Unwatched Operations are Negatively Affecting Your Ability to Scale

By Katrina Whitehair

How do aesthetic practices effectively manage finances and operations? Here at Maven Financial Partners, we don’t believe a practice can effectively manage one without the other. Your financial statements essentially serve as a sort of scorecard of your daily operations so trying to optimize one without looking at the other is a recipe for massive blind spots. 

Practices may not realize how small decisions and inefficiencies add up over time and can negatively affect their ability to scale. Without oversight, practices can drain revenue, increase expenses, and be limiting their own growth and not even realize it. 

In this article we will review three common areas of concern that can be quietly draining your practice and outline ways to manage these inefficiencies to support practice sustainability and growth.  

The Financial Impact of Operational Inefficiency 

How do we know if our operations are efficient? The answer is, we measure the finances and identify potential areas of concern. Inefficiencies in one area may lead to a ripple effect and impact other areas of the business. Let’s look at some common areas to review. 

Inventory

Common Issues:

• Over-ordering retail and injectable supplies: This can tie up cash that is sitting on the shelf not being sold. 
• Not ordering enough retail and injectable supply: This can lead to lost revenue because we cannot meet the demand.
• Lack of tracking inventory use and run rates: This can lead to lost revenue opportunities and spoilage.

Warning signs: 

• Having expired products discarded
• Frequent, last-minute ordering
• Discrepancies on what is on the shelf and what is tracked electronically. 

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How to address: 

• Leverage an inventory management system. Establish Periodic Automatic Replenishment (PAR) levels for re-ordering
• Tack usage
• Regularly audit with a hand count and electronic count to reconcile any discrepancies 

Patient Journey

Common Issues:

• Inefficient patient intake processes
• Broken communication between front and back office 
• Redundant or manual administrative tasks

Warning signs: 

• Fewer patients seen per day and long wait times
• Increased labor costs due to inefficiencies
• Patient and staff dissatisfaction leading to attrition

How to address:

• Streamlining intake and check-in processes
• Leveraging digital tools and automation
• Mapping and optimizing patient flow

Provider Utilization

Common Issues:

• Underutilized provider schedules (gaps, cancellations, no-shows)
• Overbooking leading to burnout and lower patient satisfaction 
• Misalignment between provider skills and scheduled services

Warning signs: 

• Lost revenue from empty appointment slots
• Inefficient labor cost distribution
• Reduced or limited provider productivity including revenue per hour and per patient visit

How to address:

• Optimizing scheduling templates
• Implementing reminders, confirmations, and rebooking protocols 
• Aligning services with provider specialization

A practice’s financial performance is directly impacted by what happens day-to-day in the patient flow. It is important to measure key performance indicators and analyze what the data is telling us to realize our operational efficiency and financial goals. 

Reach out to Maven to learn more about key performance indicators and key benchmarks to help achieve your practice’s scaling and growth goals today!