Women First of Louisville is an all-female medical practice located in Louisville, Kentucky, specializing in obstetrics and gynecology, and is committed to comprehensive women’s care through every stage of life. Founded in 1988, Women First champions women to take charge of their healthcare and themselves, pioneers leading technologies, and offers the most advanced options in women’s healthcare.
Dean Dorton’s relationship with Women First dates back to 1997. We spoke with Denise Kirkham, Executive Director at Women First, to learn more about the practice’s experience with Dean Dorton’s tax, accounting, finance, and technology consulting services.
THE CHALLENGE
Women First originally enlisted Dean Dorton’s tax services more at than 20 years ago. At the time, Women First was a considerably smaller practice, with only four physicians on staff. While accounting and billing was done in-house, Dean Dorton assisted with compensation planning and calculations, physician buy-in/outs, lease/buy analysis, tax planning, and other such financial projects. As the practice has grown, Dean Dorton has been with Women First every step of the way.
Fast forward two decades and the practice now has 11 physicians and more than 70 employees. With growth also came growing pains for the largest OB/GYN practice in Louisville that is not hospital-owned. Specifically, in the business office, Women First has experienced staff turnover, affecting the billing, receivables, and overall management of the billing office.
Most recently, Women First experienced the operational effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, much like other healthcare practices across the globe. While babies were still being delivered, the OB and GYN in-person visits were limited. The staff had to quickly pivot from in-person healthcare services to remote work and telehealth.
“We had a hard time trusting the data presented to us, which made us skeptical in any decision-making that required some sort of financial risk”
— HANNAH GOLIBERSUCH, DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS
The Solution
In addition to tax services, Dean Dorton began providing Women First with monthly financial statement assistance. This service has since grown into serving as an outsourced CFO to the practice. Dean Dorton’s team is very hands on, attending Women First’s board meetings and finance meetings to gain a holistic view of the operations in which to better serve them.
Dean Dorton was also hired to carry out certain billing functions and accounts receivable and denial management services. The partnership didn’t end there, though. Dean Dorton’s long-term relationship expanded its service offerings to technology consulting services in 2003. The technology team implemented an electronic medical record (EMR) system and migrated Women First’s physical servers to a virtual platform, providing greater efficiency, scalability, and performance. In 2016, Dean Dorton replaced Women First’s aging analog phone system with a robust and reliable VoIP system and migrated their on-premise email server to the Office 365 cloud platform.
“Dean Dorton’s billing services helped us through a very challenging year with staff turnover. That certainly maintained our revenues as well as brought to light a need to have an ongoing focus on A/R follow-up.”
— DENISE KIRKHAM, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AT WOMEN FIRST
Perhaps the most important technology service that Dean Dorton provided was designing and configuring a virtual desktop infrastructure solution to support a greater need for performance and mobility, both inside and outside the office, as employees move between terminals throughout the day and providers require secure remote access to critical business systems.
This was hugely beneficial during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Women First already had a trusted relationship with Dean Dorton who knew them, understood their challenges, and could deploy telehealth and remote work solutions immediately.
Throughout its deep relationship tenure with Dean Dorton, Women First has nearly tripled in size from four to 11 physicians, plus the addition of nurse practitioners. Dean Dorton has been an advisor and partner by Women First’s side throughout these tremendous changes in the practice. When COVID-19 hit the medical industry hard, Dean Dorton was able to quickly step in and provide advice to Women First on their options and benefits of various CARES Act relief programs, allowing the practice to continue to run as smoothly as possible and keep their doors open.
Benefits of Dean Dorton’s Holistic Service Offerings
The biggest benefits that Women First saw by partnering with Dean Dorton were up-to-date financial expertise and an honest relationship. Women First’s practice is centered around building and maintaining trusting relationships with their patients—through every stage of life—so it’s no surprise that the practice sought a similar long-term relationship with Dean Dorton.
“Dean Dorton has provided professional services to our practice for many years,” says Kirkham. “From outsourced accounting and IT support to tactical assistance related to charge entry, A/R collections, and interim practice management assistance, Dean Dorton’s healthcare group has been a tremendous asset to our practice.”
Dean Dorton prides itself on building long-term relationships with clients that reach far beyond standard compliance services and values partnering with clients who view us as their trusted business advisor. No matter the need or challenge, clients know they can rely on us to solve their issues. We also know this trust doesn’t happen overnight—it develops over the course of many years and spans across the physician base of the practice in the case of Women First.
“Dean Dorton is a trustworthy expert partner who always has our best interest at heart. I appreciate the relationship!”
— DENISE KIRKHAM, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AT WOMEN FIRST