Medical Billing Forum

General Category => General Questions => : dfranklin May 30, 2009, 06:20:14 PM

: How Many Accounts/Practices?
: dfranklin May 30, 2009, 06:20:14 PM
How many accounts or practices typically can 1 person handle by themselves on a full time basis?  I know it will depend on the type of practice and size (how many physicians) but lets just say small, solo practice that is mainstream...like mental health, chiro (the typical practice a newbie is more then likely to get).
: Re: How Many Accounts/Practices?
: Michele May 31, 2009, 12:21:51 AM
I find that the smaller solo doc accounts, chiro or mental health, take about 1 1/2 to 2 hours per week.  So if you were to work a 40 hour week you could feasibly handle about 20 - 28 accounts.

Michele
: Re: How Many Accounts/Practices?
: PMRNC May 31, 2009, 01:07:17 PM
I wouldn't lump all small solo mental health practices in that loop.. most of the small ones i had supplemented their income with other means of revenue such as nursing home visits, prison visits, court testimony's, forensic evaluations, and more..
while the psychiatrists could easily rake in a nice living doing all med managements and eval's without breaking a sweat..LOL
I spent a lot more than 2 hours on my psychologists, actually they were a lot of work. I had a solo pediatrician who saw about 15-20 patient's a day and worked 6 days a week plus hospital rounds, he kept me pretty busy too.
I just don't think you can really determine how many accounts one person can handle at a time, there are just too many variables. I know a billing company who like me planned to keep going w/out hiring and she handled 40 accounts (chiro, and pt) all by herself, but she also worked 7 days a week, took no vacations and was up till the wee hours of the morning.
She didn't mind..she still doesn't. She has just adapted and enjoys it, she's not taken on any new accounts in a few years but now also does seminars in the mid west ... my point is that you choose to grow or not and handle things as you go.
You should have some sort of goal in mind about growing your business. It's also better to be prepared in other ways as well. I know billing companies that start out with the cheap software and later on learn the hard way it was better to start off with a good one rather than lose time with a conversion (big headache.. I did it a few times)

: Re: How Many Accounts/Practices?
: Michele June 01, 2009, 10:09:27 PM
Linda is right, there are a lot of variables.  I was generalizing, to an extreme.  I figured it would give you an idea of what one person can handle, but Linda is correct in saying that even small solo practitioners vary greatly.  We have one small Chiro working alone who generates 5 times what another of my small chiro's who works alone generates in approx the same work time.  First thought is he must be quick and not take time with his patients, but that's not true.  His patients love him and he's very thorough.  The problem is the other chiro is anal (I hate that word but it describes perfectly) about everything and sees many less patients.  They also are less personable.  Anyway, the point is even small solo docs of the same specialty can vary greatly, I was just trying to give a general idea. :)

Michele