- Do not acquire a dime of equipment you don’t intend to support with dedicated staff.
- Dedicated staff are not to have any other duties than one or two ancillaries. Laser focus works. No other duties bears repeating.
- Do not spend a dime marketing.
- Enhance your patient history with precise questions supporting medical necessity, which is absolutely sacred.
- All ancillary services require a dedicated room. More for larger practice volumes. HIPAA is THE concern in shared areas.
- Two kinds of ancillary services firms will approach you. You can spot both easily:
- Mercenaries are firstly money driven.
- Missionaries are firstly outcomes driven. Always pass on the former.
- Documentation makes or breaks you. Especially concerning medical necessity.
- A full grasp of successful coding also is critical. Know what works with certainty.
- Do not see patients on the same day as your exams. Exception: You May only if you lease space to outside firms with their own NPI.
- Volume matters. 50 plus patients daily is a minimum. Payor mix is surprisingly unimportant for most ancillaries.
- First add services that require little to no capital. Hiring outside specialty firms accomplishes this.
- Expect to successfully win regular recoupment attempts only with extremely accurate documentation. There is no gray area, no substitute.
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That’s it. There are 16 insurance reimbursable verticals that work. Cash pay services require wealthier patients living in top 10% income areas or wealthy demographics in your panel. Equipment salesmen are legendary for poor support and they’ll answer back 90% of docs aren’t smart about dedicated staff and space and attention to documentation . Both are right.
Ancillaries are the only long term viable solution to eliminate burnout and relentless financial pressures. They are the new model for delivering care your patients hunger for. Ignore them at your own peril.
