Adding Hours, Adding Revenue
Apr 30, 2015
Your practice may be considering adding office hours to accommodate patient requests for more convenient appointment times and to increase revenue. But before you do, you need to carefully weigh the pros and cons. Here are some issues to consider.
Focus on Patient Convenience
T
oo many practices maintain hours that force working patients to take time off from work to make their appointments. The traditional 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. hours may be fine for patients who are retired, work shift hours, or are full-time students, but they can be tough on those who work during the day. Opening your practice an hour or two earlier, staying open later four evenings a week, or offering weekend hours would be a huge convenience for many patients.
It’s important to determine whether you will have sufficient patient volume to absorb the additional hours you are open. One way to help increase patient volume is to promote your practice’s new hours through patient e-mails, website updates, office signage, and press releases to the local media.
Look at the Economics
Will it be financially worthwhile for you to extend office hours? We can help you run the numbers. For example, if practice overhead is $1,100 per work day and the average reimbursement per patient is $85, it takes about 13 patients per day to cover the overhead. For each additional patient, the practice incurs only variable costs before paying its providers. Once all costs are identified, a projection can be made of the potential profit associated with seeing more patients.
Evaluate Staffing Issues
If the demand exists, it might make sense to add a part-time dentist to see patients during your additional office hours. Offering a plan would allow patients to receive the medical treatment they need while providing a way for your practice to receive payment for its services.
We Can Help We can work with you to identify areas in your practice where streamlining operations may help optimize your practice’s bottom line.
Categories: Healthcare & Dentistry