Category Archives: Chiropractic

Are You Looking at All Your Statistics?

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As one year ends and another gets ready to launch, I look back at our clients’ numbers and see that, for the most part, everyone’s numbers went up.

And these are not new offices. Their increases were not because of a snazzy ad campaign or a motivational seminar. Their numbers increased because of their hard work, courage, sacrifices, and love. I am sure the same is true with you and your practice as well: because of the wonderful improvements your patients experience, as a byproduct, your numbers for this year also went up.

But maybe not. Maybe not this year.

Maybe your practice numbers did not go up?

Well, you may not be accounting for all of your positive outcomes. For example:

** Our goal with one office was not to increase their numbers, but just to keep them from going down the drain. The successful outcome was no bankruptcy! Positive numbers did not go up, but negative cash flow numbers did not occur.

** One business owner I worked with, whose numbers had gone up for a few years, but had recently dipped, was able to take a vacation for the first time ever. In fact, because of additional providers, was able to leave for a few weeks. Practice numbers did not go up, but vacation and personal statistics did!

** One practice owner saw her numbers go down. She had her third child and would have gone down further had it not been for the work we did on bringing on another provider who she deftly managed. Family numbers went up!

We do manage by the numbers as these are objective and because so much conventional management is done through emotion, bias, new but dumb ideas, or other weird standards.

But not all accomplishments show up on the standard practice scoreboard. You would need a different set of statistics and a different scoreboard for family, personal, and organizational outcomes.

• Maybe you spent time training in a new clinical technique.
• Maybe your staff spent extra time training and becoming more proficient.
• Maybe you were able to see more of your child’s activities.
• Perhaps you and your spouse finally went on that vacation.

Business building can be understood by the Law of the Farm (Also Law of the Harvest). As Steven Covey says:

“The only thing that endures over time is the ‘Law of the Farm.’ You must prepare the ground, plant the seed, cultivate, and water if you expect to reap the harvest.”

I like this analogy because it shows that so much is involved in producing what finally ends up in your grocery store.

Yes, you reap what you sow. But the sowing itself is an accomplishment that needs to be recognized and acknowledged. If you keep building and nurturing all aspects of your business, including your skills, your people, and your procedures, both in and out of the office, and stay aligned with your mission, your production numbers will improve.

You might take some time this month to look at all the gains you have made that might not show up on the bottom line.

Celebrate ALL your positive improvements in 2023, and prepare for a prosperous 2024.

Stay Goal Driven,

Ed

Don’t Let Old Acquaintances Be Forgotten in Your Chiropractic Practice

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Strengthen Your Network in December

“Remember, George: no man is a failure who has friends.”*

Three weeks till Christmas!

Yikes! Let’s make the most out of this month before we get into the fast lane of the New Year.

Take this month to connect and reconnect: patients, referral sources, team members and stakeholders, family friends – those dear to us. Share some good tidings and joy. Here are some ideas:

1. Keep the show on the road. While ensuring that everyone has time off, try to keep the lights on, the tables warm, and the greetings friendly all month. Anytime you close for a period of time, you can lose momentum. If you are closed for a few days, PACK the days you are open with visits! Remember:

Health Never Takes a Holiday!!

2. Thank You’s to referral sources. Plan to get out and thank all your external referral sources. Show your appreciation: cards, cookies, and guest passes for intro services! Keep your network active. Remember:

“Your chiropractic healthcare practice is a network of relationships created and sustained through communication and service.”**

 

3. Thank You’s to your patients. Show extra appreciation to your patients. It takes some courage and effort to venture out to see you for care. They are taking responsibility for their health, even though they may not follow all your recommendations. Have an appreciation party, send out greeting cards, give away poinsettias to families, or offer eggnog and treats from a local independent store with the store’s promotional sign.

4. Your Team. Look at your Profit and Loss for the year. If you have any extra dough, privately reward individual team members with a bonus. If the cupboard is empty, let your team know, but give them something. And THANK THEM!

5. Your Family. Don’t forget your family! Heavens! They deserve something for putting up with you this year! (lol)

6. The Spirit! Lastly, be filled with the Spirit of the season. You can watch It’s a Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart. Again!

The New Year will come at us fast… so take this time to absorb all the merriment, comfort, and joy you can so you’ll start fresh and filled with renewed energy in January.

So consider the actions above and Don’t Be Forgotten!

Should old acquaintance be forgot – and never brought to mind?

Should old acquaintance be forgot – and old lang syne?

With friendship,

Ed and all of us at PM&A

*from the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life
** from the book, The Goal Driven Business

—————————————————-

If your practice building efforts aren’t taking you to your goals,
there are reasons — many of which are hidden from you.

Find out what they are and how to sail to your next level by getting and implementing my new book, The Goal Driven Business.

goal driven business building methodology

The Goal Driven Business By Edward Petty

goal driven business buy now button

Who Do You Work For in Your Chiropractic Healthcare Office?

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Patients come second.

As a doctor, you work for your patients.

As a business owner, you work for the business end of the practice.

Both of these roles have different outcomes. As the doctor, your outcome is healthy and very happy patients. As a business owner, you want to see a profit.

When you begin your practice, you do so as a business owner and doctor. Any management or leadership you do is done from these roles. I call this an Entrepreneurial or Personality-Driven Practice. This is workable until you reach about 50% of your full capacity as a provider.

Beyond about 50% capacity, the practice needs focused leadership and management. It is time for you as the owner to step into the role of Clinic Director if you want your enterprise to continue to grow.

