- Reduce staffing costs by using data to drive staffing decisions.
- Reduce supply costs by better managing vendors.
- Ensure that your OT is utilized by physicians efficiently.
- Involve physicians in cost reduction efforts –Hospitals should work to encourage physicians to become more concerned about the costs of supplies and other activities.
- Consider outsourcing the management of some services.
- Consider partnering with local physicians to reduce competition for outpatient cases.
- Grow case volume by attracting new physicians to your facility.
- Hospitals able to grow case volume and profits by adding new service lines.
- Hospitals that use hospitalists to care for patients can benefit from the more efficient care and better documentation that specialized hospitalists can potentially provide.
- Hospitals can improve their profitability is by continually evaluating and renegotiating their managed care contracts.
- Standardize physician preference items – Enhancing a hospital’s supply chain is always considered to be an easy way to improve profitability.
- Pay attention to quality incentive programs and other healthcare reform measures.
- Invest in electronic health records, and take advantage of meaningful use funds
- Invest in “green” projects and sustainability measures for energy savings.
- Look within the operating room, emergency room and home health arenas for throughput issues.
- A financially strong hospital is one that wastes little to no resources.
- Physician preference items are a huge opportunity area for hospitals looking for new ways to achieve profitability, and managing the costs of pharmaceuticals is an important branch of that tree.
- Reduce denials and underpayments – Associated documentation can be appended that reduces or eliminates denials.
- Use telehealth technology as way to help hospitals’ readmission reduction programs
- Hospitals need to understand their revenue cycles so they can identify opportunities and weaknesses and understand their organization’s revenue cycle, then they can determine where to allocate funds and resources.
- Hospitals can improve profits and run efficiently is by using effective technologies.
- Hospital profitsare likely to increase if facilities reduce the amount of unnecessary tests they administer.
- Revamp billing and collections — from big-ticket items down to bottled water would help in increasing hospital revenue.
- Create a lean organization. Strict control on head count. Encourage multitasking.
- Non – Medical staff such as HR, Finance, Administration, Security, IT, Biomedical, and Marketing should be few in numbers but better in efficiency.
- Electricity is major recurring cost item, daily consumption of electricity must be monitored.
- Check and balance the right processes as well as and significantly conduct regular meetings with key vendors for material management.
- Marketing expense must be supported by justification.
- Create a Welcoming Environment — Make your hospital user-friendly with services like free clean and comfortable waiting areas, and good reading materials.
- Encourage Online Reviews— Positive reviews drive new patients to your hospital. Encourage patients to leave comments on review
- Create YouTube Videos — Videos help people understand topics like women’s health, dieting, and medication.
- Become an Authority Through Content — publish articles in journals or write a book or few blog posts on your practice website or another medical site. Being an authority drives new patients to your hospital.
- Compete Using Your Strong Points — Use quality service as a weapon against cheaper prices.
- Give Back— Donate some time or sponsor community groups that are improving healthcare this gives marketing to your healthcare organisation.
- Expand Your Medical Services— Consider adding alternative medicine and therapy to your hospital’s list of service.
- Offer Free or Affordable Patient Education Classes— Target your audience such as diabetics, dieters, people trying to stop smoking, etc.
- Encourage Boosters — Flu shots, school vaccines. Try sending out an email campaign to patients with reminders to get all their vaccines.
- Partner with other Vendors — Partner with a local gym so your patients get a discount for getting healthy. That is a marketable service that draws in more patients.
- Lease a Classroom— There are plenty of other professionals that would lease a classroom from you. Yoga is a good example
- Work-Related Services — physicals, drug screens, health screenings for employers, insurance companies, and government agencies can be a great way to get more business and find new patients.
- Train Your Staff on Top Customer Services— Customer service is key in healthcare. Train your staff to be polite, professional and engaging
- Buy Rather than Lease — Rent can be a huge cost, and money that’s not going towards any future investment in your practice.
- Go Digital— Cloud-based storage saves doctors thousands of dollars each year.
- Let Patients Pay Online— If patients have a way to pay online, there’s less likely to be a delay in payment.
- Offer Discounts on Certain Days — If Tuesdays are slow, offer a discount or waive a percentage of the co-pay.
- Join a Purchasing Club— Save on office and cleaning supplies
- Start trending and benchmarking your data, you’ll be able to identify areas to improve your revenue cycle.
- Ask your staff for suggestions about the best way to solve the problem.
- Consider hiring a consultantto perform a head-to-toe exam of your practice administration every year or two.
- A good staff and reputation not only can help hospitals attract patients in their immediate vicinity, but also can enable them to expand their catchment area.