COVID-19 has leveled the economy and left many businesses in peril. Sadly, the pandemic has disrupted every facet of today’s life, including medical practices and clinics. These operations are still needed, but they may be hurting businesses. The following tips may help clinics or private practices stay efficient to keep afloat during these challenging times.
1. Manage Liquidity Carefully
Right now, non-essential and elective surgeries are being postponed or canceled and patients are staying home instead of attending their appointments. These changes are currently, or may soon drastically affect your business’ financial security.
It’s important to understand how pushing back or eliminating these procedures can affect your liquidity and bottom line, even affect your practice’s ability to treat patients in the future. Managing the monetary side of your business is essential, so revise your financial obligations accordingly. Some things to look into include:
- Evaluate Existing Financial Obligations– Postpone bills where you can, cut costs, and budget appropriately. Communicate with your vendors, landlords, and creditors to discuss reasonable accommodations. You may need to postpone or reduce payments temporarily to stay ahead.
- Create a Monetary Contingency Plan– Manage your cash as best as you can. Consider delaying discretionary bonuses or other payments. Be prepared for the possibility of furloughing some staff members. Also, pay attention to resources available through newly emerging economic relief packages including state-funded, low-interest loans.
- Revise Financial Plans– Revise financial plans to sustain ongoing liquidy of your practice to determine if a slow-down of business or collections could create a default. Base your new plans on estimates of minimum cash flow and plan with those numbers in mind.
- Assess Supply Needs– The pandemic has created shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) and other medical supplies. Take inventory of the supplies your office has and attempt to stock up for at least the next few months with necessary supplies while limiting those that may not be immediately necessary.
2. Adopt Telemedicine
Implementing telehealth during the pandemic has overtaken the standard instructions for patients to visit doctor’s offices, urgent care, or hospital emergency rooms. In fact, the CDC has recommended healthcare facilities explore alternative solutions to unnecessary medical visits to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.
If your practice isn’t already using telemedicine, look to adopt it within your offices. If you already offer some telemedicine options, you may benefit from adding further options into your practice.
Telemedicine enables your practice to continue providing healthcare while reducing risk to healthcare works, honoring patients’ fears and feelings about social distancing, and may actually improve your own efficiency while cutting costs.
Implementing telemedicine and EMR or EHR can be difficult, especially if you’re just beginning to use these services or find using the effective use of the system challenging. Seeking the guidance and aid of NextGen EMR consulting services can help you streamline your EMR or EHR solutions, save you unnecessary frustration, and give your patients the time and attention they deserve.
3. Stay On Top of Guidelines
Every few days, it seems, government guidelines and regulations are changing. The constant updates and worries about missing important policy changes and regulations can become overwhelming. To make sure you aren’t suffering any adverse effects, stay on top of current guidelines, and be more aware of what is to come.
Plan accordingly, charting out what you can and will do against a calendar. This will allow you to open safely and incrementally while maintaining the safety of your staff and patients.
Consider implementing a rapid response team to help establish a clear system for evaluating daily updates and identifying the highest priorities. This can help to put those most important to your staff and patients in place more quickly and efficiently. Assign an administrator to receive local and state alerts and a small team to review and implement changes as necessary.
Develop guidelines to assist employees concerned about their own health and safety and share them with your staff. Clarify the circumstances in which employees should stay home, who to contact for a COVID-19 related absence, and leave options available during the pandemic.
Combating the Spread of COVID-19 Through Organization
Although medical practices are often considered essential operations, the current COVID-19 pandemic has completely changed the way clinics and private practices operate today. Focus on your practice’s specific needs during these uncertain times and maintain your ability to help patients while staying financially secure. Adjusting your business’s financial obligations, including telemedicine solutions, and staying abreast of emerging guidelines is the perfect place to start. By continuously assessing your needs and staying organized, you can minimize the financial burden on your organization.
