Finances & Tracking

A health care provider’s office that is not part of a much larger organization or a franchise is becoming a rare entity in today’s economy. There are several factors playing into this, but understanding how to best navigate and take care of the basic challenges is essential. Financial errors can quickly compound and cause major stress, or worse. We’ll look at the macro items first. External pressures The largest external pressure by far is the transformation of the health insurance industry over the past 20 years. Prior to the advent of the PPO (Preferred Provider Organization), doctors of … [Read more...] about Financial Basics for the Independent Doctor

A recent report shows that we spend $2.5 trillion dollars per year on health care, by far the most per capita and in aggregate of any nation. So what fantastic effects are we getting for this investment? Our average life expectancy is 78.2 years, ranking us 38th in the world, comfortably between Cuba and Portugal. But, hey! At least we’re ahead of Albania! This aggregate spending figure is a rough estimate only, in my opinion. Many health care costs do not include “auxiliary” costs, and this can include pharmaceutical spending. I would think it would be hard to miss a $300 billion spend, … [Read more...] about Health Care Spending