Achieving the Ideal Medical Practice Model

The ideal medical practice model is one that improves efficiency, quality, and the doctor-patient relationship. It is one that consists of frequent reports to understand what is happening within the practice and its formation can sometimes depend on the help of a medical practice consultant who can give a fresh perspective on how the practice is operating and what needs to be done to improve it.

If you are like many primary care physicians, you are tired of the third parties that push and shove to the front of the medical care industry in ways that drive up costs and offer very little value. Productivity benchmarks, Pre-authorization requirements, competitive clinical guidelines, and payment for performance incentives are just some of the challenges that physicians face.

So what can you do to return the focus of control on the medical practice and make sure adequate compensation is received for the work?

The practice has to be redesigned to optimize efficiency and show that the physician can deliver superb care and also lower the cost of health care. The ideal medical practice models are those that can move physicians closer to their goals.

The Ideal Medical Practice

When a high level of technology is mixed with low overhead and excellent physician-patient relationships, you have an excellent medical practice. The goal of the model should be to enhance the doctor-patient relationship so that everything else will fall in place.

The ideal clinical practice model also reduces physician workloads, while increasing the face-to-face time that doctors have with their patients. Patients are also instilled with a sense of responsibility for their health so that wasted dollars can be cut from the system as a whole. Basically, the smallest functional work is optimized so that excellent care can be delivered.

Here are important elements for the ideal clinical medical practice:

•  Efficiency – The practice design and the technology that is used are efficient. The workflow is improved and this reduces staffing needs and enables the reduction of overhead. Because the overhead is reduced, the practice needs fewer patients to cover costs, which can increase doctor-patient time and patient satisfaction.
• Access – The ideal medical practice model improves the patient’s access to their physician. It is difficult on a patient when they have to wait a long period of time for an appointment, especially if they are ill and getting sicker. Same-day appointments and available over telephone or email increases patient satisfaction and health.
• Quality – The quality of a practice is measured through patient satisfaction. Surveys are a great way to find out how high the quality of the service is. Patient retention is another way to determine how well the physician is providing care. Having these reports generated can give an idea of quality and how to improve in certain areas. This means that the physician is getting to the root of what matters to the patient.
• Care coordination – Many patients are referred to specialists in order to obtain the care that they need. In fact, approximately 40 percent of patients between the ages of 50 and 69 are seeing specialists. It is very important that a physician is able to coordinate a patient’s care with the other doctors that the patient has been referred to. This ensures the best quality of life for a patient.

Aggressively Monitoring Care

The ideal medical practice model also aggressively standardizes and monitors referrals, as well as follows-up with other specialists. This shows how the physician’s job is not done with a patient after the referral or that the specialist is on his or her own when they receive a referral. Everyone must work together to ensure optimal health for each patient. By ensuring patients are as healthy as possible, even when living with conditions, the overall cost of healthcare can be reduced.  It is first reduced for the individual, which reduces costs as a whole.

If you are a physician with an existing practice that has been operating off of your own medical practice models, it is never too late for an overhaul so you can improve patient care and even relieve some of the burdens that are felt by the practice. This will result in the whole picture being better all around.

 

If you are ready to redesign your current practice or you are a new physician starting from scratch, you can establish the ideal medical practice model and reporting methods that will ensure your model remains intact. To learn more, call MD Pro Solutions at 508-946-1665 or fill out our contact form.