The outcome of the Clinic Director is not the same as that of doctor or business owner. In simple terms, the outcome is a well-run organization that provides excellent service at a profit.

So, who does the Clinic Director work for?

The staff! The employees. This is called servant leadership and management.

This is a major shift in mindset for most highly driven entrepreneurial business owners. But it can be done, and if done correctly, there is no limit to practice growth, prosperity, and independence.

SOUTHWEST AIRLINES

Customers Come Second, Employees Come First

Year after year, Southwest Airlines ranks at the top for customer service and profitability over other airlines. And for good reason. They are excellently managed and led!

Their goals, purpose, and values are well-defined. They are a Goal Driven Business.

In their book about Southwest, authors Keven and Jackie Freiberg reveal that Southwest believes that the love and support they show their employees will be passed on to their customers. Servant leadership is a central theme.

Chapter 18 of their book caught my attention: Customers Come Second — But Still Get Great Service. In it, they say at Southwest, “Treat your employees with care and concern if that is the way you want them to treat each other and your customers.”

WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW TO IMPROVE SERVICE AND INCOME IN YOUR CHIROPRACTIC HEALTHCARE PRACTICE

I use Southwest as an example, but there are many others.

In a smaller service company like a chiropractic or dental business, the doctor doesn’t have much time to be the Clinic Director or senior manager, isn’t paid (at least directly) for being one, and isn’t trained in management. Also, more than likely, doesn’t want to be a manager or leader. But what if there was a simple method to be an effective Clinic Director?

Well, there is. It is covered in my book, the Goal Driven Business, and is gone over in detail in our Practice MBA training program. In 2024, I will post more information on this subject and the Fast Flow CEO Method, as I am 100% certain that this is the stumbling block behind all stumbling blocks that keep practices from achieving greatness.

You can do this now:

  1. Define and communicate your goals and procedures. These need to be reviewed, in one form or another, by everyone weekly.
  2. Clinic Director. Set time aside as the senior coach of your team to develop your people professionally, and as you can, personally.

If you put your team first, they will put the patient first.

This is, when all is said and done, the Golden Rule.

Or perhaps… we could also call it the Goal Driven Rule!

Seize the Future,

Ed

*Nuts – Southwest Airlines, Keven and Jackie Freiberg

—————————————————-

If your practice building efforts aren’t taking you to your goals,
there are reasons — many of which are hidden from you.

Find out what they are and how to sail to your next level by getting and implementing my new book, The Goal Driven Business.

goal driven business building methodology

The Goal Driven Business By Edward Petty

goal driven business buy now button

Chiropractic Healthcare Patient Scheduling During the Holidays

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Health Doesn’t Take a Holiday

[scheduling tools below]

Is this December going to be better than the one last year?

If so, you want to make sure that the momentum of your patient’s care does not slow down. You want to keep them on their healthcare programs these last few weeks of 2023 and into 2024.

It is a festive time of year for family, friends, and Auld Lang Syne.

But through it all, health does not take a holiday.

Your patients still brush their teeth, take showers, and sleep. They should also stick to their treatment program, their exercise program and stay on track to better health. You and your team can help them do this.

TWO GIFTS FOR YOUR CHIROPRACTIC HEALTHCARE PRACTICE

As a subscriber, I have two gifts for you that can assist you in helping your patients stick to their schedules. (Links to access them are below.)

  • A tent poster that says: Health Never Takes a Holiday. Download it and print copies for the front desk or other areas to remind patients that…Health Never Takes a Holiday.

  • A scheduling calendar for December. Linda designed a scheduling calendar for our clients.

She says:
“The goal is to keep your patients as close to their treatment plan as possible during the hustle and bustle of the holidays! I have used monthly calendars in the past and, believe me, they help with patients keeping their schedules.

“The link will take you to a sheet with 4 monthly calendars per sheet for December – a calendar for each patient to keep track of their schedules.

  1. Download and save the file to your computer.
  2. Customize your name on each section of the calendar.
  3. Print out the sheet and cut it into fours. Have a stack available at the front desk.
  4. Schedule the patient in your system.
  5. Write in the times of their appointment on the day that you are scheduling them and give it to the patient.”

We all can use support and help to keep to our goals. As long as you are friendly and have the patient’s health in mind, they’ll appreciate your scheduling efforts.

In fact, it shows you care!

Enjoy the Season – encourage your patients to do the same. Just lock in everyone’s schedule and help them keep it.

Seize better health throughout the Season!

Ed

Downloads:

—————————————————-

If your practice building efforts aren’t taking you to your goals,
there are reasons — many of which are hidden from you.

Find out what they are and how to sail to your next level by getting and implementing my new book, The Goal Driven Business.

goal driven business building methodology

The Goal Driven Business By Edward Petty

goal driven business buy now button

 

Don’t Turn Your Staff or Yourself into Bots in Your Chiropractic Healthcare Practice

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Goals First, Then Procedures in Your Chiropractic Healthcare Practice

I asked the office manager if I could review some of the staff’s job checklists.

I had observed a staff member training another on how to use a therapy device on patients. Their attention was on the equipment, how to position the patient and where to place the electrodes.

So, I looked with interest at the job description and checklists about placing patients on therapy. The therapy checklist listed all the procedures – what wire went where, what position the patient was to sit in, etc. But something was missing.

The goal, the outcome, of the checklist was not defined.

