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Why You Are Competing With the Exit Sign

Posted by Luke Johnson

In financing

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Every doctor has the desire to serve all of their patients, and every businessman wants to say yes to their clients as long as it is profitable for the business. In many cases, the doctor must make strategic health decisions along with profitable financial choices for their shop. In other cases, the doctors can focus on surgeries and procedures while designated businessmen handle financial requirements. I’ll explain why both situations are at war with the exit sign and what they can do to reclaim what it keeps stealing.


It’s Stealing Your Patients

When you break down the amount of patients walking through your door, they can either pay for the service themselves, insurance could cover it, or they could get financed from a primary lender. Unfortunately, the patients that don't fit into those three categories are sent walking. So this fourth category, the patients that are being turned away, are normally docked as around a quarter of a doctor's possible business. The more feedback we get from healthcare providers, the more we hear how they have an extreme problem of patient turndowns. And the worst part for the doctors is they can't do anything about it!

 


The Lasik Vision Institute, one of the nation's largest lasik eye surgery providers, said “Although we have had an internal financing program for the past 10 years, we have never seen the results that we are seeing with HFD. ”

 

 

When you are in the business of treating patients, it seems a bit counterproductive to let so many of them leave.

It’s Lowering Your Bottom Line

The beauty of treating all of your patients, with a financial relevance, is that your fixed costs most likely won't change. Dozens of our providers CFO’s said they were already paying for the lights, the equipment, the staff, but had downtime and uptime similar to restaurants. Even from a spectators point of view, sometimes my doctor's office has an hour wait and sometimes I walk right in. Regardless of the wait time, the owner is still paying the same.

 

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It’s important to have all the pieces when trying to make the best decisions, but one key piece that is too easily written off is: the patients the evil exit sign is stealing from you. By addressing this simple obstacle, it could have a significant impact on your company's finances.

Even if we assume that 10% of your new patients you are now servicing don’t pay, you just made money off of the other 90%, your fixed costs remained fixed, and your variable costs do not significantly change. Think of it as your waiting room 30% more full on average each day.  That sounds like a remedy for success, and that's what we are hearing from hundreds of practices across the nation.

It’s Helping Your Competitors

A majority of the time, getting the healthcare you need is not an option, it’s a necessity. Because of this, patients don’t normally quit when they are declined from your service, but rather continue to look for a competitor that will accept them. This means that the exit sign doesn't just take them home but to your competitor’s front door. Now, I’m not saying it's a bad thing that they are finding the service they need for their situation, but I am stating the obvious in that you’d rather treat them at your location. This is why it is extremely important to have an answer for financing regardless of the position of the patient. It’s our job to help you keep your patients from walking through the exit door by empowering you to have a solution for every patient's situation.

 


Now that we know all the gloomy side effects of having a vicious Exit sign and no answer for treating all of your patients, it’s time for a little hope. There is a validated and tested method for reaching all of  your patients. Keep the control in your hands and ensure extremely low delinquency rates. Some of the biggest practices in their field are using HFD in every state across the nation. Take a little time to understand what you are missing out on by taking advantage of the below resources: