hospital impact

I recently read a good article on how CDHPs will impact physician practices. Essentially, CDHPs will force physicians to become much more business-savvy - "pickier" patients, increased competition, and less ability to bill the patient later. As such, the article goes on give this advice to physicians and practice managers:

- Embrace marketing. With intensifying competition and patients doing more comparison shopping, those practices with the best marketing will increase market share.

- And of course, the best kind of marketing is word-of-mouth. So, obviously we're not just talking about a nice website. It's making every patient that comes through your doors your walking advertisement.

- Embrace revenue cycle. There are a boatload of appropriate tactics to increase revenue (i.e. getting the revenue that's truly due). On the one hand, it will be easier with more HSAs and linked debit cards. But on the other hand, physicians will have to collect a greater percentage at the time of service. And in light of the points above, the folks in your accounts receivables aren't paper-pushers anymore - they become the practice ambassador, contacting patients to follow up on bills. This isn't a $8/hour anymore, this takes some hotel service style skill. (read this slightly-old-but-still-useful HFMA article on CDHP's impact on the revenue cycle)