Over the past few months, I’ve posted some tips that I hope make it easier for you to correctly calculate a few key practice benchmarks (days in accounts receivable, net collections percentage , and accounts receivable greater than 90 days old ). There is one more benchmark, though, that I suspect is under-examined by many practices: the ratio of billing staff to providers.

It’s a difficult benchmark to discuss, because a practice’s size has a lot to do with it. A good ratio in a large practice is very different than one in a smaller practice — and understandably so. Larger practices not only achieve some economies of scale, but also tend to carve out employee responsibilities. While a large practice might have specified “coders,” “billers,” and maybe even a designated “Medicare specialist,” a smaller practice might rely on a single person to do it all in conjunction with other duties. Yet this ratio is still quite important.

In many practices, it’s viewed strictly as an “expense” indicator. However, I feel strongly that it’s also a significant overall gauge of your practice’s financial health. That’s because the lower your billing staff-to-provider ratio, the more consistent your revenue cycle tends to be. Read More ›