There was no mention anywhere about the purpose of the therapy, what it does, why to use it. And worse, there was nothing about the patient as a person. The checklist did not say how to introduce the patient to the procedures – and how to educate them on what it does. It might as well have been instructions on how to hook up jumper cables, wire a sump pump, or fill out tax forms.

I went over this with the practice manager and later was told that the staff were now spending more time with the patients explaining therapy procedures.

GREEN AND CLEAN

There’s a deeper principle here. Steven Covey has a great video on getting his son to take care of the lawn over the summer.

Rather than giving him procedures on what to do, he pointed to the neighbor’s lawn and had him notice that it was green and also clean. He then pointed to their lawn, which was becoming brown and littered. He told his son that all he had to do was keep their lawn Green and Clean. He didn’t care how he did it. He might want to use a hose and sprinkler or use buckets. The specific procedures were up to him. But the goal was –green and clean.

It is an entertaining story on video — the link is below on our blog. The son finally got the idea and worked out how best to take care of the lawn.

GOALS FIRST, THEN PROCEDURES IN YOUR CHIROPRACTIC HEALTHCARE PRACTICE

Checklists are useful for training, agreeing on who does what, and preventing key procedures from being overlooked. Please use them. We’ve used them for 30 years. (If you need help please contact us!)

But they should always begin with the goal, the outcome of the sum of the procedures. What do these series of procedures produce – and what is their mission?

If you just focus on procedures, you and your team might as well be algorithms, computerized, and repetitive functions that occur electronically. Like an Internet robot or bot! By omitting goals first, you may minimize the innate creativity and power of everyone, including yourself.

On the other hand, if you challenge yourself and your team to define the WHY for each major and even minor procedure:

  • The procedures will be better applied.
  • You and your staff can find ways to improve the procedures.
  • You will be touching upon and rekindling the innate creative force we all have.
  • Your work will be more meaningful…

…and more fun.

Seize the Future

Ed

Green and Clean Video

—————————————————-

If your practice building efforts aren’t taking you to your goals,
there are reasons — many of which are hidden from you.

Find out what they are and how to sail to your next level by getting and implementing my new book, The Goal Driven Business.

goal driven business building methodology
 

The Goal Driven Business By Edward Petty

goal driven business buy now button
 
 
 
 
 

Where Are the Leverage Points in Your Chiropractic Healthcare Practice?

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Find them, invest in them, and see your practice improve.

One of the aspects of practice development that you become familiar with after 30 or so years in the field is the concept of Leverage Points. Once you can spot them and work out methods to take advantage of them, your practice significantly improves.

According to Donella H. Meadows, Ph.D., leverage points “Are places within a complex system (a corporation, an economy, a living body, a city, an ecosystem) where a small shift in one thing can produce big changes in everything.” *

using leverage in chiropractic healthcare management

HIGHER LEVEL LEVERAGE POINTS IN YOUR PRACTICE

Ms. Meadows lists 12 levels of increasing effectiveness where leverage might be found. The top levels that can make the most significant changes are:

  • Goals
  • The mindset from which the business arises from
  • The power to transcend assumptions and accept new goals and values.

This is the Above Down Inside Out shift that can ignite the Innate power in a practice.

I have seen this when the clinic owner or team member becomes extraordinarily inspired and motivated, filled with a sense of mission. I also have noticed this in offices that shift from an entrepreneurial practice that is entirely dependent upon the owner to a systematized and goal-driven business.

TANGIBLE LEVERAGE POINTS

Adding a scribe or clinical assistant can be a practical example of utilizing a leverage point in a more tangible application. This might allow you to see an extra 10 patients a week and provide better service with less stress. In the end, you would have a positive Return on Investment for what you paid for the extra help.

Another example might be a situation where your front desk can’t keep up with check-ins, check-outs, call-ins, questions, data entry, cash collections, marketing reminders, and just being friendly. By adding the right person at the front desk, even a part-time during prime time in the afternoons, your volume might surge. (I have seen this.)

For a marketing example, you might be next door to a gym that sees hundreds of people each month. You could leverage your location with just a little effort to create a very beneficial relationship for their business and yours.

There are many examples of finding areas of your practice where the return will be positive when given more support.

LEVERAGING PRACTICE MANAGEMENT

In my experience, the number one leverage point is management.

As a practice grows, the admin tasks multiply exponentially. These start to fill up the doctor’s time, and eventually, growth hits a plateau.

By adding someone to take care of office administration or clarifying the duties of someone currently in that role, you can better concentrate on service, production, and leadership.

As a result, revenue increases and stress decreases. Proper training for the manager is essential and, unfortunately, usually absent.

As an aside, we are solving this now through our Practice MBA program. We are just a little more than ½ way through the training, and I am both impressed by their work and proud to be helping them become Goal Driven Managers.

But leverage points could be anywhere. Even between your ears! (haha!)

Look for where you might find a log jam or an untapped resource. Invest some time in supporting that area and see if that doesn’t make a big difference in practice.

You have untapped power in your business just waiting to be leveraged.

Ed

*Reference https://donellameadows.org/a-visual-approach-to-leverage-points/

—————————————————-

If your practice building efforts aren’t taking you to your goals,
there are reasons — many of which are hidden from you.

