Many of your patients clip coupons or perhaps cut one of their streaming services to save money. Unfortunately, that’s not an option for you. If your physical therapy practice is going to widen its profit margins, you’re going to have to try some creative cost reduction measures.
But not to worry. Physical therapy business strategies are very much our thing. We have four ideas that may work for your PT practice — and a fifth idea (the last one) that will work.
Turn to a cash-based model.
You could jettison the insurers and tell your patients that you’ll only accept cash. In many ways, it’s the ultimate cost-reduction strategy.
The upside, of course, is that you can get paid what you deserve and not what the insurers decide your services are worth.
The downside, of course, is that a lot of patients are going to tell you that they want to stick with their insurance plan. This is why we’re not suggesting this as the only way you would want to receive compensation. That said, some PT practices do it. But you do risk limiting your growth if you only receive cash.
Still, you could consider offering a cash-based model along with accepting insurance payments.
Move your practice.
It won’t be practical for everyone, but if your lease is sky high, moving to a new building that’s less expensive but still in close enough proximity for your patients — that could be the answer. There would be a lot of moving costs involved, and moving is admittedly a hassle for employees and customers, but it may save you money in the long run.
Audit your expenses.
This is always a smart cost reduction idea. Just what are you spending your money on, and are you wasting money in the process? Maybe your billing software is sluggish or error-prone, and that ends up costing you revenue. Perhaps you’re spending too much on professional liability insurance and should shop around. Maybe during the audit, you will determine that your rent is too high — or that somebody has billing codes to insurers incorrectly.
The bottom line — it can pay to re-examine your costs and look for any expenses that could or should be trimmed back or accounting that isn’t being done properly. There may be, for instance, tax breaks that you aren’t taking advantage of.
Examine your staffing.
We’re not suggesting you let anyone go, especially if your staff are all talented, capable professionals. Because yes, you might save money, but that your staff is expendable is a lousy message to send, and besides, cutting personnel is probably going to hurt your business in the long run and not help it.
But examining your staffing — and what they’re doing and not doing — can be a useful cost reduction method. You may find that you get better outcomes from your employees with better training or more education or by changing certain duties. You might even find that you’ll save money in the long run by hiring new employees if a new member of your team brings a lot of value to your PT practice.
Like auditing your expenses, it’s never a bad idea to examine how your employees are working and if they’re using their time efficiently.
Network your business.
You could see that suggestion coming from a mile away, we’ll bet. But, yes, absolutely, we think investing in a Hands-On Diagnostics membership is the best way for a PT practice to save money, and perhaps more importantly, make more money. Sure, it’s an investment, but in the long run, your practice will earn far more revenue. Typically, a private physical therapy clinic that becomes a Hands-On Diagnostics PT member goes from billing $70 to $100 per patient’s session to $550 a session.
Here just a few reasons why working with Hands-On Diagnostics can improve your business’s financial health:
We’ll help you with your insurance billing. No need to turn to an all-cash model. When you become a Hands-On Diagnostics member, you not only get help with billing insurers quickly and efficiently, saving a lot of time (and saving time is saving money), you’ll also be offering diagnostics services in which the billing codes are far higher.
We’ll help you more efficiently treat your patients. That’s the bottom line here. Yes, it’s great to think about cost reduction plans, and you should strive to save money and make money. The better off financially that your practice is, the more people you can help. But as a Hands-On Diagnostics member, you’re going to be offering more services and superior ones.
For instance, the musculoskeletal ultrasound is safer for your patients (and staff) than utilizing a CT or an MRI since there is no radiation (it uses soundwaves to produce its pictures). It’s also less expensive, meaning that it’s less costly for a PT, but the billing code is still high. You’re going to simultaneously alleviate suffering and improve your cash flow.
We’ll help you attract more patients. When you’re offering diagnostics services, you can treat and diagnose far more than a conventional PT practice. You’re going to have far more family doctor practices and hospitals referring patients to your practice than you used to, and you’ll benefit from the marketing that Hands-On Diagnostics does.
This is a big reason why our members exist and do so well. Whether it comes down to choosing a medical provider or a place to eat lunch or fix your car, we all tend to gravitate toward trusted brands. Yes, many of us will happily go to a mom-and-pop restaurant or an independent bookstore, where the stakes are low. But when it comes to taking care of your body, people want to work with a name they can trust.
Hands-On Diagnostics is a trusted name. It has 150 clinics throughout 23 states, and as the brand grows bigger, that just makes it even easier to find new patients. This means you’ll spend less time (and money) marketing to reach new patients.
Look, running a PT clinic isn’t for the faint of heart. With the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recommending cutting current procedural terminology codes that are billed for physical therapy services by 9 percent in 2021, saving money and making money from your practice is getting even harder.
If the federal government keeps cutting away at everybody’s reimbursement costs, it’ll probably be easy to imagine a day where you do gather your staff around before office hours, and you say, “OK, you’re probably wondering why I’ve got these scissors and coupons on this table.”
But your cost reduction strategies don’t have to resort to desperate measures. Hands-On Diagnostics is designed so that its physical therapy clinics can treat patients better — while saving and making more money. Before you resort to clipping coupons or moving your office to save on your rent, we hope you’ll call us, so we can talk about how your physical therapy clinic can finally start saving and making money. The best cost reduction strategy starts with a phone call or email to Hands-On Diagnostics.
