Speaker 1: Hi everyone, Jennifer Blevins-Smith with Integral Clinic Solutions and you're watching my YouTube channel, Navigating the Business of Medicine. Today we are actually going to talk about battling the increasing costs of running a health care practice. Nobody has not been affected by the rising costs of goods and just gas and lodging and everything. I mean we are all affected somehow by the increased costs of everything, living basically. Living costs more now and that's just in our everyday personal lives. The costs and business have also gone up which means that people who run a small private practice who's not affiliated with a larger group or an ACO or something like that is also filling the pinch. And I am NOT going to pretend like that's not happening. So I wanted to do this video to provide some ideas on how to possibly counteract that rising cost. Some of this stuff you might already be implementing and doing in your practice which is great. Some of it you might say well that's not for me or I don't need to do that or that seems like a waste of time. That's fine too. But I'm just kind of putting my suggestions out there hoping that maybe it will stimulate some other ideas in your head of how you personally with your practice can maybe watch some of the money and make it not so tight. So my first suggestion is monitoring the funds closely. And I don't mean just watching your bank account. I mean watching how money is getting spent. Are you ordering more supplies than you need? Do you have someone in charge of ordering supplies that doesn't really understand what budgeting is or understand that money in the business is not always going to be there and so maybe they don't have the forefront thought or the anticipation of how much it's going to cost when they're ordering and so there may be choosing brand name instead of generic equivalents that would work just as fine. Maybe they are not looking well enough at stock and you end up getting a surplus of something that you didn't necessarily need and that was money spent that you didn't need to spend at that time. Perhaps you're not utilizing any kind of rebates that could be available for medications or vaccines. Maybe you aren't taking advantage of when things go on sale. So if there is a supply that you use a lot of and there's a sale for it, maybe buying a little extra because you know you'll go through it while it's on sale instead of waiting till you need it again and it's more expensive. Obviously we don't have crystal balls to always be able to predict that but being in communication with your sales rep at all of the vendors that you use to buy your supplies, medications, vaccines is always helpful. They will usually help tell you what to anticipate in the next month or what deals might be coming up or what deals are present that you can't find on the website. So building that relationship is really important but watching how the funds are being spent. Do you have a lot of staff that are claiming overtime? Cut that right there. There is no reason that somebody should be getting regular overtime. If that's the case then your scheduling needs to be fixed. You need to go to who's in charge of your scheduling or if it's you and you need to look and see how you can quote cut some corners which I don't want you to jeopardize patient safety or the happiness of your staff necessarily but there's got to be something in there because even a few hours every week but multiple employees getting overtime it adds up and I'm sure if you were to do a cost analysis on that it would probably be eye-opening. So I never allowed my staff to have overtime unless I approved it and it was something that I watched very closely where their hours and making sure that when they said that they clocked in that they really were there and that they were actually being productive and that they went to lunch and took their full lunch break unless I knew something happened that was out of the blue that was a one-time off thing that they did have a few minutes of overtime or something but I watched that very closely. So watching how money is getting spent in your practice, supplies, staff time. Is there any way to have staff wear multiple hats so that maybe the first hour of the day when it's not very busy your MA can check in the patients before the front office gets there and you wouldn't have to pay that double employee just to sit there to check one patient in when the MA could do it and then they take them back and room them for you. There's different ways to get creative and again in a small practice you will hear in my other videos I feel like everybody should be expected to know how to check people in at the front desk appropriately and scan insurance cards and ID cards and answer the phone and front desk to know how to room a patient, put them in there, maybe grab a temperature, a blood pressure. It's okay to train them and feel comfortable in that because you never know when people are gonna call in sick or they're gonna have an unplanned absence in the business or in this situation you have to cut back a little bit just to make sure that you can make ends meet. So really monitoring your out and in of funds and seeing where things are maybe getting spent that shouldn't be and can be cut back a little bit okay. The other thing is making sure that you have a long-term budget being very for looking if that's a word I don't think it is but trying to forecast your expenditures and trying to anticipate anything that might come up that's going to be a big expense so that you can try to start saving a little bit here and there. If you have an accountant involved, a bookkeeper, they should be able to help you kind of figure out how to do that the most effective way. They also