The following was shared in a press release made available earlier today by Vantage Clinical Solutions, moderator of The Healthcare Entrepreneur Blog.
____________________________________________________

Vantage Clinical Solutions Offers Free Help
to Medical Practices Impacted by Slowing Economy
New “Keep the Doors Open” Program Begins Monday, November 17th

Bend, Oregon (November 13, 2008) Responding to the economic conditions currently affecting the local healthcare market, Vantage Clinical Solutions has initiated a free program to assist local healthcare practices with financial and business planning in preparation for a projected tough first quarter of 2009 for healthcare practices. The program is called “Keep the Doors Open,” and is intended for small to medium-sized healthcare practices (medical, dental, physical therapy, optometry, etc.) that are either experiencing or anticipating significant financial turbulence.

Serving communities with a unique combination of healthcare consulting and management services, Vantage Clinical Solutions is in a position to recognize that help is needed quickly in order to keep many small healthcare practices in business. “We follow the trends daily, and have recognized that if something isn’t done to help some of the smaller healthcare practices, our community is going to see a number of them struggle to remain open as we enter 2009,” said Tannus Quatre, principal of Vantage Clinical Solutions. “This will have myriad effects on local communities, and it’s important that something is done to lessen this occurrence as we experience this economic downturn.”

The way in which healthcare practices are being affected stems from a rise in unemployment, which affects the number of insured persons, and from changes to many insurance plans which now require higher deductibles, co-pays, and larger portions of bills which have become the responsibility of the patient. Combined with the tightening of credit markets and declining home values, healthcare practices are entering a “perfect storm” which will affect how and when they are paid for services. “We’ve seen patients already begin to delay treatments and prescriptions because they can’t afford their responsible portion of the bill,” said Quatre. “This impacts the overall volume of patients seeking healthcare services, which results in an overall drop in private practice revenues for many small healthcare businesses out there. We only project this to get worse in the first quarter of 2009 when deductibles renew and patients face larger out of pocket expenditures for healthcare services.”

The Keep the Doors Open program consists of a free strategy session of up to 2 hours in length at which time practice owners and administrators can openly share their concerns regarding their practice, and review materials such as financial statements, marketing strategies, and practice reports with a business consultant who specializes in healthcare practices. This is the first time that Vantage Clinical Solutions has offered a service of this kind in response to economic conditions, and feels that the program will allow practice owners a structured, unintimidating environment through which to seek help. The strategy session will provide ample time to dig into detailed areas of the practice, providing for the development of concrete ideas and strategies that will help healthcare practices brace for the economic storm facing the healthcare industry. The program begins November 17th and will run through March 31, 2009.  Click here to set up a meeting through the “Keep the Doors Open” program.

Vantage Clinical Solutions incorporated in 2006 and has seen steady growth since inception. The company assists healthcare practices throughout the country and has partnered with industry leaders to provide the highest quality of consulting and management service available to small and medium-sized practices. In May of this year, Vantage partnered with a consulting firm in Colorado which provides Vantage clients with 30+ years of industry expertise in the management of healthcare practices nationwide.

According to the website, www.vantageclinicalsolutions.com, Vantage Clinical Solutions exists for the mission of improving healthcare through entrepreneurship, offeringhealthcare consulting for clinical practices through Vantage Consulting, fully-hosted practice management solutions through Vantage Management, and logistical and financial ownership assistance for first-time practice owners through Vantage Ownership.

###

For more information on Vantage Clinical Solutions, Inc., visit www.vantageclinicalsolutions.com.

At Vantage Clinical Solutions, we recently published a number of free practice management tools intended for use by private practice owners and managers. 

The tools are simplified for quick and easy use and focus on 5 areas of practice management that we commonly address with our clients: the startup process, budgeting, productivity, breakeven analysis, and strategy. 

More detailed versions of the tools are available for purchase and Vantage offers a selection of consulting and management services that work hand-in-hand with the online toolbox in order to help private practices navigate our healthcare economy both efficiently and profitably.

So, check ‘em out and let us know what you think!

We’ve been fortunate at Vantage Clinical Solutions to help some outstanding providers make the leap into private practice for the first time.  Pelvic Wellness Center is one such case, and they’ve done a great job of getting their name out in the press (see previous press here).  In this article published on July 5th in the Register-Guard, Pelvic Wellness Center owners Shannon Forrestall and Judy Hoar make mention of the services provided to them by Vantage during the process of starting their practice.

Owners Judy Hoar and Shannon Forrestall are physical therapists specializing in women’s health who have known each other for about five years. Forrestall has been a physical therapist for about 10 years and recently left her position as women’s health director for PT Northwest in Salem. Hoar has been a physical therapist since 1986, practicing with PeaceHealth Medical Group and other outpatient clinics, with a focus on women’s health…

…The women hired Vantage Clinical Solutions, a Bend consulting firm that helped with market research, financial projections and a business plan. Now that the clinic is up and running, Vantage is providing billing services and management support, they said.

Vantage was featured today in The Bulletin newspaper.  Here’s a link to the article which goes into detail about our services as well as a Q&A regarding how we position private practices for various economic conditions - Thank you to The Bulletin for the profile of our company.

The single best way we help medical practices originates directly from our mission statement, which is to “improve health care through entrepreneurship.” We believe that entrepreneurship has a vital role in health care, especially in today’s economy. … We always start with an entrepreneurial foundation with our client to make sure that they are heading in the direction of optimal opportunity for their practice and their community. This applies whether we are consulting, managing or helping finance a health care practice.