Continual comparison measurement of a medical practice to those of the toughest competitor to find and implement methods to improve the business. There are three types: internal benchmarking, competitive benchmarking , and functional benchmarking . Internal is when similar processes in the same organization are compared. Competitive is when an organization’s processes are compared with the best medical practices within the industry. Functional refers to benchmarking a similar function or process in another industry (e.g., appointment scheduling).