When you’ve started your own practice, you soon realise that running a practice smoothly requires much more business admin and acumen than med school ever prepared you for. That’s why it’s important to consider utilising the services of the best practice management bureaus for your practice needs.
Practice admin typically includes, but is not limited to, the following:
Booking patients:
- Scheduling appointments.
- Calendar integration.
- Data-capturing.
- Indemnity and consent forms.
- Privacy and security measures.
The consultation:
- Clinical note-keeping.
- Electronic health records.
- Investigations (pathology and radiology).
- Keeping track of all results.
- Referrals to and from other healthcare professionals.
- Sick note generation.
- Prescription generation.
- Dispensing (where applicable).
Billing and getting paid:
- Invoice generation.
- Consultation coding.
- ICD 10 coding.
- Procedure and material coding.
- Medical aid claims submission.
- Switching (checking medical aid status in real-time).
Practice finances & accounting:
- Dispensary management (where applicable).
- Transaction reconciliation/remittance.
- Financial reports.
- Accounting and auditing.
- Oh, and don’t forget business taxes…
Being a doctor, the Consultation step probably looks nice and familiar. But what about the others? A chair with only one leg is bound to topple over, and in the same way a practice needs all its processes to work properly to be successful.
For this reason we want to empower you with information about the best practice management bureaus in South Africa that can assist you with starting and running your private practice successfully.
So What Is A Practice Management Bureau?
A Practice Management Bureau (PMB) is a company that manages all the business aspects of a private practice.
Practice Management Bureaus (PMB), also known as medical practice management companies, are organizations that provide a range of services to help medical practices run more efficiently and effectively.
Below is an overview of some of the practice processes they typically manage:
- Practice registrations.
- Practice management software solutions.
- Human resources and staffing.
- Practice financial management.
- Marketing.
- Billing and coding.
- Chasing payments.
- Streamlining your practice processes.
- Accounting and auditing.
- Administrative support, etc.
Due to the broad scope of services they provide, these PMBs tend to partner with experts in the relevant fields. For example, they might partner with a specific accounting and auditing firm or Practice Management Software provider that they believe and trust to be the best for your specific practice needs.
And the best of all: they only get paid when your practice gets paid, posing the lowest risk to your practice and ensuring their best results. This ensures their ultimate investment in seeing your practice succeed!
Tip
It is very important that you choose the right Practice Management Bureau. Signing up with the right bureau can truly become a great financial asset to your practice while also taking a great load off your own shoulders.
Therefore, while it’s important to look at their efficiency and skill, it is equally important that you know you can trust and work well with the PMB you sign up with. After all, they will be running your practice with you!
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