The Cutting Edge

Nothing is safe from the cost-cutting knife these days. Postage machine rentals, cell phones, health insurance, advertising and even employees are being pared to save money. The economic slowdown has business owners in just about every industry scouring expenditures and budgets for ways to streamline and save their businesses.

We asked a healthcare group, a construction company and a bank what expenses they’re cutting and what steps they’re taking to ride out the slump. Read on to find out whether the measures they’re taking might work for your business, and what you would want to avoid.

Florida Neurology Group P.L.
Locations: Two in Fort Myers, one in Estero, one in Cape Coral

What it cut: The group shaved the cost equivalent of two full-time employees—about $60,000 a year, including benefits—by outsourcing tasks such as bookkeeping, data entry and collections. In addition, an electronic call system had been used to confirm appointments, says practice administrator Shari Thompson, but patients found it impersonal, and devoting a full-time staffer to making calls would have been too costly. The group solved both problems by contracting an employee’s retired mother who was looking to supplement her income. And bookkeeping is now handled by a new mom who prefers to work from home. "It was kind of cool because we’re helping the community with reducing the unemployment rate in a sense, but we’re keeping our costs down in doing that," Thompson says.

Electronic medical records, which the group has used since 2000, have improved efficiency and cut paper, postage and storage costs. About 1,100 square feet of space used for storing medical records was converted into revenue-generating physical-therapy rooms and allowed the group to increase its size to six physicians and one advanced registered nurse practitioner without adding support staff. Thompson says it’s also aided in staff retention.