Virtual Medical Offices - Increase Profits, Cut Costs, Improve Quality of LIfe

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION: The largest overhead expenses for a practice are related staffing/labor and building/property. These costs are increasing while reimbursements have not kept up with inflation. There is a national shortage of workers- medical assistants, audiologists, and skilled managers for medical practices. Practices struggle with hiring sufficient numbers of the right type of staff and developing the new hires to function at higher levels. Many practices have a patchwork approach and utilize different outsourcing solutions along with software platforms. Virtual medical offices (VMO) are a more cost effective online replication and extension of existing medical practices. A VMO creates flexible solutions to practice problems and allows for reduction in overhead while improving service and profitability. VMO's reduce the stress of office staff and free up management to tackle complex practice matters. The program will discuss the economics of building a virtual office. It will cover the costs, scopes of work, patient engagement, cultural concerns, and management. The VMO can be constructed to be part of shared virtual staffing resource pool that can serve as a profit center. The program will introduce contemporary and future business concepts for practices to consider.

OUTCOME OBJECTIVE 1: Participants will be able to examine their practice and identify work flows that could be augmented with a virtual office. Participants will be able to recognize deficiencies in work or staffing expertise and better learn how to manage employee growth.

OUTCOME OBJECTIVE 2: Participants will be able to better analyze the costs within their practice and implement strategies that limit growth in expenses while simultaneously improving work output with decreased office stress.

OUTCOME OBJECTIVE 3: Participants will be able to build new profit centers or improve profitability of existing business lines by integrating their physical office with an online office.

BACKGROUND STATEMENT: We have a demographic time bomb with not enough workers, an aging patient population, and aging physician/provider workforce. Virtual medical offices are part of the solution to lower costs, provide additional support staff to physical practices, and help physicians carry the burden.

Comprehensive Otolaryngology Track Statement : Not applicable