should be able to help you kind of see where maybe money is being spent from my first point that is unnecessary or a little bit more than it should be and so definitely use your resources and the experts in this field to be able to help you. If you're going to make expenses that are necessary for running a business like supplies and your bills maybe get a business credit card where you get cash back. Use it to your advantage. Use that credit usage as an advantage to get cash back, get points whatever it is so that you can put that money cash back back into the business or you get miles so that you can pay for yourself to go to some kind of conference that you will need for CMEs. Be very conscientious about using your credit cards of course because you don't want to go into great debt but any credit cards that you use make sure there's some kind of benefit to you in the business when you're using it. Try to get more for your buck. Be smart about it right like what can it do for me if I'm going to use it and I think that a lot of people maybe are starting to think that way because there are so many more credit cards now that do have benefits and bonuses but definitely take a look at it and see how you can make it work in your favor. The last point I want to talk about is negotiating terms with anywhere that you have a loan out. They might be willing to work with you even short-term by dropping the interest rate or giving you more time to pay on the loan. A lot of people understand right now that finances are hard and they don't want to see businesses go out and not be able to see patients and customers anymore because that's money out of their pocket too. They want to see you being successful so try to negotiate even a short-term situation or resolution and then maybe that will get your foot in the door for a longer one next time. But it never hurts to ask and I'm a firm believer in that. You can ask and if they say no it is what it is but you won't know unless you ask. So if you have any loans out with your lease, if you're leasing a building or a location, maybe find out if they will drop the price for a little while if you're just opening your practice until you can get that patient base built up. I mean there are people out there that if you are willing to work with them they would be willing to work with you but at the same time you have to make sure you hold up your end of the agreement because if you don't then they're not going to work with you again in the future. And that's a really big thing is that your handshake, your word should mean something and not even if you don't sign on the dotted line but talking it out and coming to an agreement should be worth something and you should take it seriously if people are willing to work with you because that is ultimately money out of their pocket right or they're taking a risk on you and you want to make sure that you come through good on whatever agreement and upholding your side of it. So watching your expenditures closely, what's going out that isn't necessarily needing to be spent, watch the money coming in, make sure that the insurances are paying you, reconciling your payments, your postings from insurances, making sure that you're getting all the money from the ERAs that the insurance is telling you you should be getting. I have a whole nother video about that so please check that out. Watch your staff of course and their hours, don't over hire, ask your staff to do a little bit more if needed, train them appropriately of course, don't leave them hanging out to dry. Using credit cards that will benefit you that have some kind of bonus points, cash back, miles, whatever it is so that you can use that in your favor. Communicate with your reps for any vendors that you use to see if deals are coming up or if they can give you maybe a few months no interest, if they do an internal credit account or something like that. It's always worth asking and then going to anywhere you have a loan or people that you pay regularly even like your lease, your landlord to find out if there's anything that they can do to work with you knowing that times might be tough even if it's short-term but you have to make sure you hold up your end of the agreement and follow through with it as expected. There are a lot of other ways that you can combat rising costs but these are some of the biggest ones and some of them that people that are busy running a practice whether you're a manager or a doctor or a provider that kind of slip away and you don't pay as much attention to because you're so busy trying to prioritize other things but really, really making sure that you're watching things closely, making adjustments where needed and just communicating with everyone that it might not be a long-term thing, it might just be short-term but that you need to do it for the betterment of the business and for the patients. But again, nothing should ever jeopardize the safety of your patients, the care that you're offering to the patients and also the satisfaction of your staff as far as making sure that you are giving them all the resources they need to be successful in their job. They might not be happy if you have to cut some of their hours temporarily or ask them to fulfill certain duties that you wouldn't normally ask. You're not going to make everybody happy but being reasonable in what you do and just explaining to them why is always helpful. If you have any questions or comments about this, I would love to hear from you so please leave that in the comments below. Smash the thumbs up button if today's video was helpful. Subscribe to my channel if you haven't already and please share this with anybody whom you feel would benefit. Thank you for the support. We will see you next time. Bye bye.