Seven secrets for successfully managing your allied health practice

Running an Allied Health practice involves much more than just providing excellent healthcare services.

Like any other business, a successful allied health practice takes some management and administration skills.  You can easily learn how to manage your practice using these seven simple allied health practice management tips:

1.    Patient Experience Improvement.

As with any other business, it is important to focus on the customers’ experience.  Are you using the best customer relationship management (CRM) system?  A good CRM helps you keep track of all appointment notes, patient preferences, and cuts down paperwork so you can focus more on your patients.

2.    Improve Scheduling.

Proper scheduling is vital to running a clinic.  When done right, you can increase employee productivity and efficiency, receive more patients daily, and improve the patient experience.  A good scheduling system will save your clinic loads of time and money.  

3.    Appreciate your Employees.

The most important asset of any practice is its staff.  Healthcare workers are among the most likely group of professionals to suffer from work-related stress.  This negatively affects the well-being of your employees and reduces the quality of patient care.  

4.    Use Telemedicine.

We are utilising remote options in all aspects of our lives and health is no exception.  If you haven’t already, there are a multitude of reasons why you should provide these options to your practitioners and patients. Remote appointments give patients increased convenience and access to care without travel, reduce the risk of spreading infectious diseases like COVID-19, and can help reduce wait times and improve the overall efficiency of a clinic.

5.    Strengthen Security.

Health information is highly sensitive and confidential, so a data breach can be seriously damaging to your patients and the reputation of your practice.  The Privacy Act applies to all health practices, irrespective of size – don’t fall into the trap of thinking your business is too small, or that no one would be interested in it.  Check out our article on cybersecurity for allied health businesses, here.

6.    Use Practice Management Software.

A practice management system that can automate or simplify aspects of running a business such as billing, scheduling, inventory management, reporting, and CRM will greatly improve the everyday admin of your practice.  Splose, Power Diary, Cliniko, Nookal and Shiftcare are all great options to help solve clinic admin.  

7.    Audit Your Tools and Practices.

Our final allied health practice management tip is to audit the tools and practices of your clinic regularly.  You should evaluate what works well, what is obsolete, and what software solutions you should consider adding to your toolkit to ensure that your clinic is always improving its services.  

FOR MORE INFORMATION

If you would like to learn more about the topics discussed in this article, please contact your local Allied Health adviser.