The following analysis is based on one of our recent projects for a rather typical Sydney suburban general practice.
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The practice
- is located in a small shopping mall
- has been operating for 20+ years
- employs 5 full time equivalent GP's
- has 16,000 patient files
- 100 new patients visit every month
- offers limited service on Saturday mornings,
otherwise closes for weekends
Our solution
Paperless Business Solutions signed a contract with the practice for a 3 years service package with a $ 15,000 advance payment, and a further monthly fee of $ 3,500.
Paperless Business Solutions collected all patient files on a Saturday and from the following Monday the files were available in digital format for all visiting patients.
Going paperless has not just eliminated a number of daunting problems associated with managing the enormous volume of paper based records, but also resulted in considerable savings.
Savings in wages
With the paperless system in place the practice could reduce the receptionists' hours by approx 30%. This resulted in a monthly saving of about $ 4,000 from $ 14,000 down to $ 10,000.
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Savings in storage area
The patient files occupied an area of 25 m2 or about 17% of the total 141 m2 of the surgery. This will be turned into a room for a practice nurse. Although it created an opportunity for additional income generation, for budgetary purposes we only consider the proportionate part of the rent here, a monthly saving of about $ 1,150 from the $ 6,800 monthly rent and outgoings.
Savings in IT support, training and maintenance
As part of Paperless Business Solutions' 3 years service package our IT experts helped the practice with all compliance issues including
- setting up systems and procedures to comply with current accreditation requirements and standards
- ensuring that the system satisfies both tiers of PIP requirements
These services normally would have to be outsourced, but are part of the Paperless Business Solutions package translating to a monthly saving of about $ 500.
Savings
The 3 most obvious savings add up to over $ 5,500 against the $ 3,500 monthly cost resulting in a whopping $ 72,000+ projected only for the 3 years of the contract.
The way the contract was structured also offered significant tax benefits for the practice creating an immediately deductible expense as opposed to a capital expenditure.
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