Diversifying Revenue Streams For Your Practice

It's easier to have your cake and eat it too when you diversify your revenue streams.In order to keep their practices afloat, more and more physicians (especially specialists like oncologists and gastroenterologists) are looking for different ways to bring in reimbursements and revenue in. They're diversifying revenue streams by offering a wider variety of services and making the most of their time. Whether it's further training or investing in new medical equipment, physicians everywhere are looking for ways to make more while doing less.

In other words: they're trying to have their cake and eat it too, and it's working beautifully.

For example, many dermatologists are especially benefitting from offering popular cosmetic procedures on top of their regular treatments. The time and money invested in the extra training is especially paying off for dermatologists in high-income localities like New York and Miami.

Of course, the approach to diversifying your revenues is different with each physician. It's really about tapping into the most profitable and efficient procedures, tests, and treatments that fit the demands of your patient base. It doesn't matter if you're a primary-care physician or an oncologist, it's all about offering high-demand secondary services that are sure to be taken on top of your normal billing.

It could be something like getting a new machine to open up more testing capabilities, or offering your patients a direct line for a monthly fee.

It's important to figure out the context of your situation. What might work for oncologists in New York may not necessarily work for cardiologists in New Hampshire. With that in mind, these tips below should help any doctor take the first steps towards diversification.

  • Find out what your patients are demanding in terms of treatments and procedures, and find the most efficient way to offer those services to them. Obviously, you won't meet everyone's demands, but patients will definitely love getting customized care.
  • Start using analytics and data to segment patients. It's much easier to cater to patients when you have them organized in segments, as opposed to listening to the aggregated demands of your entire patient base. NOTE: segmenting also comes in handy when identifying patients who would be willing to pay extra for premium services, like cosmetic procedures or priority access to their healthcare provider (a.k.a. you).
  • Use technology to upgrade the patient experience and streamline your entire practice. The whole purpose is to get patients into your practice to take advantage of all your great new services, so it makes sense to use apps, online appointment reminders, EHRs, and more to improve convenience and efficiency on both ends.

Because someday, you'll want to walk away with one of these when you retire.


So start looking into what your patients ultimately want, and ask yourself how you can satisfy those demands. Once you get that answer, it's all about efficiency. Make the most of your time, and keep diversifying revenue streams on top of your traditional reimbursements. Everyone is going to be asked to do more with less, so time is more valuable than ever.

If you have designs on a gold-watch retirement, it might be time to start thinking about diversity in your revenue.

 

About the Author

A UCSF and Harvard Medical School trained resident orthopaedic surgeon, Zach began using DoctorBaseƒ__s mobile platform as a customer and immediately saw the...

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