How Do Doctors Track Practice Performance?

Doctors can track practice performance by combining information from scheduling, EHR, billing, referral and administrative systems.

A simple reporting process begins with defining the areas that matter most.

For patient activity, track visits and patient volume.

For scheduling, review cancellations, no-shows, completed appointments and appointment utilization.

For referrals, monitor referral sources and the number of referred patients who progress to scheduled and completed appointments.

For financial performance, review charges, payments, collections and accounts receivable.

For billing operations, monitor claims and denials.

For provider performance, use clearly defined productivity measures appropriate to the specialty and practice model.

The information can then be organized into monthly reports or dashboards.

The important point is consistency. If definitions change from one report to another, physicians may have difficulty identifying genuine trends.

A reliable practice-performance report should make it easier to answer one question: What is happening in the practice, and where does action need to be taken?