Medical Practice Management

It is in the best interests of patients and the office to properly manage the office. Good practice management is a prerequisite to good patient care. Naturally, no two medical offices are the same and they come with their own set of challenges—when they occur they must be addressed, handled, overcome and resolved by virtue of the special knowledge and experience of the medical office's practice manager. 

Office Management Of A Medical Group Practice

While a small, one practitioner medical office can be very efficiently and appropriately be managed by the doctor with a trained family member, or medical assistant alone, larger medical group practice managers may be employed to undertake this work in a large medical office or medical group practice where they will not only handle many aspects of day-to-day operations, but also, address and solve problems, or find solutions to pressing issues.  Sometimes an outside consultant, or lawyer may be hired, while the doctor and his medical assistants continue their daily front and back medical office routines.

Challenges in a Medical Office

Some of the possible challenges might be:

• The uninsured patient
• Coordination of benefits
• Specialty care referrals
• Managed care
• State and Federal laws
• Attorneys and lawsuits
• Third party liability issues
• Insurance companies
• State and federal regulatory agencies
• Compliance (OIG, OSHA, HIPAA)
• ERISA and CLIA
• State Health Department
• Debt collection agencies
• Debt collection laws
• State insurance laws
• Medicare/Medicaid
• Tricare rules
• Auto accident cases
• Workers compensation cases
• Court procedures
• Medico-legal examinations
• Consent and informed decision making
• Patient dissatisfaction
• Ineffective appointment systems
• Misplaced patient records
• Unproven and alternate therapies

and

• Efficiency of written communications
• Security of office and computer systems
• Adequacy and security of patient records
• Quality of the equipment
• Safety of the practice
• Filing patents for new treatments

also

• staffing issues
• payroll disputes
• hiring and firing

Sometimes these tasks may be allocated to a specialist of the group who has the necessary skills and background, or an outside consultant.

Read: How medical assistants serve doctor's patients and save their bottom line.