There a few things I hear that automatically set alarm bells ringing when I look at the billing process of a medical practice.
“I’ll take a look at it next week”
“I’ll get round to it in a bit”
“I’ve been meaning to look at that”
The final of those items was said to me recently.
I was sitting on a panel facing an audience of medical professionals.
Among the various questions was one relating to how to monitor the invoicing efficiency of a medical practice.
To me the answer is simple.
Before you can measure any part of a business, you must first establish a standard to measure against.
Which is what I said to the questioner.
I asked if he knew how many invoices he had raised last month and the total value of them.
Sadly he didn’t know either.
MEASURE
But, I continued, to improve the performance of your practice you must know how you are performing against whatever standard you decide is appropriate.
Now consider the issue of invoicing with a real MHM example. One of my guys – a private consultant surgeon – saw 25 patients between Monday, January 13th, and Friday, January 17th.
Therefore I should see 25 invoices.
That is an ultra-simple which makes sure everything is invoiced.
If I only have 23 invoices I have a problem!
But it also means of course at the end of this month I can add up the number of invoices and also tell the client how many patients he has seen this month.
Then we can compare that number with the number the previous year and see if it is higher or lower.
The introduction of such a basic, basic, basic management control isn’t a nicety.
It is an absolute necessity if you are going to manage the invoicing process effectively.
The audience member agreed fully but then the alarm bells went off when he said “I’ve been meaning to look at that for a while now”
He hadn’t because there always seemed to be some other problem to deal with.
That tells me his management controls aren’t as robust as they should be.
It also tells me he is suffering from one of the worst and easily avoidable causes of business failures out there:
PROCRASTINATION!
Procrastination is even worse than having a backlog of invoices to raise because it diverts you from identifying a backlog is building up.
Procrastination is even worse than having no cash because it distracts you from raising the invoices and thereby getting paid.
Procrastination is the cause of the problem he has because various insurance companies have declined his invoices for treatment as the consultation was more than 6 months ago.
Do not leave it to look at “next week”
Set time aside every single week to make sure, you DO invoice and to make sure you review what is happening with YOUR money!
pete@medicalhealthcaremanagement.co.uk