Dear Business Muse:
What do you feel is the appropriate amount of time to spend on management issues in a practice? Provider – West Palm Beach, Fl
Dear Reader:
The answer has the nebulous sound of “it depends”. Lets start with some basic statistics. A recent survey by the Medical Practice Monitor in 2005 revealed that four out of five providers find it challenging to balance the roles of businessman and practitioner. Further the same 75% believe it will get harder over the next couple of years.
The same survey found that 66% of practitioners devote between 7-21 hours a week to business related tasks. If you add the time spent making decisions, referrals and documentation that are more medical-legal in nature you can easily rack up a whole lot of time that gains you little.
A recent Medical Economics survey found that approximately 66% felt they would be working harder or the same for the same type of remuneration they currently receive. In effect pay for services would probably decline, as would their buying power if income did not move with inflation. Twenty-five percent felt that they could find ways to be working smarter.
All I can speak to here are some generalities as to management time and practice. First, the size of the practice, numbers of personnel and providers will dictate some of the required time. Having said that I do not believe that any provider must spend 7-21 hours on management functions if the management area of the practice has the appropriate systems and reports in place that generate reliable reproducible information and accountable results. If set up properly and working with regular oversight one can create systems that give the data in a customized standard fashion. This is just one example of working smarter. The practitioner can then digest and make decisions from these reports in a fraction of the time previously spent. Likewise good management systems will create less errors and better tracking that can as well lead to a decrease in medical-legal risks.
Practitioners are now feeling the business pressures of “the practice” in the same way other professionals have. Unlike many practices in the legal profession, in healthcare practices there is no “managing partner” whose task is purely the business side of the practice. A good consultant, as a business coach, can ease the burden of the business aspects on those in the practice that shoulder the business responsibilities without the excessive additional expense of a full time person or associate. By creating and putting into place individualized management systems, the consultant can assure the providers time spent in management will itself become manageable.
