Increase front desk revenue, step 5 of 5
Independent practice physicians care about two things when it comes to their practice: patient care and the financial health of their practices. Many physicians go into business for themselves because they want to be independent, and one of the biggest ways to ensure that your practice stays independent is the ability to maximize your revenue stream.
Your front office staff has a great opportunity to lock in revenue when scheduling appointments. Take advantage of the face-to-face time to quickly and efficiently boost your income potential. Here’s number five of five ways to increase your revenue when scheduling patient appointments at check-in or checkout.
Step #5 Talk about outstanding balances.
There’s a small window of time for a face-to-face conversation with your patients about their account balance. You have to make the most of it.
There is a very small window when you get to have a face-to-face conversation with your patients about their account balance–scheduling or confirming appointments, check-in or checkout. You have to make the most of it. If you aren’t prepared, you may not get another chance to collect precious revenue. Setting aside time before each scheduled appointment to review patient files and check for outstanding balances can be a challenge.
Using a practice management system that will show you outstanding balances at a glance is tremendously helpful in being ready to have that important payment conversation. You can even view account balances for each family member and correctly apply payments to the proper person’s account.
Systems that are even more efficient have integrated credit card processing so you can process and post automatically to a patient’s account or to a family member’s account with a swipe and a click using a CCOF.
Conclusion
Private practices are always looking for ways to become more efficient, especially when collecting patient payments. Take advantage of the patient scheduling process and use it to boost your practice revenue. From asking about EMV credit cards to relying on practice management software that can efficiently calculate and display patient payments, you can create both a positive front desk experience and improve your bottom line.
Our scheduling experts have the solutions you need to boost revenue with smarter scheduling. We offer solutions to help you succeed with each tip mentioned in this five-part blog series.
