Igor and I have continued to follow up on the recession and its impact on our pediatric clients and have discovered some interesting results.  We published a formal interview with the two of us here, the teaser follows:

In December, we researched the growing concerns about the impact of the economy on your practices. Specifically, we looked at monthly charge and revenue trends for pediatric practices using the PCC Partner Practice Management System. According to the data at the time, PCC clients, on average, had not seen a decrease in visit revenue and were still experiencing strong growth trends. Even though some practices were definitely seeing fewer patients as the result of the economy and slow flu season, others were generating even more revenue than last year. This past week, we reexamined these numbers using the most recent data and wanted to share the results of our findings.

As you looked for the impact of the recession on PCC clients, what did you find?

Chip Hart: The results were an interesting mix of both good and bad news. The bad news, at first, appears to be no surprise; average visit rates are down among PCC practices, with sick visits down about seven percent this December compared to last year. However, despite the decline in visit volume, charges and deposits are up for the same period. PCC clients made more money per workday this year than they did last year. This was interesting news and worth investigating.

Tim Proctor: Additionally, median A/R days dropped significantly in the fourth quarter. If visits are down and insurance companies are taking longer to pay, as we have been hearing, A/R would be going up. In fact, we've had the biggest fourth quarter drop in median A/R since we've been recording this data–almost 12%. In addition to more practices using electronic or direct deposits for insurance checks, PCC clients have gotten better at collecting money.

To read the rest of the piece, go here.

Over the next few days, I will share some of the actual data - with some purdy pictures and surprising results - on the blog.