With today’s medical environment so reliant on complicated insurance company rules and intricate billing procedures, many doctors are looking for specialty medical practices that allow them to maintain their income levels while reducing paperwork. One such niche is a cash-only medical practice, which is basically a medical office that does not contract with insurance companies and instead requires patients to pay cash for medical services provided. Terminating their contracts with insurance companies and building a successful cash-only medical practice will likely take some time, and many physicians decide they need to have a gradual rather than an overnight turnaround from a cash-only medical practice. cash payment insurance. If a cash-based medical practice sounds like the type of office you’d like to run, it may be time to start doing some market research to find out if your practice has the potential to succeed:
* What is the condition of your local market? Does your local community have a large number of uninsured or low-income patients? If you run a medical practice in an affluent community, you may be able to establish a large panel of patients, even patients with insurance, who are willing to pay out-of-pocket for high-quality, efficient medical care. On the other hand, if your local community has many low- or middle-income residents with HMO plans, which do not provide any out-of-network benefits, you may have a hard time developing a cash-only practice.
* Would your current patients be willing to transition to a cash-pay medical practice? It’s a good idea to survey your current panel of patients to find out if they would be willing to continue using your medical services if you switched to a cash-only medical practice.
* Should you continue your contracts with the most lucrative insurance companies? Not all insurance companies negotiate unattractive prices with their contracting physicians, and not all insurance companies have unreasonable paperwork requirements. You can choose to work with two or three specific insurers, while requiring patients who do not use these companies to pay out-of-pocket for medical services. It’s your medical practice, which means you get to choose who to contract with.
* What medical services will you provide and how much will you charge for them? Some doctors find that they can see fewer patients with a cash-based medical practice, and also find that they can focus on the particular medical services they enjoy. You may decide to focus on acute medical care instead of chronic ailments, or you may decide to perform fewer diagnostic tests. Whatever services you decide to offer your cash-only patients, deciding how much to charge for them will require a bit of research. Ask other doctors, particularly other cash-only doctors, in your area how much they charge; there is nothing unethical about doing this as long as there is no discussion of collective rate setting. You may also want to consider how much your out-of-pocket medical practice will need to cover its overhead.