Tim Boyle – The Front Desk Problem: Why Good Practices Still Lose Money

Tim Boyle, Director of Sales and Business Development at Reva Global Medical and a former professional hockey player, joins Dr. Michael Jerkins to talk about the part of private practice nobody trains you for: the operations. His argument is that most physician-owned practices don't struggle because of medicine — they struggle because scheduling, insurance verification, prior authorizations, and claims follow-up all land on the same overloaded desk, and every task that gets dropped is revenue that quietly disappears. Tim makes the case for medically trained virtual professionals handling the clerical and back-office work, and where the line sits between what can be offloaded and what can't. Dr. Jerkins pushes back on the operational logic with the question that actually matters: what do patients want? Not what's efficient — what makes someone trust a practice in the first ninety seconds. Both land in the same place. Patients should be greeted by a person. Trust is built at intake, and you don't get it back once it's gone. Should physicians still be opening their own practices? Which specialties actually have the margin to make independence work? And is the front desk the last place in medicine that should ever be automated?