A small medical clinic is booked solid, and new patients are calling every day to schedule more appointments. As soon as a slot opens, it’s filled.
That’s the dream, right?
The more clients you have, the better, because more clients equals more money.
But if you look at the numbers for this clinic at the end of each quarter, there’s a chance you could see flat revenue. There might even be some drops there, and that’s with the same number of patients.
What’s going on here?
Most business owners worry about losing customers, and while that’s definitely a valid concern, it’s no guarantee that you’ll be profitable.
Where the Money Slips Away
Let’s go back to that clinic again, which is fully booked for weeks.
The appointments are your first issue because it’s not unusual for a patient to cancel them 10 minutes before. And since it’s such short notice, there’s almost no way you could fill it, so it sits empty. Gone. Any money that the appointment could have generated is also gone, and you still need to pay the staff for it.
Unfortunately, that’s not the only leak.
Say a patient gets there 5 minutes late. No big deal, right? It could happen to anyone. The front desk checks them in, but the provider still starts 5 minutes after they should have. Then a phone call goes on for 2 minutes longer than planned, which means the next patient needs to wait longer for their appointment. If you look at each of these delays on its own, you don’t see a problem.
But if you put them all together, you can clearly see that they’re the cause for the clinic serving fewer patients that day because there was simply not enough time. And even if it’s just 2 patients less, that’s $200 or more less in your bank account.
Now imagine those numbers over the course of a quarter.
Another problem is when the staff does jobs they weren’t hired to do.
A medical assistant is a good example of this because many of them end up being part-time clerks, which is not why they were hired. They’re there to prep the patients, take vitals, and so on, so if they’re spending an hour of their time each day on insurance approvals, that’s money down the drain. Their time is expensive, and they shouldn’t be stuck on work that has low value.
So, what happens next? What do businesses do when things get tight?
Most of them panic and go for quick fixes, which is understandable.
They’ll pay their staff to stay late to catch up on paperwork, they’ll try their hardest to squeeze in an extra client or two into the schedule, they’ll hire temps, etc. That will keep the customers happy, but every single fix means extra cost, which shrinks revenue. The problem is that you won’t see any of this in your usual reports.
The customers are happy, there’s plenty of them, the reviews are fine, so on the surface, things look peachy. Under the surface, though, profit could be zero.
Why Strong Demand Could Still Have Weak Results
Low demand is a huge issue, which is why businesses pour a lot of money into making sure that doesn’t happen. But demand alone can’t pay bills, so what good is it having hundreds of appointments lined up if there’s not enough staff to handle them?
High demand is great, but delivery is what brings the money in.
The usual culprit for low revenue is bottlenecks you don’t even notice because they just don’t look too serious.
For example, your scheduling system might leave too much time in between appointments, or your hiring process takes 6 weeks. Neither of these will make demand lower, but you’ll complete fewer appointments than you could, and you’ll earn less money.
The biggest problem of all is that businesses don’t react to any of these seemingly small issues on time.
If you’ve just noticed that you’re seeing 5% less clients each week, a month or two may have already passed, and you’re never getting that money back.
Healthcare in particular can feel this because a restaurant can hire a cook in a few days, but a clinic that needs to replace a medical assistant?
That could take months, and that one person who’s missing from your team will slow down the whole system. Smart clinics turn to platforms like PracticeMatch for employers that specialize in medical staffing.
It’s not a magic wand, but it’s still a tremendous help, especially at times when every day without a full team means less revenue.
Conclusion
It’s strange to imagine that you could be drowning in clients and, at the same time, hardly make any money. High demand and loyal customers are the dream, but as important as that is, it’s not enough to make a business profitable.
The silver lining in all this is that, if you simply pay attention, you can notice what doesn’t work and fix it.
