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Here is a very simple way to look at how to raise your top line revenue.

1. Perform more services.

2. Perform new services.

3. Improve your coding.

4. Improve your collection rate (percentage of charges that is collected).

I recommend that as you grow revenue you keep checking the averages of other practices to see how you are doing. You can get that info from MGMA, a variety of consultants and possibly your CPA if he/she has a number of physicians as clients. Before I consult with a client that is what I do. I look for the one area of the above four that shows worst performance. Then I devise a plan to go to work on that. You need that kind of focus to get the best results.

David Zahaluk, MD is a revenue enhancement specialist for doctors and the author of “The Ultimate Practice Building Book.”

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Look, in business everyone has a boss. If you’re self-employed the boss happens to be your patients and your cashflow. Why does everyone have a boss? Because other people (if they are the right people) can get more out of you. If you ran a Fortune 500 company, you would report to the board of directors. All your plans and their implementation would have to be checked and recheked with them. Running a small independent practice can be a huge problem if you are not regularly making yourself accountable to the numbers and the patient surveys. You need a check mechanism to protect you from your bad decisions or

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inability to make decisions.

Jim Collins says, people first then processes. Collins says get the right people on your team, the wrong people off your team, then get the right people in the right positions and then implement your strategy. He’s right.

David Zahaluk, MD is a revenue enhancement specialist for doctors and the author of “The Ultimate Practice Building Book.”

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From all of us at UPB, have a safe and happy New Year. It’s now 2012, I hope those Mayans were wrong!

And please don’t drink and drive, it’s not cool.

David Zahaluk, MD is a Dallas-based practice optimization expert and the author of The Ultimate Practice Building Book.  His firm, Ultimate Practice Builder, takes physicians to the top 10% of their specialty – in income, time off and quality indicators - within 3 years… guaranteed.  Learn more at www.UltimatePracticeBuilder.com.

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From all of us at UPB, have a Merry, Merry Christmas.

And please don’t drink and drive, it’s not cool.

David Zahaluk, MD is a Dallas-based practice optimization expert and the author of The Ultimate Practice Building Book.  His firm, Ultimate Practice Builder, takes physicians to the top 10% of their specialty – in income, time off and quality indicators - within 3 years… guaranteed.  Learn more at www.UltimatePracticeBuilder.com.

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Also, where is there growth in your practice? Are there more cash pay patients, more with higher reimbursed insurances (top 50%) or more with lower reimbursed insurances (bottom 50%). Think of it this way. Your practice is like a garden. Are you growing more weeds or flowers?

David Zahaluk, MD is a Dallas-based practice optimization expert and the author of The Ultimate Practice Building Book.  His firm, Ultimate Practice Builder, takes physicians to the top 10% of their specialty – in income, time off and quality indicators - within 3 years… guaranteed.  Learn more at www.UltimatePracticeBuilder.com.

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David Zahaluk, MD is a Dallas-based practice optimization expert and the author of The Ultimate Practice Building Book.  His firm, Ultimate Practice Builder, takes physicians to the top 10% of their specialty – in income, time off and quality indicators - within 3 years… guaranteed.  Learn more at www.UltimatePracticeBuilder.com.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

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Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving. Go Detroit Lions!

David Zahaluk, MD is a Dallas-based practice optimization expert and the author of The Ultimate Practice Building Book.  His firm, Ultimate Practice Builder, takes physicians to the top 10% of their specialty – in income, time off and quality indicators - within 3 years… guaranteed.  Learn more at www.UltimatePracticeBuilder.com.

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I have a simple idea to put forward. Your reality is your representation of the events of your life so far. You make projections about your future based on your beliefs right now. But the whole of your life hasn’t played out yet.  When he was in his early 20′s Billy Joel was suicidal. He was sick and tired of playing in piano bars around New York for a bunch of drunks and he felt that he would never become famous or successful. On top of that he met the love of his life and she dumped him. Now he thought he would never ever win the love of anyone nearly as beautiful as her.

So Billy checked himself into a mental institution. That was his wake up call. The problems Billy thought were so unbearable were nothing compared to what everyone else there had. Billy actually began to feel grateful that he was relatively healthy and highly functioning. So he left and rededicated himself to his music. The rest is history.

Whether or not you are happy or not depends on (1)

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what you focus on about your life and (2) the meaning you attach to that.

Decide to be happy. If you can’t be happy, what else is there?

David Zahaluk, MD is a Dallas-based practice optimization expert and the author of The Ultimate Practice Building Book.  His firm, Ultimate Practice Builder, takes physicians to the top 10% of their specialty – in income, time off and quality indicators - within 3 years… guaranteed.  Learn more at www.UltimatePracticeBuilder.com.

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One of your main jobs is to continually set higher and higher standards for your practice. No matter how good you already are keep asking yourself, “how can I make this better”? Keep setting higher standards until everyone who touches your practices would like to work in it.

David Zahaluk, MD is a Dallas-based practice optimization expert and the author of The Ultimate Practice Building Book. His firm, Ultimate Practice Builder, takes physicians to the top 10% of their specialty – in income, time off and quality indicators – within 3 years… guaranteed. Learn more at www.UltimatePracticeBuilder.com.

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Have a happy, fun, scary, playful, outrageous, safe, but not too safe Hallowe’en.

David Zahaluk, MD is a Dallas-based practice optimization expert and the author of The Ultimate Practice Building Book.  His firm, Ultimate Practice Builder, takes physicians to the top 10% of their specialty – in income, time off and quality indicators - within 3 years… guaranteed.  Learn more at www.UltimatePracticeBuilder.com.

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