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How Primary Care Physicians Can Drive Up Their Earnings

Primary care physicians and their practices are expected to do more with less. They need to bill using a broad range of insurance codes, manage referrals to specialists, field a wide variety of patient complaints, and treat patients of many ages—all while trying to turn a profit.

Primary Care Physicians Can Drive Up Earnings

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You may be “feeling the burn” when it comes to your profit margin. If you would like to increase your medical practice revenue, a few simple changes can often make a big difference. Here are some ideas to get you started:

  • Expand your offerings. Try adding ancillary services that will allow you to keep more business under your roof. You can add medical massage, nutrition, and more. At AllergyEasy, we can help you increase your medical practice profits with a turnkey allergy treatment program. We provide the clinical training. Physicians can order our allergy test kit and then prescribe sublingual immunotherapy to give patients long-term relief from allergies.
  • Improve your website. People are using the Internet more and more to find their physician—often consulting patient reviews before they pick their doctor. Make sure that your website loads quickly and that it ranks well. If you do not have a good search engine optimization strategy in place, talk to a web developer. Higher search engine rankings means more traffic and, ultimately, more conversions. You can also improve your rankings by generating high quality content through blogging and distributing press releases.
  • Encourage online reviews. Invite patients to leave positive reviews if they like your services. Patients can review you on Yelp, WebMD, Healthgrades, Vitals.com, Google Reviews, and more. Make sure that you build up your profile on these sites. Some of them (such as Yelp) allow you to upload photos to add extra appeal to your profile.
  • Get social. Social media can be a great way to engage with the online community. Post frequently with helpful health tips. You can sponsor contests and free giveaways.
  • Decrease missed appointments. Late patients can put you woefully behind schedule and no-shows can cost you thousands of dollars each year. Use a text or email system to remind patients about their appointments. You may also consider implementing a cancellation policy that will require patients to pay a fee for each missed appointment.
  • Improve collections. If you don’t have a good collections strategy in place, you’ll be working for free. Some people pay regardless; others are distracted and forget to pay. Be vigilant in following up with delinquent payers, contacting them within 30 to 60 days. Consider hiring a third-party agency once you’ve exhausted your own efforts.

 

About The Author

Stuart H. Agren, M.D.

Stuart H. Agren, M.D. completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Utah and went on to earn his Doctor of Medicine from Tulane University School of Medicine in 1974. He completed additional training at L.D.S. Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah and then established his private medical practice starting in 1975. Dr. Agren completed a mini-residency in Industrial Medicine at the Robert Johnson School of Medicine at Rutgers University and also completed training to become a certified Medical Review Officer.

Dr. Agren was the Medical Director at TRW and McDonnell Douglas in Mesa, Arizona and at Stauffer Chemical and Kennecott Copper in Salt Lake City, Utah. He also served as an adjunct faculty member at Arizona State University.

In his private medical practice, Dr. Agren specialized in family practice and allergy. In his work as a private practice allergist, he was one of the first doctors in the country to prescribe sublingual immunotherapy to his patients as an alternative to subcutaneous immunotherapy (allergy shots). He has also been a trailblazer in the field of food allergy treatment and research, developing a program to treat multiple food allergies simultaneously using sublingual immunotherapy. Dr. Agren has been featured on local CBS, NBC, and ABC news affiliates and won the peer-nominated “Top Doc” award from Phoenix Magazine.

After 20 years in private practice, Dr. Agren became the Founder and President of AllergyEasy, which helps primary care physicians around the country offer allergy testing and sublingual immunotherapy treatment to their patients. Over 200 physicians in over 32 states use the AllergyEasy program to help their patients overcome environmental and food allergies and asthma.