In February 2024, athenahealth released the results of their third annual Physician Sentiment Survey, conducted by Harris Poll. The findings were both disturbing and (sadly) expected:
Financial pressures compound the strain: just 38% of surveyed physicians believe their practices are financially stable and less than half believe they have the resources to deliver quality care. And unfortunately, the recent Congressional measures to reduce Medicare Physician Fee Schedule cuts aren’t nearly enough to combat years of accelerating operating costs and declining reimbursements.
The administrative burden on physicians and Advanced Practice Providers (APPs) has steadily crept up over the years. Individual tasks (like logging into portals to submit continuing education documentation or answering patient messages from the EHR patient portal) may seem small – but they add up to result in hours of extra daily work.
Many practice administrators are unaware that they can monetize the work done by physicians, advanced practice providers, and clinical staff to care for their patients between visits. Most non-face-to-face care now qualifies for Medicare reimbursement under the Chronic Care Management (CCM) program.
Every practice handles between-visit care differently — but it’s likely a cost center.
We’ve worked with practices that have 5, 10, or more RNs or LPNs staffed to handle between-visit care — without receiving any reimbursement. And we’ve worked with others that have physicians handling between-visit care after hours — burning out their doctors in the process.
How much time has your practice spent on uncompensated between-visit care today?
How many clinical staff do you have?
10
20
How much of their day is spent on the activities above?
25%
30%
$500,000
$1,000,000
Annual cost of uncompensated between-visit care
$125,000
$300,000
The cost of uncompensated care by your clinical staff can be significant – and don’t forget that your physicians and APPs are also delivering uncompensated between-visit care.
Even relatively small amounts of time each day can really add up over a year – and result in significant costs to your practice.
Darshan has 15+ years experience co-founding and building high growth healthcare technology businesses committed to improving access to care and quality of care. More about Darshan…
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