Before I get into today’s info, I want to remind people of our AAP-endorsed Pediatric Coding and Practice Management conference in two weeks in Columbus and of our new audio conferences (starting next week).

I think I’ve discussed pediatric revenue before - in fact, here it was - after all, isn’t that what it all boils down to?  We’ve updated our numbers and gotten more accurate as we go along and I thought I’d share.

First, here’s a table of PCC client average revenue per visit since 2003:

Whoa.  At first blush, that’s awesome.  PCC clients raised their average revenue by almost 33% from 2003 to 2007!  [If you go back to 2001, it's about 45%.  Really.]  This flies in the face of the data posted here and there.

We knew, though, that it couldn’t be that easy.  And it isn’t - the cost of vaccines has gone through the roof in the last few years, eating up a bigger and bigger chunk of the revenue.  Thus, we ran the same revenue numbers without the immunizations themselves (we do include the admins).  I realize that some practices lose a lot on immunizations and others make good money, but removing them all together is the only way to really compare apples-to-apples.

OK, that makes more sense. What do we learn?

• Pediatric practices, at least PCC clients, still recognize a very, very healthy increase in their annual revenue, even when accounting for the increase in immunization costs.  I’d like to think it’s our awesome software and amazing education and consulting, or even this blog, but their hard work has the most to do with it.
• However, immunization products now make up 20% of the revenue received by our clients (up from 15% in 2003).  Given that we have a fair amount of folks in universal coverage states, that means it’s even higher for some people.
• The real jump happened in 2007 (and I expect will be continued in 2008), where 70% of the revenue increase can be explained by immunization product sales.  Gross.
• I can’t believe how little money practices were getting by on in the 90s.