Find out what they are and how to sail to your next level by getting and implementing my new book, The Goal Driven Business.

goal driven business building methodology

The Goal Driven Business By Edward Petty

goal driven business buy now button
 
 

How to End on a Win Each Day in Your Chiropractic and Healthcare Practice

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LOST KEY

Remember that time you were leaving for work in the morning and just as you were about to leave, you couldn’t find your keys? (It might have been your wallet, purse, or important papers.) As you tried to quell your rising panic, you thought – what if I am late? What about the patients? What if I have to call a cab, a Lyft or Uber? All the alternative scenarios and plans start weighing on you. Worried, distraught, you get ready to call the office when…there they are! Your keys, papers, the vital components to your daily life and you make a joyous reunion. And you are on your way.

That was a big win.

Five minutes later, you have forgotten the entire dramatic event. As if it never occurred.

FORGOTTEN DISCOMFORT AFTER FINDING RELIEF WITH CHIROPRACTIC CARE

Many patients who have had pains or discomforts for years, after finally experiencing relief thanks to your chiropractic care, take it almost for granted after a day or so. Even though it was a big win.

You, too, begin to experience the daily Miracles as Usual as commonplace. You and your team become accustomed to them.

And worse, we can let the “negative few outweigh the positive many.”

OVERLOOKING THE POSITIVE MANY

Our minds are wired, especially business owners, to be alert for dangers, threats, and failures. And because of this, we overlook the accomplishments, the successes, and the wins we all have.

They happen every day. We get work DONE… when we might have just let it slide. We take the extra time and make the extra effort, even as no one notices. We make it happen.

In an otherwise cold and frightening world, we help others through our actions — and even by our positive presence.

And the world reinforces the negative. Sensation drives all media. It “click baits” us, like emergency flagmen calling our attention to the as-yet-unseen car wrecks ahead of us.

But amidst the world’s chaos, the dramas of our patients, and the struggles of our own lives, we are here to help, and to whatever large or small degree we do, that is a win. We contributed something good into the world that day.

But our wins are easily overlooked. First, by ourselves, and second, by others.

LET THE POSITIVE WIN

So… don’t let this happen. You can change this! Change it in your practice and change it at home.

And if you do, you will create a more healing atmosphere in your practice and love in your life. Your day will end better, and your next new day will start fresh with greater cheer.

  1. At the office, after the day is done, ask the staff to tell you about at least one success they had! Listen. Applaud or cheer or hug. Hurrah! Tell them about an accomplishment you had!
  2. And when you get home, and get a moment with your spouse or kids, ask them to tell you about a win they experienced.

You are doing good work. You are helping people. So are others with whom you work and live.

Recognize and celebrate this, and at the end of each day, simply ask each person with whom you work to tell you and the others their win or wins and cheer for them. Let them do the same for you.

You deserve It – and so do they.

End on a win.

Ed

PS I was reminded of this at the recent Chiropractic Society of Wisconsin conference in Wisconsin. One very successful doctor with whom I had the privilege of talking to mentioned that at the end of the day, he would meet with his team and acknowledge a win each of them had. I too, years ago, had done this with a team I had worked with, but as the world turns, I’ve let this very successful procedure drop aside.

—————————————————-

If your practice building efforts aren’t taking you to your goals,
there are reasons — many of which are hidden from you.

Find out what they are and how to sail to your next level by getting and implementing my new book, The Goal Driven Business.

goal driven business building methodology

The Goal Driven Business By Edward Petty

goal driven business buy now button

End of Year Preparation for Your Chiropractic and Healthcare Practice

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From the front to the back of your practice

As farmers know, you must plan ahead and then work your plan. That is part of the Law of the Farm we discussed last week.

This is a short and fast reminder of some activities to consider as we enter into the last two months of the year:

  • Marketing – The front end of your practice. Keep it hopin’!

  • Business — The back end of your practice. Organize for the future.

MARKETING YOUR CHIROPRACTIC PRACTICE

With good scheduling and planning, there is no reason for disappointment in production for November and December. To help keep the atmosphere thankful, cheerful, and productive, here are a few promotional ideas:

Thanksgiving (U.S.A.) Turkey giveaways have been popular with many practices. The basic idea is to refer a friend and enter a drawing for a free turkey.

Thank-a-Veteran Day. Veterans Day – November 11. Special promotions, including free or discounted services or donations to local veterans’ organizations.

Donation Drives. Holiday time always brings an increased demand for helping those less fortunate. Within your office, you can set up a collection area for donation programs in your area.

Girl’s Night Out. This is a shopping/gift exchange that can take place in your office that builds community and helps generate referrals.

Poinsettia Give Away. Give away free poinsettias, one per family. Include cards with a gift certificate for family members or friends for your services.

Your External Referral Network. Deliver a fruit basket or other present personally during December with a card of thanks and mention how you are looking forward to another year working together for better health. Your External Referral Network would include any person or organization that referred a new patient to you, where you gave a lecture or screening, or in any way directly contributed to your office.

Patient Appreciation. Have a party. Your patients are part of your practice and health community. They are a select group of like-minded health seekers. Bring them together, recognize their efforts to improve their health in 2023 and 2024, and encourage them to help others do the same. Everyone gets Guest Passes to hand out to family and friends when they leave. (I still love the Flying Elvis’ coming in for a big patient appreciation party one office used to have!)

CHIROPRACTIC HEALTHCARE BUSINESS

Once you get your marketing plan worked out and in gear, take time to review the business situation of your chiropractic or healthcare practice. These behind-the-scenes details are important but not always urgent! They are pretty obvious – this is just a reminder!

Accountant. You will want to meet with your accountant to review your financial statements, including your balance sheet and profit and loss. There have been changes to retirement laws, so check with them about how they may affect you. Review your tax situation and explore strategies to minimize it. Ensure that all tax-related documents and filings are up to date.

