John B. Pinto

We looked at cash flow first. Dave’s office manager was overwhelmed and sweeping a lot of potential collections under the carpet, not maliciously, but out of naïve desperation. Even though staffing costs were already high, we immediately brought on a full-time, experienced billing clerk. Within several months, after refiling claims for what old money could be collected, and collecting a higher percentage of allowed claims, annualized collections with the same patient base were on track for $1.05 million, an 8% gain in revenue. The secondary gains were that there were now two people in the office who knew how to bill, the practice was no longer vulnerable to loss of a single key staff member, and the office manager had enough free time to plan for the future.

Picking up where we left off, Dave’s practice (see stats from the last installment) is in so-so shape.

Any reader, male or female, is familiar with the concept of a “makeover,” a small number of superficial revisions that work with a person’s naturally attractive features and can diminish years of neglect and poor fashion sense. This notion of a makeover is a handy simile for doctors and practices that need — in practice management terms — less than a full blown turnaround from the brink of operational or economic disaster.

Finally, concluding this four-part blog series, there is maintenance.

Next step: Demolition

This blog installment picks up where we left off about the importance of development planning for your practice.

Virtually all human achievements are exquisitely planned in advance on paper or the latest computerized equivalent. Ships, planes, skyscrapers, city parks, Danish furniture and machinery of every stripe are created on blueprints before they are ever created in reality. Circuit boards are diagrammed before they are welded, and potential new autos are modeled in clay. Diplomacy and wars are waged from written, branched contingency plans. And even the most artistic chefs do their best when working from a written recipe.

In this last blog post in a three-part series, I continue the discussion of how to be a “smart” quitter.

In my last blog post, the first in a three-part series, I discussed the occasional wisdom of beating a hasty retreat when conditions indicate. We continue here.

General George Washington’s army lost more battles than it won, and yet it prevailed in the Revolutionary War. Syndicated columnist George Will wrote that America won the war not so much because of decisive victories, but because of superior retreats, such as the one after the British landed on Long Island with an army larger than the local population of New York City.