Best Practice Management Bureaus

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

1. Scheduling appointments.
2. Calendar integration.
3. Data-capturing.
4. Indemnity and consent forms.
5. Privacy and security measures.

Billing and getting paid

1. Invoice generation.
2. Consultation coding.
3. ICD 10 coding.
4. Procedure and material coding.
5. Medical aid claims submission.
6. Switching (checking medical aid status in real-time).

The consultation

1. Clinical notes.
2. Electronic health records.
3. Investigations (pathology and radiology).
4. Keeping track of all results.
5. Referrals to and from other healthcare professionals.
6. Sick note generation.
7. Prescription generation.
8. Dispensing (where applicable).

Practice finances & accounting

1. Dispensary management (where applicable).
2. Transaction reconciliation/remittance.
3. Financial reports.
4. Accounting and auditing.
5. 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.

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!

How can a Practice Management Bureau help my practice?

PMB’s work to help medical practices operate more efficiently and increase revenue, so that the doctors and staff can focus on providing patients with the best clinical management and care.

As we mentioned on our How To Start A Private Practice and How To Manage A Private Practice pages, there are a few important processes that play a role in making sure that the practice achieves succes in that its income growingly exceeds its expenses.

Below are some of the most important (but not exclusive) factors contributing to a successful practice:

1. Consulting patients.

- What you were trained to do:
  - Manage your time to best manage your patients.
  - Stay up-to-date and continually upgrade your skill.
  - Have good bedside manners.
  - Invest in managing your patients to the best of your ability.
- What your Practice Management Software can do:
  - Reduce missed appointments.
- What your Practice Management Bureau can do:
  - Increase your patient basis through marketing.
  - Think of creative ways to streamline the consultation process.

2. Getting paid for those consultations.

- What you can do:
  - Use the correct consultation and procedural codes.
- What your Practice Management Software can do:
  - Process claim submissions to the medical aids.
  - Provide real-time feedback about patient statuses and claim submissions.
- What your Practice Management Bureau can do (in both setting up and managing your practice):
  - Make sure your practice adheres to legal requirements.
  - Make sure you have the best practice management software to assist with streamlining all processes.]
  - Recruiting, hiring, and training of staff.
  - Set you up with the best point of payment system (POS).
  - Submit claims and chase unpaid claims from patients and medical aids (NB).
  - Regularly re-evaluate and streamline all the practice processes besides the consultation.
  - Assist with budgeting, accounting, and financial planning.
  - Regularly present and interpret your practice financial reports with you.
  - Help you get rid of bad debt.

So, a PMB can help your medical practice to operate more effectively and efficiently on the business front so that you can focus on point number 1 – the consultation.