Legal and Licensing. Check the status of licenses and permits and renew them as needed. Consult with your attorney to review contracts and legal obligations.

Employee benefits. Consider benefit reviews as well as bonuses.

Payors. You’ll want to review your insurance contracts and dump any that don’t bring a good return.

Fees. Take a look at your fees and make any adjustments that are needed.

Compliance. This can be delegated, but ensure that you at least minimally meet basic HIPAA and OSHA standards. You can check with your local state association for recommendations for these and any other requirements.

Budget Planning. Work out a general budget for next year that incorporates all the findings from your financial review and business goals.

This is not a complete list, of course.

Preparation is working on your business, not just in it, but it is just as essential.

Let’s end the year prosperous and secure for the future.

Ed

—————————————————-

If your practice building efforts aren’t taking you to your goals,
there are reasons — many of which are hidden from you.

Find out what they are and how to sail to your next level by getting and implementing my new book, The Goal Driven Business.

goal driven business building methodology

The Goal Driven Business By Edward Petty

goal driven business buy now button
 
 
 
 
 

How Gratitude Can Improve Chiropractic and Healthcare Practice Performance

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Be a Good Finder

One business owner (a dentist this time, not a chiropractor) I worked with years ago seemed to always be in a bad mood.

He was quiet and basically ignored his staff. His opinion was that he paid them to work, they should work hard, and that was it. But his office wasn’t doing well, so he called me in. I made several visits to his office, each time simply working to improve empathetic communication with his team. I coached him on listening to each staff member and to simply acknowledge them for their contributions.

A few months later, we saw his practice grow. Numbers were headed up!

I remember this because he was always complaining to me that I wasn’t doing anything for his office! His constant criticisms and lack of appreciation were the real problem, but he didn’t see it. While I was countering his abusive lack of gratitude for the support he was receiving from his staff, I tried to coach him on his issue.

Apparently, he was a good dentist, but to his strife and possible forever struggles, he was both a poor clinic director and student.

==================================================================

Employee Performance

So, I just want to mention and remind us all how important it is to be grateful and express gratitude.

When gratitude is expressed to others, many benefits occur. A simple “thank you” goes a long way in improving the morale and ultimate performance of others. Of course, it must be genuine. Counterfeit praise is easily seen through and can do more harm than good.

According to Tom Rath, co-author of How Full Is Your Bucket, “Gallup polling has revealed that 99 out of 100 people say they want a more positive environment at work, and 9 out of 10 say they’re more productive when they’re around positive people.”

He points to research that shows when a work team has more than three positive interactions with managers for every one negative interaction, it is significantly more likely to be productive. The point is not to keep managers from correcting or reprimanding but just to express more praise.

==================================================================

Gratitude is Good Health Care

“The practice of gratitude can have dramatic and lasting effects in a person’s life,” says Robert A. Emmons, professor of psychology at UC Davis [my alma mater!] and a leading scientific expert on the science of gratitude.

“It can lower blood pressure, improve immune function and facilitate more efficient sleep. Gratitude reduces lifetime risk for depression, anxiety and substance abuse disorders, and is a key resiliency factor in the prevention of suicide.” **

According to UC Davis Medical Center, “Gratitude is associated with higher levels of good cholesterol (HDL), lower levels of bad cholesterol (LDL), and lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure, both at rest and in the face of stress. It also has been linked with higher levels of heart rate variability, a marker of cardiac coherence, or a state of harmony in the nervous system and heart rate that is equated with less stress and mental clarity.

“Gratitude also lowers levels of creatinine, an indicator of the kidney’s ability to filter waste from the bloodstream, and lowers levels of C-reactive protein, a marker of cardiac inflammation and heart disease.”**

==================================================================

Be a Good Finder

You don’t have to have a PhD to understand that people respond well when they are noticed for something they did well.

So, this newsletter is just a reminder.

And I know that some of you, chiropractors, acupuncturists, dentists, vets, Vitalistic or not, have experienced the phenomenon of quantum entanglement with your patients – or even with your team. Being a “good finder,” creating positive relationships, and thinking positive thoughts about others — if genuine — often do bring positive effects. I have seen it, and I am sure you have too.

So, be a Good Finder…

…and More Good will find you.

Ed

https://health.ucdavis.edu/medicalcenter/features/2015-2016/11/20151125_gratitude.html

 

Back to School Month

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chiropractic back to school, goal driven

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
(Attributed to Nelson Mandela)*

September is almost here, and soon the schools will be busy.

Since doctor means teacher, why not go all in on education and teaching this month?

BACK TO SCHOOL FOR THE KIDS

Support your teachers and the kids they teach.

This September, you can align your office with a local school and support other teachers and their students.

There are many approaches to this. You can call or visit a school and tell them you would like, along with your staff and patients, to make a contribution of some kind to a specific department or activity. These could be new uniforms for the marching band, art supplies, or supplies for the kids in need, like calculators, notebooks, and book bags.

You can also get the kids in for a back-to-school check-up and include a short workshop on backpack safety.

Whatever your plan is, promote it in your e-newsletter, on posters and handouts, and your social medial platforms.

You can also offer a special discount to teachers.

Staff often have great ideas and love to work on special projects like this. Get them involved!

While these types of promotions are not designed to generate boatloads of new patients, they can be fun, generate goodwill, and establish your business as a trusted community member. All of this supports your other marketing activities.

