How Software Can Be Used to Help Urology Practice Owners Guide Strategic Decision-Making

Using the power of data to identify practice challenges and reveal areas of opportunity

Your business is undoubtedly collecting lots of data. But are you leveraging it to influence practice success? For urology practice owners, informed decision-making can be critical to long-term success. A range of challenges, including increased labor costs, staffing shortages and reduced reimbursements, can create urgency around the need to have greater visibility to practice data. Discovering the insights you need may be easier with practice management software that connects seamlessly with your EHR and Analytics.

Designed to seamlessly gather data points from all aspects of your business and allow you to review them from one dashboard, the combination of consistent data integrity from our Practice Management system and our user-friendly Analytics software can help you learn more about your practice and help you succeed. For more information, explore our all-in-one software suite for urology.

Design cost-control strategies

Cost control is paramount for urology practice owners. A recent Medical Economics survey revealed that a staggering 66% of practices identified higher overhead costs as a primary cause of financial struggles. When fixed overhead goes up, every dollar becomes even more valuable, making meticulous financial management a high priority.

Integrated practice management software can help you discover opportunities for more precise cost control. If your practice management system and analytics can harness data from every facet of your practice, you can create robust reports for analysis. These reports may include information from medical billing, scheduling, office flow management and patient engagement tools. You can use them to develop key performance indicators (KPIs) and financial benchmarks.

It’s valuable to have this practice management data integrate seamlessly with your analytics, too. With disconnected systems, you risk losing or having outdated data. These gaps may lead to lower-quality insights that could prevent you from seeing an accurate picture of your practice’s financial health.

Software that surfaces data in near real-time can help urology practice owners make informed choices that are aligned with the best interests of their practice. This could further lead to increased financial stability and success.

Allocate staff for efficiency

Addressing staff shortages may present a major challenge for urology practices. Currently, urology practice owners may be experiencing the squeeze. According to the American Urological Association (AUA), the United States had only 3.89 urologists per 100,000 people in 2018. That represents a significant shortage already. Additionally, the healthcare field, including urology, may be hit by a wave of retirement soon.

The trend may not reverse in the coming years. McKinsey & Company estimates that by 2025, there may be a gap of 200,000 to 450,000 registered nurses and 50,000 to 80,000 doctors across all healthcare. These figures would represent 10%–20% and 6%–10% of those workforces, respectively. As a result of lower labor supply, labor costs may end up outpacing inflation. That means urology practice owners may need to maximize staff productivity as much as possible.

One way to do this is by providing staff with software that makes their jobs easier. You can help provide support to busy staff by automating key tasks, quickly surfacing information and streamlining recordkeeping. Additionally, your practice management solution may help you reduce wasted effort by centralizing communications in one place. This reclaimed time and energy may translate to less burnout and greater productivity.

But for decision-makers and leaders, your practice data can point the way to greater efficiency. An all-in-one solution may help you make improvements to staff allocation.

With an integrated practice management and analytics solution, you can review real-time data from across roles and locations to discover opportunities to make these improvements. For example, you may want to track wait times by provider, how long it takes individuals to close documentation, or metrics related to provider-staff collaboration.

With this information, you may be more equipped to decide how to train, reorganize or promote staff. And by discovering ways to extend staff capabilities, you may be able to assign tasks and workloads more effectively.

Prioritize bill collection efforts

Streamlined payment collection efforts may help urology practices maintain financial stability, but billing department stakeholders need the right tools to inform their decisions. Practice management software may help provide visibility into which bills need to be addressed first. This may be especially important when healthcare reimbursement trends shift, because changes in reimbursements may impact a practice’s cash flow. Additionally, aging accounts may present a higher risk of loss. When your team can identify overdue payments, they can take proactive steps to address priority collections promptly.

With robust analytics, practices can also visualize charges, payments and adjustments by payer group to identify strategic opportunities. KPI monitoring may allow decision-makers to detect potential revenue gaps early in billing cycles and take action to prevent a downturn. These steps can help billers collect on a high volume of bills at once, helping to increase staff productivity at the same time. You may be able to further streamline bill collection by connecting practice management software with a payment system as part of an all-in-one solution. Integrated practice management systems may also use automation related to payment collection, including auto-posting and auto-allocation, to help speed up the process.

See how Practice Management may help your practice

Explore how the right software may help inform easier, more effective decisions at your urology practice. ModMed^Ⓡ tools are designed to integrate with our specialty-specific urology EHR for an all-in-one system that supports your operational and financial stability, and growth. See for yourself. Reach out to book a demo.

See for yourself! Reach out to book a demo.

This blog is intended for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or medical advice. Please consult with your legal counsel and other qualified advisors to ensure compliance with applicable laws, regulations, and standards.

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