Amid a challenging economic climate and widespread healthcare staffing shortages, many urgent care clinics are dedicating a large percentage of their operational focus to finances. Yet true excellence beyond financial processes, including team culture, operational efficiency, and financial strategy.
Here’s what you need to know about investing in these three key areas, and why each is so important to the overall success of your urgent care clinic:
Cultivating a Positive Staff Culture
Today, urgent care clinic teams are increasingly experiencing stress and burnout as they manage high patient volumes amid staffing shortages and a challenging economic climate. Morale is low, with one study showing that 40% of healthcare workers plan to leave their positions by 2025.
Results from another study revealed that 62% of workers cited a toxic company culture as their leading reason for leaving the company. But unhappy staff does not need to be the status quo. Creating a positive work culture at your clinic should be a central focus in your efforts to achieve urgent care excellence.
Cultivating an environment where your staff feel supported and encouraged will help keep them motivated, engaged, and interested in their job. This type of team culture has numerous benefits — encouraging communication, increasing job satisfaction and employee retention, attracting skilled professionals to your clinic, reducing staff turnover, and facilitating the delivery of quality patient care. A positive employee culture also creates a welcoming environment that enhances patient satisfaction and improves the overall patient experience.
Unsure how to encourage a positive staff culture at your urgent care clinic? Make sure you’re creating an environment where—
- Employees have continuous opportunities to develop skills
- Training sessions are a norm, especially when it comes to new technologies
- You are investing in technologies that improve their workflow,
- Give consistent positive feedback to to recognize their wins and accomplishments.
Streamlining Operations for Efficiency
Operational efficiency is key for successful urgent care, as operations directly impact patient flow, wait times, patient care, and overall patient satisfaction. This is important because a quality patient experience encourages patient loyalty and satisfied patients are more likely to recommend your business to others.
Equally important, efficient operations have a huge influence on your urgent care facility’s financial health and long-term sustainability. Urgent care clinics can improve their bottom line and stay competitive in a challenging financial landscape by taking measures like:
- Leveraging technology to automate tasks and streamline workflows — such as paperless registration, electronic health records, and automated messages to remind patients about follow-up visits.
- Using technology to better manage patient flow.
- Training staff in ways that help eliminate administrative errors.
- Reducing and eliminating unnecessary costs and spending.
Financial Management for Increasing Urgent Care Revenue
For an urgent care clinic to be sustainable, remember that people, operations, and finances are all key. What works well at one urgent care may not work as well at another, so it’s important to maintain flexibility and pay attention to all sorts of indicators, like employee and patient feedback, revenue, patient volume, patient throughput, and more.
You’ll want to pay attention to key financial metrics, like cash flow, patient volume, patient satisfaction, and net revenue per visit. Here’s why these are so important:
Cash flow
Cash flow ensures your urgent care can cover all the important operational expenses that your business truly couldn’t function without, like medical supplies and equipment, technology costs, staff salaries, rent and utilities, and other operational expenses that allow you to deliver high-quality patient care. Cash flow also allows you to stay afloat through slow times and periods of business uncertainty.
Patient volume
A steady flow of patients ensures the financial sustainability and overall success of your urgent care operation. Maintaining a healthy patient volume can increase urgent care revenue, allowing you to establish operational efficiencies that impact the overall experience of your patients and employees. While it’s important to leverage all opportunities to attract new patients, it’s equally important to have systems in place that encourage existing patients to come back again and again.
Patient Satisfaction
When patients are satisfied with their experience at your urgent care, they’re likely to return in the future, as well as recommend your services to others. This helps your clinic develop a positive reputation, encourages a healthy patient volume, and can also improve employee morale and staff retention.
Net revenue per visit
Calculating the revenue generated through each patient visit offers important insight into your urgent care center’s operational efficiency and overall financial health. Beyond serving as an indicator of your financial performance, net revenue per visit also helps you identify when cost-saving measures are necessary and may help you identify areas for improvement across your business operations.
Keeping your finances in check is crucial Focus on a comprehensive approach that recognizes the relationship between a positive team culture, satisfied patients, streamlined operations, and financial success. With this type of approach, urgent care clinics can cultivate and sustain a work environment where staff thrive, patients receive high-quality care, and finances are secure.
Ready to elevate your revenue strategies? Check out Financial Fitness: 2024 Urgent Care Resolutions tips and strategies for urgent care excellence.