BACK TO SCHOOL FOR THE ADULTS

Because staff and doctor education is important, but not urgent, it is typically put on the back burner. This is true with many things, including patient care, where we focus too much on pain relief and not enough on correction, strengthening, and wellness.

Your Patients

As health professionals, you know that healthcare information in the marketplace borders on criminal. Corporations that produce soft drinks don’t warn about the harmful effects of high fructose corn syrup, “food” companies about the dangers of linoleic oil in cooking oil, or corporations that sell farm and lawn products about the toxins from weed and insect killers.

The benefits of chiropractic and non-corporate health care certainly aren’t promoted, and we have seen what happens to the M.D. s that speak out against the well-funded medical narrative.

Inform While You Perform, and in doing so, you help your patients become healthier and position your practice as a genuine HEALTH practice. Be a rebel, and educate your patients on health: corrective care, strengthening, care, nutrition, diet, exercise, and all the basics of good health that can’t be patented!

You and Your Team

The fall seminars are coming up! State conventions often have teachers that actually teach practical information! Schedule yourself for a weekend this fall… and take your staff.

Fall State Conventions. Staff education is more important than you might realize. First, they learn some valuable concepts and procedures. But beyond the obvious, investing in their education shows you recognize their value. They are an integral part of practice success and patient outcomes and are worthy of the investment. They also see that they are part of a larger profession – that there are others besides you and their practice mates that have similar jobs, challenges, and rewards.

Chirofest. Besides your local state conventions, a shoutout to Chirofest out in Vancouver WA. Dr. Paul Reed does a great job, and nothing compares to the Oregon coast, two hours from Vancouver.

Goal Driven Management and Leadership Training. Our own Practice Management and Leadership Training starts September 18th. We are limiting enrollment to just 7 offices for our Founder’s Round and we still have a couple of spots open. There is absolutely no training like this anywhere. Let me know if you are interested. It’s an amazing deal — but only if you want to improve your income and create an even more dynamic practice manager!

Seize September,

Ed

More info:

Goal Driven Management and Leadership Training

ChiroFest seminar

Your state association

The Goal Driven Business book by Ed Petty

*Nelson Mandela quote: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Madison Park High School, Boston, 23 June 1990; reported in various forms

Chiropractors and Other Doctors: Do You Placate Your Patients?

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Goal Driven to tell the truth. Chiropractic, business management

Faith, Confidence and Belief

It is an oversimplification to say that chiropractors, and other doctors, who remain true to their principles and goals are less stressed and more productive.

And make more money.

But I’ve seen it.

You need Faith, Confidence and Belief (FCB!) in yourself, in your knowledge and skills, and what your office can do for people. (I learned about FCB from Dr. James Parker at a Parker seminar years ago.)

With these qualities, you can tell the truth and be honest. And stick to your guns.

A naturopathic and chiropractic doctor I follow on a social media site said this:

“If someone was poisoning themselves slowly with their lifestyle habits, you bet I let them know. Isn’t that what doctors are supposed to do? Truth be told, most everyone already knew. People aren’t stupid, just in denial.

“Last time I checked it’s our job to tell them the facts. Not placate them or worry about hurting their feelings with said facts…Because that’s what most doctors are doing. They beat around the bush so as to not offend.

“Of course, I was always professional and kind, but I still called a spade a spade.

“The word doctor means teacher, not enabler.”

CASE ACCEPTANCE AND FOLLOW-THROUGH FOR YOUR CHIROPRACTIC PATIENTS

From a marketing perspective, people buy from those they trust. And they trust people who have certainty.

If you equivocate – dodge the facts – your patient will see that you are unsure what the heck you are talking about. They will be less likely to commit to a care program or follow through.

On the other hand, if you apply your knowledge and skill with certainty and confidence when you look at their case, explain it to them, and recommend a treatment plan that is best suited for them, their chances of commitment and follow-through are very high.

WHAT GETS IN THE WAY OF YOUR TRUTH

One of the benefits of seminars is that your convictions can become rekindled. You are reminded of your truth.

But after a week or so, back at your office, the fire of your passion begins to dim. And rather than gliding through your day, it starts to feel like you are plodding through mud.

What gets in the way of your pure-hearted and stalwart convictions about health and your principles and purposes?

And what is it that slows you down?

ADMIN. Administration. Everything that is NOT patient-related. The organization and running of the support machinery of your practice start to pull you into its noise, worries, corrections, and sometimes drama.

Policies, procedures, and people do not all move smoothly and cooperate conveniently or get implemented as excellently as you hope. And this can be a major distraction.

Practice management can get messy!

This is why organizational structure and management are so very essential. Maybe not when you are a wild entrepreneur just starting out. But as your business grows, administrative details flood in – and clog up the works. More than most doctors realize!

AN ORGANIZER FOR YOUR CHIROPRACTIC ADMINISTRATION

The solution is to take time to work ON your business.

Then, assign someone to be your MANAGER to help you improve the organization and take care of the admin.

They will need training and you’ll need to work with them.

And to be direct, and not to beat around the bush, if you don’t do this, you will be forever stunted in your practice growth and work-life balance. And you will lose money.

But with an organizer, someone who is managing your practice administration, you will be less distracted and more grounded in your truth to help your patients get and stay on the best track for their health. And, your practice will be more profitable.

Our high-level training for your manager (and you) begin September 18. For more info below.

Keep to your truth,

Ed

Advanced Practice Manager Training, Beginning September 18.
Find out about it here.

