Mental health professionals ask consultants to show them how to save money in your behavioral health practice. Consultants can run a financial assessment to see where the most significant expenditures are present. It’s essential to look at several aspects of the business. Once you determine the vital concerns, tighten loose ends and increase your bottom line.
Mental health treatment is an essential service. The demand for mental health services is up due to public service advertisements breaking the stigma. The difficulty lies in cutting costs while maintaining excellent patient satisfaction. So, where do you begin when you want to know how to save money in your behavioral health practice? The main expenditures are staff, equipment, and supplies. Let’s take a look at those factors.
Examining Cost-Saving Factors in Staffing
Don’t fire everyone thinking you are over-staffed. Cost cutting can be applied through training, minimizing overtime, staff retention, and recognition programs. Educating staff on these vital components is crucial. In addition, training for efficient workflows can reduce overtime and keep the team happier with their jobs. Finally, happy staff means greater retention of staff, which is how to save money in your behavioral health practice.
Human resource research indicates that forty percent of employees who were never appropriately trained upon hire quit within their first twelve months. In addition, a very high percentage of employees felt more confident in their employers if they received the supportive training they needed to perform their jobs. Maintaining a positive, healthy environment is another proven factor in how to save money in your behavioral health practice.
Providing wellness activities for employees saves money in keeping healthcare premiums as low as possible. In addition, engaging employees in well-established wellness activities can change the tier level of benefits to save the practice money. This assessment shows how to save money in your behavioral health practice and reduce healthcare benefit costs by ten to twenty percent.
Lastly, in how to save money in your behavioral health practice through monitoring staffing factors, recognition is worth its weight in gold. Offering praise and gratitude to employees who go the extra mile to increase efficiency in workflows can increase retention percentages high. For example, providing ideas for safety measures or showing outstanding leadership qualities, thus saving the practice money, can lead to better employee engagement. Strength in character, work ethic, and flexibility can still pay off; it’s time to let the team feel there’s a reason for their efforts.
Examining Cost-Saving Factors in Equipment Costs
Behavioral health practices need a dependable, efficient EMR (electronic medical records) for billing patients. Cloud-based vendors are available for a lower cost than hooking into major EMR Systems. As a result, billing costs can be decreased, and billing staff can streamline their duties. How to save money in your behavioral health practice by assessing equipment costs begins here.
This aspect ties into the need for additional staff training. Billing staff needs to be educated continually to coincide with coding and diagnosis changes, insurance requirement changes, decrease denials and increase revenue. In addition, provider education on correct coding and diagnosing will show them how to save money in your behavioral health practice by using proper charges to bill out.
Equipment sharing with neighboring offices in the complex or the building is how to save money in your behavioral health practice on equipment costs. For example, renting copy machines, printers, and other small office equipment can be expensive, but sharing with several providers is cost-saving. In addition, online fax options, call forwarding, and chat applications for interoffice use will reduce costs.
Cost-Saving Alternatives for Business Supplies
Stop using so much paper and use only one vendor for all supply needs. Do not print out reports. Negotiating the cost of products you use regularly will save costs. Also, stop sending paper informational information to patients. Instead, check the post office for the best business rates for mailing statements to determine if a statement service will save money. Every expenditure needs to be reviewed to see how to save money in your behavioral health practice.
Saving money can lead you to take a minimalist approach to the practice environment. Do not overstock supplies. Availability of products is immediate in most areas; the order arrives the next day. No sense in keeping hundreds of dollars of supplies in a closet! Productivity is not affected by utilizing these protocols.
Utilize the Knowledge of a Healthcare Consultant
Of course, saving money in every aspect of your behavioral health practice is good. Time is often valuable for providers in a busy office. If the cost-saving methodology is just beyond your reach for lack of time, a professional healthcare consultant can show you how to save money in your behavioral health practice. These professionals have streamlined assessments to point out changes and how to implement them quickly. Don’t feel like a failure if you don’t have the time to handle this project.
Find Help to Pinpoint Cost-Saving Mechanisms in your Behavioral Health Practice in Florida
If you need to implement cost-saving methods in your behavioral health practice, Bloom Consulting in South Florida can help you now. The time is now to make an upturn in revenue by saving money throughout your practice. Talk to the professionals with Bloom today and make an appointment to become educated and engaged with your new financial goals. We are here to help make the process work for you.
