Physician's Practice - November 2008 - (Page 71)

CME THE GREAT PRACTICE MAKEOVER BRANDING THE CASH-ONLY PRACTICE KNOW WHO YOU ARE TO ATTRACT WHO YOU WANT BY SHIRLEY GRACE, MA Mark Wehr* wanted nothing more than to focus directly on his patient’s needs. But insurance company rigmarole was really bogging him down, which, of course, greatly hampered this desire. His solution? Dump the payers. All of them. didn’t have to file insurance,” says the family practice physician. The cash-only model is appealing to physicians tired of corporate intrusions into their relationship with patients, but so far only a handful of pioneers have actually attempted the switch. It’s risky: suspected doctor shoppers, insisting they just had to have an Oxy script for their “aching” heads or spines. WHY ISN’T IT WORKING? DR. ACCESSIBLE He took all comers. He gave out his cell phone number. He was willing to crank up his Prius and make house calls way past the witching hour, if needed. Wehr knew that his biggest challenge would be ﬁnding enough patients to make the practice viable. He took all comers. He gave out his cell phone number. He was willing to crank up his Prius and make house calls way past the witching hour, if needed. He was also willing to receive them, literally: He moved himself and his family into a residence above his own medical ofﬁces, in order to maximize accessibility. Now that’s a patient-focused doctor, eh? Problem was, Wehr didn’t get the patient mix he thought he’d get — those wanting and meriting such one-on-one attention. His practice is located in the heart of a midsized Southeastern city. “What I got were knocks on doors for lacerations from bar ﬁghts,” he explains. He also got a disturbing number of Wehr took a huge leap, revamping his practice into a cash-only model. He would cut third-party payers out of the equation and get all of his revenue directly from patients. “My mission was to try to practice medicine in ways that we Falling short of a goal is usually due to multiple factors, the impact of which can range in magnitude from slight to derailing. For example, it’s possible that Wehr’s less-than-ideal location is contributing to his difﬁculties. Or perhaps his bookkeeping skills, though streamlined, are too loosey-goosy. Whatever. Doesn’t really matter, because there’s one ﬁrm rule being violated here: He doesn’t know his own practice. No matter how skilled the doctor, how accommodating the services, how ﬂexible the hours, or how easy the payment structure, if you don’t deﬁne your practice’s purpose and develop a strong brand — and make every single decision based on that — you won’t succeed the way you want to. Wehr wants to offer it all — all the time. That’s ﬁne, and it can be done, but not before he deﬁnes exactly what “it” is, and exactly to whom he wants to direct “it.” NARROW YOUR FOCUS LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reading this article, readers will be able to: • Identify and deﬁne a tightly-focused mission statement for their practice • Develop branding strategies that reinforce their practice’s mission statement • Utilize marketing strategies that WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM target their desired patient panel For a practice with half-baked success in going cash-only, the malfunction is frequently a simple case of “too much too fast, without enough thought given to the wisdom of such fast and broad expansion,” says David Albenberg, a family physician who is a nationally recognized expert on cash-only practices. And he should know, having also been guilty of said unfocused branding when he reformulated his own cash-only practice, Access Healthcare, in Charleston, S.C. NOVEMBER 2008 | PHYSICIANS PRACTICE | 71 http://WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Physician's Practice - November 2008

Physician's Practice - November 2008 Contents Death of Solo Practice Just a Myth Letters HSAy What? Noteworthy Finding Lost Revenue: The Search for Billing and Coding Gold Getting More: Our Annual Physician Compensation Survey ’Tis the Season to be Neutral Ask the Experts Evaluating Paperless Labs HR in a Box? The Guide Coding Third-Party Audits on the Rise Branding the Cash-Only Practice Intra-Office Tug-of-Wars Stickin‘ Up For Yourself Classifieds Advertiser Index

Physician's Practice - November 2008

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