Dr. Umar Muhammad has been practicing family medicine for over 10 years. After completing his medical residency in Cleveland, Ohio, Dr. Muhammad moved to Canada. He partnered with Dr. Afshan Azam to open the Cedarbrae Medical Centre in Scarborough, Ontario.
We sat down with Dr. Muhammad to talk about the challenges in transitioning to a FHO model and how DoctorCare has helped streamline his practice.
DoctorCare: Why did you decide to switch to a FHO?
Dr. Muhammad: There were a couple of challenges we were facing that made us want to switch to a FHO. Firstly, our clinic was rapidly expanding and being in an under serviced area, we were always busy with patients. There were times where we had to work from 9am to 10pm, seeing an average of 99 patients a day. We were working so hard, but our compensation wasn’t that great.
Secondly, managing a clinic in Scarborough is not easy. It’s very expensive because of all the expenses including rent, supplies, hiring of staff, and it takes a lot of time.
Dr. Azam, our FHO group lead physician was originally part of a FHO and had told us all the great benefits that would help alleviate these challenges that we were facing and so it only made sense for us to put in an application.
“Working with DoctorCare to transition our clinic to a FHO has been great, I have no complaints. They make sure that my billings are done, and all my rejections are taken care of. I want to give a special shout out to Aileen. She’s been with us since the beginning and is always available to for any support or questions that we have. She’s a very hard worker and has helped us immensely with our billings and FHO group support.”
DoctorCare: Why did you choose DoctorCare?
Dr. Muhammad: Dr. Azam had heard about DoctorCare through an online recommendation and decided to ask them to help us with our transition.
DoctorCare helped us with our application, making sure that we met all the requirements needed to join the FHO model. We were able to form our group of four in less than three months which is a lot faster than usual. This was before the Physician Services Agreement was applied so we were able to complete it very quickly.
In addition to forming a FHO group, DoctorCare has also helped us with adding physicians to our group. We just added a fifth doctor and they have been approved for the Income Stabilization program.
DoctorCare: What significant changes have you seen since joining a FHO?
Dr. Muhammad: The biggest change would be the work-life balance. Since joining a FHO, our salary increased significantly. Because of this, we were able to use this income to make improvements to our clinic. We hired a manager to take care of all the administrative tasks in managing our clinic.
This alleviated a lot of the workload and increased my productivity by a significant amount as in the past I would have been managing all these things in addition to caring for my patients.
DoctorCare: You also signed up with DoctorCare’s billing services. What was the motivation?
Dr. Muhammad: Since we have been expanding so rapidly, we needed the additional services to help support our clinic. My wife and I were managing the billings, but it became too much work as Dr. Azam and I were seeing 200-300 patients a week. We decided to let DoctorCare handle the billings and we are quite happy with the results.
Since I have experience in billing, I’m familiar with what’s going on with my billings and can see that DoctorCare is doing them correctly. I am glad that I don’t have to worry about it.
One of the major features I find useful in their reports is th snapshot of my outside use. I like that they help me manage my outside use by indicating what patients I need to take off the roster so that I can capture my bonuses.
DoctorCare: Lastly, tell us about your experience working with DoctorCare.
Dr. Muhammad: Working with DoctorCare to transition our clinic to a FHO has been great, I have no complaints. They make sure that my billings are done, and all my rejections are taken care of. I want to give a special shout out to Aileen. She’s been with us since the beginning and is always available to for any support or questions that we have. She’s a very hard worker and has helped us immensely with our billings and FHO group support.
Want to read more about the DoctorCare experience shared by other doctors? View the case study tag on our blog here!
