WHAT TO LOOK FOR AND WHEN AS YOU REVIEW THE BILLING PROCESS OF YOUR PRIVATE PRACTICE
What do I look for? Precisely where the Practice is now. When? The very first day It seems the most obvious place to start. It is. But numerous times a practice doesn't really know...
Your call is important to us – well ANSWER IT then!
An email arrived last week asking me to call a prospective new client. He'd been reading my blogs and wanted help to grow his practice. In particular, he wanted a review of the...
INPATIENT CARE – can you charge for it?
For the second day running I've been proved right. That is sad. But not for the reasons you may think. I was at a medical conference recently and one of the speakers - a well established...
FASTER, FASTER, FASTER! – but avoid the chaos field at all costs.
It was the classic environment where chaos reigned supreme. There was a serious amount of money outstanding. It didn't take long to work out why. The problem was the practice principal. He...
HOMEWORK – do it before you start your private practice please.
I left school more years ago than I care to remember. Then as now I make sure I do my homework though. The only difference is now I do it for private medical consultants some of whom are...
LEAVING IT UNTIL FRIDAY CAN HURT YOU!!
Not getting paid doesn't happen by accident. Something causes it to happen. There is ALWAYS A CAUSE. If you leave invoicing until later (Friday for instance) it is very easy not...
OH DEAR – he didn’t know his fees had changed!
Oops. During a coffee break at a conference one day last week, I was chatting to a surgeon about surgical fees. His view was they were too low and a certain insurance company were, in his...
EVERYBODY THOUGHT SOMEBODY ELSE WAS DOING IT SO NOBODY DID
Earlier this year, MHM was engaged to review the billing process of a private hospital. The project was to investigate why various private medical insurance companies were not paying. Initial...
TAKING CARD PAYMENTS OVER THE PHONE – yes or no?
Banks are desperate to phase out cheques. This is due to the cost of processing a cheque from the bank's point of view. Yet the decision was taken not to, as planned, phase out cheques...
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF SOCIAL MEDIA TO A PRIVATE HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONAL?
What are the benefits of consultant surgeons becoming active on social media? More importantly what are the apparent risks to the surgeon and how do the benefits stack up against the risks?...
HOW TO UPLIFT A FEE? (yes it can be done!)
The first thing to realise about increasing a fee is that you CANNOT increase a fee for all your surgical episodes nor can you increase a fee every time you perform a surgical episode. Having...
THE IMPORTANCE OF REGULARLY CHECKING FEES – they change.
Fees change. It is always intriguing as to why many consultants are unaware of this. Even those that are aware negate to check fees on a frequent basis. Of those consultants who are aware fees...