MUSIC You made it this far, so enjoy some music – as a tribute to Robbie Robertson – The Weight – Playing for Change.

 

How is Your Chiropractic Head Game?

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chiropractic goal driven to strike out batters.

The Hidden Game of Practice Success
‘Baseball is 90 percent mental. The other half is physical’ – Yogi Berra

Hello Sports Fans!

For my 13-year grandson’s birthday, I bought him a book on sports: Ninety Percent Mental: An All-Star Turned Mental Skills Coach Reveals the Hidden Game of Baseball by Bob Tewsksbury.

I haven’t finished reading the book, but I know the subject – how the mind affects performance. I figure any tips I can give to my grandkids, the better chance they will have.

And I figure this also applies to myself, and perhaps to you.

In my book, The Goal Driven Business, I cover the 5 Engines to practice success. These are:

  1. Clinical outcomes and service
  2. Leadership
  3. Management
  4. Marketing
  5. Personal Power

No matter how competent you are as a chiropractic doctor, healthcare provider, or business owner, how inspiring you are as a leader, how consistent and enterprising you are as a manager, or intelligent as a marketer… if you don’t have the positive energy to make things happen, your practice will falter.

Personal Power is the “Hidden Game” of practice success.

The first chiropractor Dave and I worked with had multiple doctors and together saw over 2,000 visits per week. (I still have the stats!) A recurring theme he would tell his associates was that practice success was an “inside job.” This meant success was dependent upon their mental attitude.

But one’s mental attitude is dependent upon something much deeper. You can always “fake it till you make it,” which might sometimes be necessary. But it is not authentic.

What is authentic is your happiness. Happiness underlies your mental attitude. Your Personal Power comes out when you are happier.

So, how do you become happier?

Using Your Signature Strengths In Your Chiropractic and Healthcare Practice

One method that has been proven to improve a person’s happiness is to focus on your strengths – what you are good at – and less on what you are not so good at.

Martin Seligman, Ph.D., is a strong proponent of Positive Psychology. In his book Authentic Happiness, he discusses common virtues that all people in all cultures have agreed upon over time. These virtues can be translated into specific Character Strengths. Each of these strengths has 3-5 subcategories for a total of 24-Character Strengths.

We all have a different set of more dominant strengths, which Seligman calls our Signature Strengths. For example, one person may be strong in humor, gratitude, and fairness, while another person’s Signature Strengths could be creativity, curiosity, and gratitude.

“I do not believe that you should devote overly much effort to correct your weaknesses. Rather, I believe that the highest success in living and the deepest emotional satisfaction comes from building and using your signature strengths.”

I cover this in practical detail in my book, The Goal Driven Business, and it is part of our upcoming Management and Leadership Training course, our 11-week intensive training especially for practice managers beginning on Sept. 18.

We all have our confusions and apprehensions — our mental monkeys that get in the way of our happiness and limit our Personal Power. You see this in your patients and staff, and I am sure you notice it now and then in yourself.

But a legitimate goal is to be happy, and in so doing, you can unleash your power and win at the “Hidden Game” of practice success.

By focusing on what you do best, and allowing your team to pick up all the rest, you can go a long way at winning the “Hidden Game” of practice development.

Having your team pick up “all the rest” requires good management. So I recommend you consider our Management and Leadership training for your manager this Sept.

Stay strong in your strengths,

Ed

You can take a survey and discover your Signature Strengths at
www.viacharacter.org

For more information about our Management and Leadership Training. www.GoalDriven.com/mba

Image: Wikipedia

The Biggest Factor in your Chiropractic or Heath Practice’s success?

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You might say it is clinical expertise. Or motivation? Or marketing Or …philosophy.

After visiting chiropractic offices nationwide for over 30 years, I can tell you that none of these factors are the most fundamental. Important, yes. But sooner or later, they all get derailed and sidetracked because of one factor — management.

HOW GROWTH TRAPS YOU AS A CHIROPRACTIC AND PRACTICE OWNER

Growth creates its own barrier. As you see more patients and your visit volume grows, so does your administrative and marketing duties. In fact, they grow about twice as fast. But for the most part, they aren’t noticed as you are busy with patient care. After a while, tasks backlog and pile up, staff get confused, and the floor cares in and down goes your practice.

As you grow, you run into a mostly invisible organizational barrier. This creates a big dilemma: How can you be at your best as a caring, empathetic doctor focusing on delivering the highest quality outcomes possible to your trusting patients — while at the same time managing a growing business.

You can’t.

You need a trained, Goal Driven manager to take care of the practice administration for you.

IT’S THE MANAGER!

But you don’t have to take it from me.

Michael Gerber pointed this out in his famous book, The E-Myth, in the 1980s.

And recently, after analyzing hundreds of businesses and thousands of business people, Gallup scientifically came up with the following conclusion:

“Based on our largest global study of the Future of Work, Gallup finds that the quality of managers and team leaders is the single biggest factor in your organization’s long-term success.”

A PRACTICAL MBA FOR YOUR PRACTICE MANAGER AND YOU

There are no intensive training programs for practice managers in the chiropractic profession. There sometimes are some short classes at seminars on various “management” subjects, but nothing formal or comprehensive. And nothing for doctors to be trained as CEO’s, though some chiropractic colleges offer two-year MBA programs for $20,000 or more.

Over the last year, we have been building a training program for practice managers.

The program is primarily for managers, but doctors will also receive training as Clinic Directors. It is an 11-week program with 30 short classes taught in live webinars over 11 weeks. It includes round table discussions with the managers, weekly homework for the manager graded by me, a private manager’s club, and many other innovative teaching procedures.

