A Good Trend

Middle of June tends to be a slow time. Weather is getting warmer. Lots of graduations and proms. No one has time for their health. So its a good time to catch up on other work.
But no one told my patients about the middle of June.

Today I saw 14 patients.
1 new patient joined a wellness plan.
1 other joined himself and his wife into my wellness plan.

I have decided that patient's like to know they have a ceiling on their medical bills, at least in my office ;)

But I have had a good trend over the past 30 days that I hope bodes well for the future.

Over the past 30 days, of which I worked 17 days, I had 27 patients sign up for a wellness plan.
Stil nowhere near the 1000 I hope to eventually have, but:

Of the 27,

10 were renewals

3 were new members, but prior to were existing patients

and

14 were totally new to my practice

Of the totally new patients,
3 were referred by a local pharmacist,
3 from an acupuncturist
4 were referred by other patients
2 by my wife
and 2 from advertisements.

Most admitted to checking out my website before scheduling and joining.

So hopefully, marketing and word of mouth are starting to take hold. My practice can only grow by maintaining my existing patients, but as important, bringing in new!

Wellness Growth

I run a small solo and independent family practice office.

I took the initaive in 2008 to decontaminate my practice from the pests that make up third party insurers. I knew that initially I would take a hit, but that word of mouth would again grow my practice. I do not like to be out of control. That includes the growth of my patient base. As many who have been following this blog know, my practice consists of the following:

1. Wellness Plans- prepaid or yearly contracts with monthly auto-debits
2. Traditional Medicare
3. Self-pay with payment at time of service

As mentioned in previous posts, my expenses have gone down, my available time to spend with patient's has gone up, and being a doctor is once again enjoyable. But unmanaged growth can change that. My goal is not to build a huge practice with large staff and overhead expenses. Thus managed growth is the key and it appears to be happening without any further change in my practice style.

My goal is to have between 600-1000 active patient's in my practice. I would like to have 60-75% in my prepaid wellness plans. These plans allow my overhead expenses to remain low.

Comparing June 2008 to June 2009:

There is an increase of 19% in Wellness plan patient's.

20% of 2009 wellness patient's are totally new to my practice.

7% of 2009 wellness patient's switched from self-pay to this plan.

When I opened my practice in 1998, it took a few years for the word of mouth to make me busy. That appears to be happening now, but I am not looking to be "busy" with bureaucratic and government insurance regulations, but instead busy on direct patient care.

So far, I am on goal. I only hope that "Government healthcare reform" does not push me off course. That would be a bad thing for our profession and even worse for our patient's.

DoctorSH