The demands you must provide benefits to your staff, maintain he expenses of the office, and earn money for yourself can become difficult. Therefore, many doctors are searching for ways to make more money without the need to spend every minute of the day working.
Below are some easy to implement ideas that will increase your revenue with little investment, but with huge returns on those investments.
You worked hard to get to the place you are now. It is time you start seeing more reward from your efforts.
Online Services After Hours
Virtual services can include consultations, emergency refills and even a virtual diagnosis. All of these can be charged to the customer, adding income to your practice.
Virtual services allow you to meet with a patient from anywhere in the world, in real time. If you both have the technology capable of providing the audio or video you need, you can properly treat patients outside of your office and office hours.
Hire a Nurse Practitioner
A nurse practitioner can perform almost all the services you can and for a great fee that is paid by insurance companies. Hiring a nurse practitioner can quickly increase the number of patients you see each week. This will also increase your revenue each week.
After paying your nurse practitioner, you should still see a great profit for yourself.
In-Office Dispensing
Dispensing medication at the point of care provides huge benefits to your patients. It saves them time because they do not have to travel to a pharmacy. It can also prevent medication errors that are being seen today in pharmacies.
In-office dispensing also makes it much easier for you to monitor the health of your patients.
Dispensing in-office costs very little to set up but it has a large return on investment beginning in the first few months.
Dispensing Durable Medical Supplies and Equipment
Medical equipment and supplies include bandages, canes, crutches, toilet seats and any other item that can help your patient’s mobility and functioning.
Insurance companies pay for durable medical equipment and supplies. However, patients often choose to pay cash for these items. This means you can recoup your investment quicker than waiting for an insurance company’s reimbursement.
Allergy Therapy
Providing allergy therapy to patients is a very easy way for you to increase your income. A nurse can run the operation, leaving you free to see patients in your regular practice. Your investment would include medicines, proper storage for the medicines and a nurse who can administer the medication to patients.
Laboratory Services
Some patients complain they must travel from your office to a laboratory to have testing that could easily be done in your office. These are services that could greatly increase your income.
Laboratory services can include blood testing, DNA testing, sonograms, ultrasounds and x-rays, just to name a few. Our patients will be extremely happy they can receive these services at your office. And you will be happy to see a rise in revenue.
Urgent Care
Because patients often need your services after your office hours, providing urgent care services is a great way to satisfy their concerns without much investment.
Providing extended hours in the evening and on weekends can give you a huge boost in income. And this doesn’t mean extra work for you because nurses and nurse practitioners can run the urgent care.
Med Spa Treatments
Many men and women are seeking treatments to help fight the effects of aging. And doctors performing these services are seeing revenues jump. There are many types of treatments and procedures from which you can choose to offer.
Med spa treatments include laser treatments to improve the appearance of skin or remove moles and other skin blemishes. Treatments may also include wrinkle reducing techniques like fillers and injections. You can also provide lotions, creams and topical medicines to improve features such as eyelash extensions.
One treatment that offers the greatest return on investment is microblading. Other popular treatments are rejuvenation, chemical peels, acne therapies and cellulite removal.
Start a Weight Loss Program
The weight loss industry in general produces billions of dollars in profits for companies around the world. That’s because the American society has a problem with obesity that leads to diabetes and heart disease.
You are likely treating many patients who are overweight. Instead of just treating the problems of your patients, offer them a way to truly improve their health.
You could choose to offer weight loss medication that requires a prescription and monitor their weight loss each month. This also means multiple visits to your office, all of which can be billed to an insurance company or paid by the patient.
Other weight loss treatments you can provide include selling supplements, or even hiring a nutritionist who can develop meal and exercise plans with your patients.
This could also be an opportunity for you to create your own diet plan. You can recruit patients and track their progress, providing you with valuable research and results that could be published to help other physicians.
Get Started
There are some steps you can take to determine which ancillary services will be right for your practice. Start by looking at your patients’ files. Which services do you refer out the most? Most likely it is to the pharmacy to have a prescription filled.
You don’t have to eliminate sending patients to the pharmacy altogether. However, if you can provide the most commonly prescribed medicines to patients during their office visit, patient satisfaction will increase and so will the financial rewards.
In-office dispensing programs provide everything you need, from software to storage, so you can be prepared to dispense in less than a weekend.
This service is a great launching pad for adding more services later, especially selling equipment and supplies that help your patients have a higher quality of life.
Think outside the box when choosing a second- or third-income source. Match the services you find valuable and you will success.