Author Topic: How to expand  (Read 2264 times)

williamportor

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How to expand
« on: December 13, 2019, 05:36:13 AM »
After 5+ years in this business I've reached the point where I can no longer service additional clients by myself. I want to expand, but renting office space and hiring an employee would reduce my income a good deal, even with the addition of an another billing client. I know 3 clinics (1 optician and 2 chiropractors) that expressed interest in having me taking over their billing in the next few months, in addition, my little direct mail campaign + a referral or 2 every year has me working 45+ hours a week. Complicating this situation is age, at 64, I'm going to want to start reducing my hours in the years to come, so don't know if expansion is a smart idea. I feel I need to make a decision pretty soon. So - should I bite the financial bullet and open up an office of my own, rather than work from home, or is there better alternative? Any suggestions would be welcome.
« Last Edit: December 13, 2019, 05:48:00 AM by williamportor »

Michele

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Re: How to expand
« Reply #1 on: December 13, 2019, 04:11:32 PM »
Are you thinking of selling your business when you are ready to retire?  That would make a big impact on your decision.  For example, if you are thinking of selling, you could open an office, build up your business more, and then when ready to retire it will be worth more to sell.  You could even stay on possibly part time as a consultant to help them thru the transition.

I would also like to encourage you to look at your current day to day operations to see if you can streamline anything, or make something more efficient.  Sometimes we get stuck in a pattern of doing things and don't stop to look to see if maybe there is a better way to do it, or maybe something has changed and it could save time.

An example in our office is enrolling for as many ERAs as possible, even the small carriers.  Autoposting cuts down on data entry time considerably.  You may be able to identify some jobs that you do that take a lot of time, and find ways to streamline them a little.  It's amazing how much you can do to save time.

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williamportor

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Re: How to expand
« Reply #2 on: December 15, 2019, 02:17:59 PM »
No, I don't plan on selling the business anytime soon, but may reduce 1-2 of the more time consuming clients.

Great idea on the autopost era's. I'm going to start looking into that ASAP!!  :D

Deep

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Re: How to expand
« Reply #3 on: June 23, 2020, 11:24:02 PM »
No, I don't plan on selling the business anytime soon, but may reduce 1-2 of the more time consuming clients.

Great idea on the autopost era's. I'm going to start looking into that ASAP!!  :D

Hi William,

 :D I have a proposal for you for reducing clients. Please message me at me at my email/phone! It's important.

Much appreciated,

Sam Saini
(209) 219-9413
Sam@SafalSolution.com

tcsayles@ntcbilling.com

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Re: How to expand
« Reply #4 on: June 27, 2020, 11:58:54 AM »
Hi there.

Have you ever considered hiring someone remotely? Or do you need that person to be in the same city as you? The reason why I ask is I have just started out in this business, I am in the Tampa Bay area and my business partner is in the Boston area. Our goal is bring on doctors of certain specialties and connect them with certified billers we have hired that specialize in their field. And they can be remote. Because my partner and I both have teenage children, we still want to be at home supporting them, but also making money. And to that, I am just not sure that I would open up a brick and mortar when I could have certified billers and coders in other states that also want and need to work from home and could get the job done. It could be a pie in the sky dream for me, but right now I have at least 3 friends who are certified billers and one who is a sister of a really good friend, are waiting for me to pass along clients to them so they can start billing and be able to work from home. It's amazing, being new to this and sometimes not knowing what I am doing, how many of my friends either know billing or have a close friend or even family member that bill and code. :)

Hope that helped?
T.C.

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Re: How to expand
« Reply #4 on: June 27, 2020, 11:58:54 AM »

Michele

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Re: How to expand
« Reply #5 on: June 29, 2020, 10:39:10 AM »
We have always hired in house people.  We have an office manager and operations manager that both have the ability to work from home, but work in the office for the most part.  During COVID 19 we had our other workers work from home, but it wasn't productive.  A good amount of our work still comes in physically (at least from our local clients).  Also, our workers weren't accustomed to working from home and didn't have all of the stuff needed.  (Printer, scanner, etc)  Some of our accounts are long distance and we bill on their system.  In those cases it is possible to work completely remotely.  It really depends on your business model.  Will you be supplying the PM system?  Or will you be working out of the providers?  Is the system 100% online?  One of the PM systems we use is still server based which works great for us, but wouldn't work so well in a remote work situation. 

We started this business 25 years ago and I had my first child 18 months later, so I get why you are doing this.  My youngest child is 15, and my youngest grandchild is 4 months.  You may be able to make it work, just need to consider a few things when setting it up.   Good luck!
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kristin

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Re: How to expand
« Reply #6 on: July 17, 2020, 01:40:16 AM »
In addition to my regular job as a practice manager for a podiatry office, I also work remotely for two billing companies. One since 2012, and the other since 2014. Primarily, I do my work for these remote jobs on the weekends, with some work during the week as needed. Certain things need to be in place/available for remote employees, if that is the route you want to go:

1. They need to be VERY skilled in the work they do, and need little to no guidance, with appropriate availability for your clients.

2. The clients they bill for need to have billing software that is cloud-based, or can be remotely accessed.

3. They have to have a work space in their home that is compliant with HIPAA in all ways, as well as having the needed equipment/email access, etc. (have a scanner, have fax capability/access to online faxing, printer, encrypted email, etc).

So, do your potential remote employees have all of this? And if they do, what protocols do YOU have in place to monitor them? Such as an online time clock like TSheets that breaks down how much time they spend on certain tasks. Or Monday.com where they have to account for what they are doing each day. Or checking audit trails in billing/EMR software.

Here is an example from my own experience: One of the billing companies I work for hired a new "experienced" employee to do billings, to reduce my work load for a client. I was doing the billings at a certain rate, let's say 1 minute per billing. The new employee was doing them at 5 minutes per billing. Clearly, there was an issue with the new employee. Either they didn't know what they were doing, or they did, but were milking the clock. Who do you think is still working for the billing company?

Bottom line, if you hire remotely, be smart! Hire wisely, monitor them, make sure they are HIPAA compliant.






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Re: How to expand
« Reply #6 on: July 17, 2020, 01:40:16 AM »