During the Holidays, some practices might struggle with revenue dips from decreased patient visits. These techniques help keep revenue flowing in your practice.
Holidays are the time to spend with family and friends. However, this time of the year is full of trips, food, family, and social gatherings. During these months, people don´t usually focus on their health.
Depending on the practice´s specialty, this season context can lead to lower patient visits and struggles to keep revenue flowing in December and slower months, like January and early February.
Physicians can implement some techniques to keep visits and revenue flowing for their practice:
1. Schedule follow ups visits
Review your patient list and identify which patients have not followed up in your practice for a while.Follow ups can happen once every month, every three or even six months, depending on the patient´s condition. It is important to stay on top of that so your patient doesn´t forget their regular appointments.
Scheduling follow up visits will help you continue receiving patients during this time of the year. Call or send emails to patients letting them know they missed their last follow up appointment and remind them to reschedule.
Make sure your patients get on the schedule prior to the end of the calendar year. They can use their benefits for the remainder of the year before they reset. This can help you increase your revenue while helping patients pay less for their doctor´s appointments.
Learn more about how to improve your patient visits to increase revenue on our blog One more patient per day and the benefits for your medical practice.
2. Coordinate annual wellness visits
Set up appointments for preventative care. Every patient can go once a year without any medical symptom for a routine check-up. Insurance companies are required to pay for these annual visits for all their subscribers without applying deductibles or copayments. Insurance covers the total allowed amount.
This is a good time for your practice to investigate how many patients have not set an appointment for that regular check-up in the year. This is good for your patients because they can find something that could save their lives. And it´s also good for your practice to keep revenue flowing during these months.
3. Market your practice
Utilize marketing strategies to promote your practice during the Holidays. Boost your services and have special discounts or attractive offers during this time of the year to increase your patient visits.
Consider sending a festive greeting via email or broadcasted using your patient portal or other engagement system. This can be sent to your current patients to maintain their loyalty and engagement with your business.
Also, remember to announce your hours during the Holidays. Is your practice going to close on Christmas or New Year? Will your practice close early on specific days? Keep your patients aware of any change to your normal service hours. You can do this through your website, social media, and other communication channels you typically use.
There are a lot of different benefits your practice can get from a good Marketing strategy. Know more about this on our blog How to market your medical practice and improve your business
4. Get referrals from your patients
Increase referrals to get new visits. Loyal and happy patients often want to share their great experiences with family and friends. This can translate into referrals that bring your medical practice more patients.
Be proactive when asking for referrals. Some patients might get caught up in celebrations and forget to share their positive experiences on your practice with others. Especially during this time of the year. Add extra cards in your mailings, give them referral cards during the appointment, or even provide links to review sites through your social media pages.
Also, referrals not only need to come from satisfied patients. Consider creating a special referral bonus scheme for your employees if they help you bring in more patients to the practice.
5. Make sure you won´t run out of staff
If your practice is going to take steps to make sure your business stays financially healthy via increased patient visits, it is important that you make sure your staffing is done accordingly.
Especially during this time of the year, a lot of employees take extra time off. Ensure you coordinate within your office to have enough personnel to assist expected patients during the Holidays. The last thing you want to do is make your office really busy during this time of the year and not having enough staff to properly satisfy your patients’ needs.
Implement these strategies to ensure revenue and increase patient visits during these months.
At Health Prime we understand the importance of keeping your revenue flowing all year to maximize your incomes, assist patients properly and optimize your medical practice to succeed.
If you want more information about how we can help you, email us at [email protected]. Set up a meeting with us to discuss how we can help you get your practice back in its prime.
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