The end of the week and Jan-Feb analysis

Friday ended.

It was definitely not thursday. Had 6 patients thru the office.

One gentlemen came in for his wellness physical. With my open scheduling, he called yesterday, and we performed the exam today. Spent about one hour with him, performed an ekg, spirometry, reviewed labs, full exam, and chit-chatted about other things. It's called having time to get to know your patient's, building trust and loyalty, and being a true family physician.

Ended up with 46 patients for the week. It would be nice to have them spread evenly throughout the week, but now that would not be realistic, would it?

I have some numbers for the first 2 months of 2009 for analysis:

400 total patient encounters

154 selfpay ---- avg $77 per encounter
152 in wellness plan---- avg $126 per encounter
94 Medicare---- avg $85 per encounter

An encounter is any patient that is in the office to see myself or the medical assistant, even if just for venipuncture, a B12 shot, or quick nurse vitals. If they were seen and paid something, it counts as an encounter.

So the selfpay and medicare $/encounter underestimate the avg amount that physician visits would generate.

The wellness plan average may decrease if I fail to continue to enroll new patients in the program, but will stay the same or increase if my marketing and other word of mouth generates a buzz.

If you still take insurance, let me know what your average $/encounter is with your payers for comparison. Also we should calculate the extra overhead involved in collections, and the third party bureaucratic machine. My way is not for everyone, but it is a nice way to do business and provide medical care.

Oh, and by the way, my patients all call me doctor, not provider!!

I found the definition of provider in the new AMA dictionary.

provider: an evil word that came from the third party intruders when they took over healthcare. The dumbing down of physicians who provide care while chaining themselves to bad contracts.

DoctorSH