perform billing. It takes time away from your main focus, which is providing quality medical care. Business owners cannot spend time doing cost accounting; it would be unbearable. Lawyers will keep track of every second spent on a case and include all expenses, including every page photocopied per case, every fax, every phone call, etc. Wouldn't it be nice if doctors could bill like that? Instead, physicians have to do almost everything for free, including renewing prescriptions, calling and communicating with families of the patients, hospitals, and not to mention the insurance company.

The advantages of using a billing service not only enable physicians to obtain cost savings and reduce practice overhead by hiring a medical billing company to perform the billing for your practice, but it also produces increased efficiencies. When you hire an outside company, the billing doesn't suffer from lost productivity when you have employee absenteeism, and employees are pulled off billing to perform other duties within the office. Many offices perceive billing to be a simple clerical function and therefore hire inexperienced help or rely too much on advice from peers or employees doing the billing for many years. The changes in the billing arena are daily, and it is necessary to find someone who is both knowledgeable and has a financial stake in the success of your practice.

As for me, this is my plan for the October Iron Man race in Hawaii. The race includes a 2.4-mile swim, followed by a 112-mile bike race, followed by a full 26.2-mile marathon run. I am going to watch it on T.V