When you’re first starting up a new business, it’s not uncommon, and mostly very sensible, to start off using very basic low cost tools and systems to run it. For example, spreadsheets instead of a full blown accounting package. This lets you test your market demand with very low risk.
But once you get some momentum, the volume of everything you do grows, including the admin, so you need to look for tools, software and systems that will help you to organise and automate some of the work.
Especially if you're outsourcing or getting admin support - these are essential, but even if you're doing it on your own if you're a solo practitioner, and doing your own admin, these tools will still help make your life easier and save you time.
Consider A Practice Management System
One of the easiest ways to get the most important features your NDIS private practice needs is with a Practice Management System or PMS. There are SO many out there, including many that are industry based and often have features that would suit the type of work you do. These Practice Management Systems can keep track of appointments, client files and things like the type of funding, whether it's NDIS, Medicare or others. You can piece these tools together with other tools and online systems, for example, I’ve talked about tools like Toggl for time tracking, but a PMS will do it all in one place, and make it much easier.
I will note, a PMS will often have a decent cost associated to it, however if you're at the point where all the admin is taking up many valuable hours of your working week, just think about what your time is worth per hour. If one of these systems may cost you say, $90 a month - if it saves you hours in work, it will save you both dollars and time in the long run.
I don't like to talk about specific Practice Management Systems because different features and systems are going to suit different types of businesses so it's not definitely not a “one size fits all.” However, click here to get in touch with an amazing consultant I know that specialises in helping find the best system for your needs.
Keep reading to discover the four definite features to prioritise looking for, either within a PMS or individually, in order to to run your private practice NDIS efficiently and successfully. Remember to keep in mind any requirements specific to your admin and industry - you may have some additional features that you also need to think about to cater to your needs.
1. Time and Appointment Tracking
YES, you can use a tool like Google Calendar to book your appointments and track your time, but to have your invoicing and reports automatically generated at the end of your billing cycle, from those appointments? That is a time saving game changer.
2. A Suitable and Robust Client Relationship Manager (CRM)
A CRM is somewhere to record your client notes, details and files, all in one, organised and easily accessible place. It’s where you keep a record of all your communication with each client as well, and often a CRM will have the ability to set up email and SMS templates that you can send directly from the software to selected clients, which is then automatically logged as well.
Again, if you're working with admin support, on site, or even remote, having that information somewhere secure, but accessible will save everybody time.
Your admin won't likely need to have access to all of your session notes and things, but they will need to be able to access service agreements, intake forms, access to filing, and actual client information to be able to raise invoices and send them to the right place or client.
3. A Place or Program to Handle Tasks and Reminders
Whether the task is “following up some information for client to help with their treatment” or it's a reminder for your admin to ‘to follow up getting a service agreement signed”, or “there is a service booking running out, and it needs to be followed up”… These are all things that you don’t want to slip through the cracks! It is vital to have a process in place to have these tasks or reminders flagged to ensure that they don't get missed.
When we do our admin for our NDIS clients, we use our own project management system to keep track of all those reminders. This can be a separate system, but because we're in that system every day, any reminders pop up right in front of us and are hard to ignore or miss!
The key is finding what's going to be in your face, and easy for you to see so that important tasks do not get missed.
4. Funding Tracking
This ties in with the reminders a little bit but you need a way of keeping track of your dates, such as NDIS plan dates, the number of hours that you have left on a service agreement with somebody, or maybe the number of sessions left in a Medicare plan.
This one’s not absolutely essential. We have worked with practice management systems that have that feature available, but we have also used excel spreadsheets that we check regularly, so that we know when they're coming up for renewal and we can get ahead of them rather than chasing them after the fact, when trying to make a claim or get an invoice paid. Both ways work, it is important to decide which system is right for you and your business needs.
Bonus Features Worth Considering
Some other features you may wish to consider when finding your systems, that I won’t go into in too much detail today, include:
where you are doing your invoicing,
how you are storing practice policies,
any forms, and email templates and things like that that you're sending out to clients to get filled in, and where that information is being stored so it’s easily accessible and organised.
Can you get decent reports out of your system to help you make decisions and improvements?
Those are a couple of bonus things that you might want to consider in your systems for your business to run smoothly.
If you need help finding the right PMS for your business, click here to learn more about a business I recommend for that. It can be incredibly daunting and it’s worth getting it right. Don’t be afraid to seek help for the experts!
If you already have systems in place and need help with some strategies to get it all running smoother, or you’re considering outsourcing some admin, get in touch with us - this is what we do best!
We have a number of clients that we do this admin for regularly, some of which have been with us for nearly 4 years now. We take that as a sign that we're doing a good job!
Please feel free to give us a call or download our free PDF below, which is our NDIS claiming cheat sheet, which gives you an overview of how we do things here at Positively Sorted to best help you !
See you next time, or explore our blog now, for more tips to help you Simplify, Outsource & Grow.
