Physician's Practice - November 2008 - (Page 72)

CME PRACTICE MAKEOVER 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 branding — and make every single decision based on that — you won’t succeed the way you want to. THE BASIC TENET The key to developing “your” brand is properly vetting each new idea against your mission and standards. What do you want to offer? To whom? What kind of staff do you want? What goals do you want to hit for annual revenue, ideal patient load, number of hours you work in a week? These are important questions to which you must have answers before you just drop your payers and send a letter to your patients announcing the change to cash-only. Also, you certainly don’t want to waste your hardearned money and very limited time on go-nowhere marketing schemes. Consider this list of ways to streamline your efforts: • Forget the phonebook. In today’s restyled practice? Build a “guest list” of sorts that includes only this slice, and send the invitation to them. Clearly explain that you’re looking to build a practice that’s streamlined for ultra-focused patient care, that you want patients who understand this concept. Directing your marketing to a selected subset of current patients does not make you a snob doctor who only wants the cushy cases. Rather, the aim is to establish a foundation of patients — “those who ‘get it,’” says Albenberg — so you can provide the kind of care you want to provide. There will be a few that you’ll regret losing when you go insurance-free, but by and large, your patient population will self-stratify, with the ones you don’t want divesting themselves from you anyway. • Set and then aim for your target numbers. How many patients do Internet-connected world, the phonebook is just not very effective anymore — except, it seems, with drug-seekers, who still look there ﬁrst when shopping for a compliant physician. • Develop some marketing collateral. IN SUMMARY Going cash-only isn’t easy, but don’t make it harder than it should be. • Develop a tightly focused mission statement, and brand yourself accordingly. • Ditch phonebook ads in favor of more innovative marketing. You can use simple desktop publishing software to create professional-looking marketing material, or hire a starving student to do it for you. and aim for them. Instead of buying a phonebook ad, spend a little money developing some marketing collateral. Desktop publishing software is extremely intuitive and accessible these days. Still feel intimidated? Pay a high-school or college kid to help; they’re proﬁcient with software programs and will work cheap. Tell him you want your marketing collateral to look like an invitation. Make sure it includes a detailed explanation of how you’re changing your practice, including the fact that you’ll be über-accessible, and how you plan to achieve this. • Closely target the patients you want. you need to keep your practice viable and you satisfied with your work-life balance? Don’t be afraid to ask for some help here to dope out all the numbers. There’s a lot at stake when running a practice, from covering your insurance premiums to having the proper supplies to putting food on your own table. READ MORE ABOUT IT! Visit us online at Physicians Practice.com to learn more about cash-only: • Access an array of cash-only resources on our Web site’s homepage. Click on the links under the orange bar labeled “cash-only.” of a successful cash-only physician. Type “The Bigger Picture: The New Breed of Cash-Only Docs” into the Search Articles box. cash-only practices, go to our Q&A section and type “cash-only” into the Search box. • Read more about the ins and outs • Figure out your target numbers • Understand why a retainer-based cash-only model may be preferable to straight fee-for-service. Cash-only practices have smaller patient panels than ordinary practices, but their overhead is much lower. So think about who is currently in your patient base. Which slice would you like to keep in your • For a half-dozen Q&As concerning 72 | PHYSICIANS PRACTICE | NOVEMBER 2008 WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM http://www.physiciansPractice.com http://www.physiciansPractice.com 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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