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Successful practices place a premium on patient flow, physician productivity

The Medical Group Management Assn. releases data on the common traits of medical offices with high revenues and low expenses.

By Victoria Stagg Elliott — Posted Jan. 27, 2011

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Medical practices deemed "better performers" by the Medical Group Management Assn. are more likely than those that did not rank as high to measure physician performance. They are also more likely to benchmark these scores inside and outside the practice, according to a report issued Jan. 11 by the organization.

These practices are more likely to pay closer attention to maintaining an efficient flow of patients through the office than lower-performing groups, according to the MGMA.

"Patient flow is an absolutely critical piece of the process," said Todd Evenson, MGMA's assistant director of survey operations. "Reducing the time a patient is in the waiting room and in the procedure room ensures that your practice can be much more productive and has an opportunity to see as many patients as possible."

Data on 544 single and multispecialty practices with high revenues and low expenses were compared with 1,327 practices with low revenues and high expenses. Slightly more than 74% of the better-performing practices said they ensured that patients flowed well through their offices, while only 60% of other practices said the same. Just over 62% of the higher-ranked practices benchmarked physician quality and productivity, but 51% of other practices did.

Better-performing practices were more likely to allow accounting staff to have face-to-face contact with patients. The report's authors said this was key, because so many more patients are paying a greater proportion -- or even all -- of their health costs.

"That interaction with the patients has become important, because they have become the payer, and practices need to work out a plan for collecting the money," Evenson said.

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