Mitigate These 3 Risk Factors In Your Healthcare To Avoid Business Failure In The Market

The healthcare ecosystem throughout the world faces many challenges. Healthcare providers, physicians, Independent Diagnostic Testing Facilities (IDTFs) and healthcare systems of public, private, and government sectors have to struggle with many challenges. On one end, the healthcare organizations and healthcare providers are struggling to enhance the patient experience, increase patient satisfaction, reduce their operation costs, and make an efficient and accurate diagnosis and treatment of patients. On the other end, there many lives whose hopes and struggles entirely depend on how effective and efficient healthcare companies are able to deal with healthcare challenges and deliver better medical care.

Patients are demanding good experience in hospitals and other healthcare providers while also seeking increased satisfaction. If you run a private clinic and you don’t live up to great patient experience and satisfaction, you are likely to encounter a low number of patients. The patients will abandon your clinic and head to your competitor. Also, if you cannot manage your cash flows and your operational costs are ballooning, you could easily find yourself exiting the market.

Healthcare providers including physicians and clinicians and other medical organizations need to seek technological innovations that will help them enhance their operations, attain great patient experience, ensure patient satisfaction, manage their cash flows, and improve profitability. Now, let’s look at three risk factors that healthcare providers need to avoid so that they keep their business thriving in the market.

1.      Inaccurate Diagnosis and Misdiagnosis

Medical misdiagnosis occurring in the form of inaccurate, delayed, and late diagnoses are ongoing problems in healthcare organizations or providers. Misdiagnosis too often leads to serious harm to patients; it also results in life-threatening situations or even death of patients and permanent disability. Effective treatment of patients depends upon an effective and accurate diagnosis. If misdiagnosis occurs, it can lead to inappropriate and unnecessary testing like biopsies and treatments likely to cause harm to a patient. Not only does misdiagnosis lead to significant costs among the patients and their families but also the healthcare providers and organizations.

Clinicians, physicians, hospitals, and other healthcare companies and organizations often find themselves trapped in problems that could force them to go out of business. Think of a situation where a doctor misdiagnoses a patient and they suffer harm. The patient can sue the doctor or the clinic for the damage. This can lead to huge losses in lawsuits and compensation. While there are insurance products that can take care of such misfortunes, often the insurers will impose higher premiums to such a clinic. Again, the clinic has a bad image which could lead to a reduction in patients seeking treatment. In the end, the clinic could find itself unable to continue operating and it closes down its operations.

Similarly, when Independent Diagnostic Testing Facilities (IDTFs) and healthcare providers fail to provide testing results in time, it can delay the diagnosis of a patient. This can result in a loss of time as the patient waits for the results. Often, patients want doctors and physicians to be able to diagnose them quickly so that they get timely treatment. Such delays can result in reduced patient experience and dissatisfaction. A dissatisfied patient will talk about their experience with the doctor, clinic, or healthcare provider to other patients, family members, or even work colleagues. Your healthcare company loses business because patients will prefer going to other healthcare providers.

2.      Improper Revenue Cycle Management

Your healthcare company or organization may have problems with revenue management. One of the areas of healthcare organization’s revenue cycle that see challenges are - coding and billing. Medical coding and billing are very crucial for a healthcare organization. It requires extreme caution because it has a direct relationship with the practice’s income. Many claims paid to tend to be incorrect and healthcare organizations bear the loss.

Healthcare organizations also experience the problem of maintaining consistent cash flow. Consistent cash flow mirrors the financial health of a healthcare organization. Medical facilities need to take measures to help increase their collections and enhance cash flow. If a medical provider cannot manage their revenue, it may result in a shortage of cash. This may impair operations and the facility may not be able to continue running. Besides, increasing costs of operations and nose-diving income can result in losses. A medical organization may soon find itself without cash to operate. A negative balance sheet would mean the health company will soon be on its knees and it closes down.  

3.      Poor Patient Care Experience and Satisfaction

When patients have a bad experience with your medical organization or they are dissatisfied, it can lead to many problems. Your medical facility relies on the patients it receives. Many things will make patients be dissatisfied.

If patients are not getting quality health care, they will be dissatisfied. Quality healthcare means a quick and timely diagnosis, accurate diagnosis, effective treatment, support from the healthcare staff and other things. If a patient calls a clinic and there is no one to pick up their call – what do you expect that patient to feel?

Today, patients are demanding to have the same level and kind of experience from medical organizations as that they get from other brands like retail stores. Also, a patient may express poor healthcare patient experience if they encounter increased wait time within the waiting room or if they wait too long for doctors to do tests or the test results take too long to present. A bad experience and dissatisfaction of patients can send a medical clinic or organization packing.

How To Mitigate The Risks

Healthcare organizations need to provide patient-centric healthcare in order to ensure that they enhance patient satisfaction and foster good patient care experience. The medical organizations need to employ technological innovations that help reduce patient care dissatisfaction. For instance, when the medical facilities use technologies that help provide accurate and fast diagnosis, it helps reduce the wait time. This way, a patient is able to get results of their test fast and the doctor can use the results to offer treatment in time. Again, accurate diagnosis allows patients to receive the right treatment.

When it comes to medical revenue cycle management, healthcare providers should employ tools and technologies that allow accurate and timely billing and collections. A medical organization can work with a partner that offers technical know-how, smart technology, and deep knowledge to enhance cash-flows. Healthcare providers and medical facilities need to seek revenue cycle management services (RCM) as well as medical billing services in order to help drive growth.  These services help offer a healthy, profitable, as well as thriving medical practice.

Conclusion

Healthcare providers are under pressure to ensure patient-centered care and at the same time they want to keep their cash flow at high levels and reduce costs of operations. Healthcare providers need to get solutions that create efficient, cost-effective, patient-centric healthcare practices. They also need to have a business model that allows their business to work productively.  By seeking the right technology solutions and expertise, a healthcare organization can operate profitably while ensuring patient satisfaction and improved patient experience.