Have any of your patients complained about wait time? Have any of your staff members become frustrated by inefficiencies in the appointment process? Have you ever felt burned out and unable to keep up with patient flow? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you’re not alone. Even the most successful private practices are challenged by creating, optimizing and maintaining processes for managing patient flow.
Evidence-based care helps you make the best treatment decisions and it can revolutionize your practice. Although the care model involves consulting the latest research studies for information about treatment benefits and protocols, it’s about more than simply relying on research studies to make decisions. Your personal experience and input from your patients are also important considerations.
Over the last several years, patients have begun taking a much greater vested interest in their health and wellness. While patients of previous generations took their doctor’s word at face value, today’s patients are researching their symptoms and conditions online, downloading case studies and engaging with other patients in internet forums. While this means some patients arrive for their visit armed with a self-diagnosis and droves of misinformation, it also means people are becoming more invested in their treatment.
To leverage this interest, and help patients take a more active role in their care plan, many healthcare providers are using Shared Decision Making (SDM). In other words, it’s a strategy in which, instead of making a decision on a patient’s behalf, clinicians provide patients with the knowledge they need and walk through the decision-making process together.
Here are three things you should know about SDM, and how to best implement it in your own practice:
You’ve heard the old adage “one bad apple spoils the whole bunch.” When it comes to online reviews for private practice physicians, this couldn’t be more accurate. Despite the glowing opinions of your most loyal patients, a few unhappy respondents can drive down your score and leave prospective new patients feeling wary.
For years, the healthcare industry has wrestled with how much credit to give review sites such as Yelp and Google Places. But today, with so many patients turning to healthcare-specific review sites like Healthgrades and RateMDs, and the growing presence of healthcare providers on Facebook, there’s no denying the importance of online reviews and social media. In fact, according to statistics provided by the Mayo Clinic Health Care Social Media List and American Hospital Association, 41 percent of people said social media would affect their choice of a specific doctor, hospital or medical facility.
So, how do you improve online reviews along with your online reputation? Here are a few of the best practices for private practice doctors:
You can’t open a paper, flip on a television or pull up your preferred news app without being bombarded with the phrase “rising cost of healthcare.” For those of us in the healthcare field, this concern is nothing new. After all, physicians have been navigating the costs of healthcare since the first day of med school. Not to mention, running your own private practice comes with its own fair share of financial concerns. But, as government mandates tighten purse strings and insurance changes force patients to become more cognizant of costs, private practices are under increased pressure to significantly decrease spend.
Luckily, there are several ways physicians can reduce costs without sacrificing quality of care. Here are our top three suggestions:
