What You Can Do to Increase Patient Volume in Your Private Practice

How do you get more patients into your practice? The answer certainly isn’t “by spending most of your time handling medical records and billing.”

A study from the Annals of Internal Medicine found that some physicians spend as little as 27% of their time with patients during the day.

The study also found that nearly 50% of the day is spent on desk work and non-clinical tasks.

Physicians typically spend 43 minutes per day on credentialing alone. Now think about all the administrative tasks you have to accomplish to keep your practice running. How long are you spending on all of them in one day? What does that add up to in a week, a month, or even a year?

The answer is: a lot of time that you'd rather be spending on your patients. All of that time is spent away from the patients in your clinic - and it’s eating up time you could be spending on new patients.

How to Increase Patient Volume in Your Private Practice

Of course, there are many things that need to come together to increase patient volume. These include effective medical practice marketing, streamlined operations, and maximizing patient satisfaction.

However, for many practice owners who are doing everything right, the secret to increasing patient volumes lies in the exorbitant amount of time spent on desk work. Outsourcing those administrative tasks (including credentialing, billing, and HR) can free up a surprising amount of time - which translates into more opportunities to treat patients in your practice.

How much time could you save? How many new patients could you take on? Of course, it will vary by practice. But you can use this patient volume calculator to get a close estimate.

Download the spreadsheet below to calculate the number of new patient opportunities hiding in your paperwork:

Get the Patient Volume Calculator 

Want to know more about practice management? Check out the resources below:

What is a physician practice management company?

Basic HIPAA compliance checklist

Background check tips for private practice owners