How to Lower the Cost of Health Care
September 23, 2009
How can we make health care more affordable? How about cutting the cost of providing care?
My dad runs a micro-medical practice, where he’s a one man show (actually one man + one part-time woman since my mom helps out with office stuff some evenings).
His startup costs were pretty low since he bought most of his equipment used and his overhead is low since he doesn’t have a staff. He’s automated and optimized a lot that goes on in his office, using electronic medical records and digitzing everything that he can.
Since his costs are lower that means he doesn’t have to charge as much; which is important to him since his efforts are to provide care for underserved parts of the population. He’s a member of a group of doctors who are taking this approach to medicine. One of them recently sent out a list of ways that he keeps his cost down by using cheap or free technology across his practice. Here are some of the ways he lowers his cost of running his practice:
Patient Records
Practice Fusion – Electronic Health Record Software; free
Accounting
Office Ally – Billing; cheap
QuickBooks Simple Start – small-business accounting software; free download
FreshBooks – invoicing, time-tracking and expense service; free basic service
Information Technology
Adrive – : 50GB of online storage and backup for all file types; free basic service
Mozy – 2GB of online, data and remote backup solutions; free basic service
Jott – voice-to-text service for creating notes, lists, e-mails and text messages; free basic service.
LogMeIn – remotely support and access digital information; free basic service
YouSendIt – send files up to 2GB; free basic service
Security
BitDefender Online Scanner: virus scanners; free basic service
ZoneAlarm: firewall protection from hackers and threats; free basic service
Office Productivity
Google Calendar: shareable calendar and schedule organizer; free
Google Docs – collaborative word processor and spreadsheet applications; free
OpenOffice – open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets; free
Project Management/Collaboration
ProjectStat.us -project management solution and updates
Dimdim – open-source web conferencing application; free basic service
Marketing / Networking
Microsoft Office Live Small Business: create a company website, domain and e-mail; free basic service
Blogger – blog publishing tool; free
Entrepreneur Connect – Entrepreneur’s social networking site; free
LinkedIn: business social networking site; free
What do you think? Would you go a doctor that used technology to run a one person practice? What if it meant better rates or better access to your doctor?
All posts by Ben Edwards
Great post, All are the perfect ways to lower your health care cost.
Also if you get enough patients, the costs will decrease.
Ben,
Your father has the kind of Ideal Medical Practice that I and many other physicians are striving to achieve with the help of free and cheap technology to make the practice of medicine easier. One of the unstated benefits of running a medical practice this way is that the doctor has more time to spend with each patient since he/she doesn’t have to churn through 25-30 patients/day just to pay the salaries of the support staff. Thanks for bringing attention to this kind of medicine and for the technology advice. If your father isn’t already on the IMP Map (www.impmap.com), the online directory of ideal medical practices/micropractices, please have him contact me.
This kind of a practice, along with a philosophy of treatment that advocates lower cost through health improvements (lose weight, don’t smoke, exercise, etc.) is ideal.
I have made this kind of choice before. I chose a dentist that used computerized xrays rather than films.
Good luck to your folks in this endeavor.