Practice Reviews: How Can They Benefit Your Practice

Practice reviews are a wonderful opportunity to take a step back to see where your practice is currently and where you would like it to be. Your practice may have been running for many years, or you may be a new practice, and you find that although the business might be doing well, there is room for improvement.

The first step in a practice review might be reviewing your financial position to see if there are any marketing initiatives that could be leveraged. Simultaneously, it would be a good exercise to review your systems. Are you using the most efficient system to benefit your practice? Are you able to utilize online bookings to increase efficiencies and productivity? Are you using an online rostering system to assist you and staff to keep their rosters up to date?

The other major part of a practice review is to ensure your policies and procedures are current. How often are they being reviewed and are staff and doctors not only aware of them and where they are situated in your system, but do staff understand them and are they being trained on not only the existing policies and procedures but any new processes that have been introduced into the practice recently. Policies and procedures should also be included in your staff induction checklist, so the staff member can sign off that they have read and understood them.

It is a good idea to cover off on one or two policies and procedures at staff meetings to keep the documents alive. Make sure your staff have easy access to them so they can refer to them when required.

Reviewing your practice on a regular basis will ensure your practice is running at optimum level.

Areas to identify:

• Human resources

Do you have all your staff and GP documentation up to date i.e., signed contracts, induction paperwork, any training or development plans agreed and signed off.

• Policies and procedures

Do you have up to date policies and procedures, are they current. Set time aside each year to review and update any policy and procedure that may be out of date. Ensure you write policies and procedures for any new task within your practice.

• Financials

Are your financials up to date? Are you logging all transactions? Do you have an automated system to capture all incomings and outgoings? Do you have a reliable staff payroll and roster system in place? It is better not to rely on manual processes for these areas, particularly around financials for end of financial year purposes.

• Information technology

Having a good IT system/s is imperative to the smooth running of your practice. Automating things such as recalls, and reminders and online bookings allows for much higher productivity and security in your practice. Cyber security is particularly important as there are many ways now to infiltrate your systems. Be sure to have good IT support to assist you.

• Operations and utilisations

The monitoring of utilisations within your practice is a great way of measuring whether you have further capacity to grow your practice, and whether your staff and GPs are running at their optimum level. Areas to consider would be, -Rostering of nurses and reception to doctors -Flow of front reception -Room utilization and subleases -PM utilization -Reception utilisation – Nurse and doctor utilisation – MBS item utilisation.

• Appointment system

Do you have a reliable automated appointment system? Not only does this increase productivity, but it also allows patients to book their own appointments online, and your staff then to manage those bookings if needs be.

• Marketing

What is your point of difference? What strategies do you have for marketing your practice ie. Website advertising, social media exposure. What is it that you want to promote about your practice and what is the best strategy to have you succeed?

• Quality and Risk management

This is a particularly important area to ensure you have compliance. Areas that you may wish to consider are: -Layout of waiting room, front desk, treatment room -Maintenance of equipment schedule -cleaning schedule -Other Accreditation and compliance requirements -Medical Centre design: exit signs, emergency lighting, disability access, smoke detectors, hazardous waste storage -COVID requirement

Two areas of main consideration would be around Quality and Risk management, and Work Health and Safety (WHS). Regular review of your practice is imperative to ensure safety for staff and visitors to your workplace, this includes government regulations around COVID safety measures.

Once the practice review has been undertaken and issues and opportunities identified, recommendations should made, and a plan of action developed to ensure execution of those recommendations. Take the time to go through each area in detail, also allow feedback to be provided from your staff and doctors.

Ensure you include staff and GPs in this review to gain their insights into any issues and areas for improvement. This also provides staff the opportunity to have some ownership of what is happening in their practice.

Remember the goal from your practice review is to identify any areas requiring immediate attention i.e.. Safety issues, ongoing planning for practice improvements and the identification of any opportunities to grow the business.

Practice Partners has many years’ experience in assisting medical practices in achieving maximum efficiencies, attracting and retaining a patient base, supporting compliance, and maximizing profitability.

We also have many other areas we can assist your practice and would be happy to discuss our services with you.

To find out how Practice Partners can assist you in your practice, please book a free 30-minute Discovery call by clicking the link below.

https://meetings.salesmate.io/meetings/#/practicepartners1/scheduler/https-meetings-salesmate-io-meetings-practicepartners1-scheduler-free-discovery-call