How to Recession-proof Your Eye Care Practice
Highlights
- To recession-proof your eye-care practice, you must streamline workflows and simplify billing and insurance for better cash flow.
- A cloud-based platform offers digital tools and syncing to ensure patient satisfaction and boost productivity.
- Automating your billing and insurance, scheduling, and inventory management will ensure your practice thrives during a potential economic recession.
Economists predict a 1.4% downturn in 2023, so independent optometry practices must recession-proof their revenues. 25% of adults have postponed optometrist visits in 2022 because of healthcare expenses. Perhaps more than ever, optometry practices need to offer exceptional care to attract and retain patients.
Your optometry practice can integrate workflows and use productivity tools in a cloud-based practice management software to boost efficiency and find ways to maintain your cash flow. These tools automate billing and insurance, scheduling, and inventory management to increase efficiency and reduce operating costs.
How to Recession-Proof Your Optometry Practice
During a rough economy, you may experience a decrease in the number of patients seeking vision services. Increasing efficiency at your eye care practice can help you offer better patient care and optimize billing and insurance procedures to ensure a steady cash flow.
RevolutionEHR, a completely integrated, cloud-based optometry EHR system, offers digital intake tools and automated billing functions, allowing you to streamline practice management and survive an economic recession.
Streamline Your Cash Flow
To recession-proof your practice, you first need to understand your financial health and cash flow. RevolutionEHR’s accounting reports, such as aging, deposits, sales, receipts, and refunds, offer insights into the financial health of your practice. These reports help you identify areas for improvement and understand your practice’s cash flow.
For example, you can use the deposit slip report to reconcile your daily earnings from each payment category, such as checks, cash, and credit cards. If you notice that a significant portion of your profit comes from credit card payments, consider offering additional payment options to make it more convenient for patients to pay for your services.
With RevolutionEHR’s ancillary payment tool, you can boost your cash flow by making it easy for patients to pay their bills. RevPayments lets patients pay for care using various payment methods, including card swipe, chip, Apple Pay, and Android Pay. The feature also allows for secure storage of credit cards and automatic updates of outdated information, ensuring uninterrupted revenue for your practice.
Manage Your Inventory Effectively
During economic uncertainty, optimizing your inventory can reduce costs and ensure patients receive the best care. RevolutionEHR’s inventory reconciliation tool can provide a clear picture of your inventory health by comparing your stock counts with your actual on-hand inventory. This tool lets you quickly identify discrepancies in your inventory, so you can order more supplies and fulfill your patients’ orders on time.
You can further streamline your order process with SmartFLOW for Sight. The SmartFLOW add-on connects you with vision correction suppliers such as Hoya, CooperVision, and ABB Optical Group. This tool lets your staff order contacts and other vision products easily, verify contact order parameters, and get real-time updates from the vendor about the status of your orders.
SmartFLOW also boosts patient satisfaction by delivering directly to customers, so they get their orders faster.
Boost Your Patient Experience
Improving the patient experience is crucial for healthcare providers, and one aspect that can significantly affect your revenue is wait times. Overbooking can result in more patients showing up than you can accommodate, causing delays and longer wait times for those who arrive on time. A 2017 study found that long wait times resulted in lower patient satisfaction and an unwillingness to return for another appointment.
To become recession-proof, you must offer a streamlined patient experience that makes your eye care practice stand out. With RevolutionEHR, you can create appointments, search for open slots, and view the online schedule to ensure you don’t overbook patients. The reports module allows you to view canceled appointments so that you can assign appointments more easily and contact patients to see if they are available.
Using a patient intake tool such as RevIntake can improve patient satisfaction with registration and scheduling. It provides patients with convenient online scheduling options and digital intake forms to complete before their appointments.
RevConnect, a patient communication tool that syncs with RevolutionEHR, offers an easy-to-use dashboard that allows you to automate text and email messages. With RevConnect, you can send birthday greetings and offer discounts to keep patients engaged and coming back for future appointments.
Increase Claims Reimbursements
Optometric practices also need an efficient and smooth claims payment process to operate successfully in tough times. RevolutionEHR’s optometry practice management platform offers code bundles to streamline coding and billing, leading to accurate reimbursements, fewer errors, and minimal claim rejections.
The code bundles allow you to quickly enter diagnosis and service codes to patient encounters without manually inputting data. You can even save time on data entry by creating a list of common services and diagnoses to easily apply to patient encounters.
RevClear is a digital insurance tool that can help you automate the claims process, ensuring a 98.06% acceptance rate and recovering up to 60% of denied claims. It allows you to upload and send claims, track their status, and access electronic remittance advice. You can spend more time with patients when you no longer have to process patient statements and reconcile payments manually.
Improve Compliance and Security
If your EHR system is frequently inaccessible, it can compromise the safety of your patients and lead to significant damage. System inaccessibility and downtime can also slow your workflow, making keeping up with billing and reimbursements challenging. Claims may be delayed or denied when you can’t access patient information, leading to lost revenue for your practice.
Upgrading to a cloud-based optometry EHR will also provide your practice with more robust security measures and help with HIPAA compliance. Automated backup and recovery tools ensure your patients’ data is always secure and easily recoverable in emergencies.
Evaluate Data Reports
Monitoring your practice’s performance can help you make informed business decisions, identify areas for improvement, and adjust your strategies to adapt to tougher economic times.
RevAspire, an ancillary program that works from within RevolutionEHR, can help you interpret CMS requirements, gather reporting data, and stay updated on program changes while saving time and resources. Adhering to MIPS requirements with the help of RevAspire can lead to better patient outcomes and increased revenue for your practice.
Recession-Proof Your Eye Care Practice with RevolutionEHR
In today’s challenging economic climate, managing your inventory, boosting productivity, and ensuring a satisfactory patient experience is critical to recession-proof your eye care practice and staying competitive.
Cloud-based Revolution EHR software streamlines your practice workflow and provides top-notch patient care with secure billing and payment features. Investing in an integrated EHR system like RevolutionEHR can recession-proof your optometry practice and help you stay well-positioned to succeed in any economic climate.
Request a demo to learn how to improve your practice’s workflows and find the freedom to focus on your patients.