The outcome is a Goal Driven practice manager and practice Clinic Director who knows how to move their practice forward to achieve its fullest potential and comfortably stay there.

Over the next several weeks, I will post articles and videos on practice management and leadership for you and your practice manager in addition to the usual Tuesday emails.

If you are interested in this program, just reply to this email, and we will contact you.

I am only accepting a maximum of 7 offices as this is the first Founder’s Round for charter members. So don’t wait if you are interested. The class is filling, and once we are full, that’s all I can take.

MANAGEMENT SUPPORTS EVERYTHING IN A CHIROPRACTIC AND HEALTHCARE PRACTICE

You can attend seminars and learn new adjusting techniques, buy new therapy equipment, and purchase all the advertising you can. But when the rubber meets the road, you need people and systems to support you. Who will train and coach your team, write up and practice new procedures, and handle the growing administrative responsibilities?

If you have a trained manager and you have been trained in our new Fast Flow CEO Method, the admin tasks will be managed proactively and responsibly.

And you know what? Managers want to be trained. They want to improve and be more valuable to the practice.

WHEN YOU NEED A PRACTICE MANAGER AND WHEN YOU DON’T

If you are operating comfortably at 40-50% of your full capacity, you have the time to be the practice manager yourself. If you want.

But if you are growing, operating at 80% or more of you full capacity, or if you have a large practice, with multiple doctors, providers, or ancillary services, you are losing revenue if you do not have a trained Goal Driven practice manager taking care of practice administration.

MANAGEMENT TIP FOR THE WEEK.

Do what you do best.

And delegate all the rest.

Ed

The Best Leadership for Your Chiropractic and Healthcare Practice

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Improving productivity through greater engagement.

I try to base all my practice and business recommendations on observations I have had and also on the research from those of others.

Dave Michel and I have an advantage: we are not doctors and therefore are not biased on any particular type of clinical practice. We are managers and not doctors, so we don’t advise that you do it “our way.” We look for what works and what is best for the patient, the practice, and the owner.

After viewing hundreds of practices, I distilled down the essential elements of what we saw that were most effective and least effective. I then integrated research from other business scientists and laid out a simple growth and practice development plan that was not based on any one doctor’s personality.

Jim Collins is one researcher whose information we incorporated into our work, Eliyahu Goldratt, Stephen Covey, and scores of others, including Michael Gerber.

MICHAEL GERBER

Gerber’s book, The E-Myth, states that, from his experience as a business consultant, people who start a business have three roles: the entrepreneur, the technician, and the manager. By his definition, the technician would be the doctor or health care provider who would also have the role of business owner or entrepreneur.

Most doctors focus on being doctors and making a living as business owners or entrepreneurs.

The manager role is short-changed. It is a difficult role to fulfill as who has time to manage and see a full load of patients. You are paid for providing service… not for managing. Right?

In a practice, the “manager” is really the CEO, or Clinic Director — whatever term you care to use.

This role breaks down into three major functions, all supporting the delivery of clinical services and generating income for the practice and business. These three functions are:

  • Leadership
  • Management
  • Marketing

A good portion of these functions can be delegated using the Goal Driven System, as discussed in the book, The Goal Driven Business.

I want to zero in on leadership.

LEADERSHIP

Gallup states that it has done extraordinarily comprehensive and long-term studies on leadership. They report, “The most effective leaders rally a broad group of people toward an organization’s goals, mission and objectives. They lead. People follow.”

In their studies, they have found that people need or seek the following from their leaders:

          • Trust
          • Compassion
          • Stability
          • Hope

This is what your team wants from you as their employer and Clinic Director.

One of the biggest challenges in all offices is a support team that loses its motivation and is no longer engaged. If you can develop these 4 feelings in your team, their motivation and production will improve.

The big challenge, which is not usually resolved in most practices, is how to be an effective leader and take care of a full caseload of patients.

MANAGEMENT

This is where the function of management comes into play.

The function of management is THE lever, THE Leverage Point (Principle 13 in The Goal Driven Business), that allows leadership to function and a practice to reach its full potential.

I will reveal new information about this next week, but for now, consider the 4 needs employees seek from you as their employer. Write them down on a piece of paper and consider them your goals in your role of Clinic Director.

Seize the Future through Trust, Compassion, Stability, and Hope.

Till next week,

Ed

Strengths Based Leadership – Gallup, 2008
E-Myth Revisited, Michael Gerber

Reach and Maintain Maximum Cruising Altitude in Your Chiropractic or Healthcare Practice

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A chiropractic or health care practice flying high.

As a chiropractic or healthcare business owner, you ultimately have 1 of 3 destinations you want to achieve.

  1. Cruise at Maximum Altitude. Reach your full operational capacity, stay there and cruise, accumulate wealth, and enjoy the ride.
  2. Cruise at Maximum Altitude and Expand. Reach your full operational capacity, then clone yourself and bring on other doctors, providers, or heaven help you, other offices.
  3. Attain Maximum Altitude and Sell. Reach your full operational capacity and sell your business.

Operating at full capacity would be adjusting and treating as many patients as possible comfortably with full staff support. It would be your maximum production level where you, and all the doctors and providers, were fully booked.

Getting to your full capacity is one thing. Staying there is another altogether.

There are several reasons why it can be so challenging to maintain your maximum capacity. Some causes are apparent, some hide in plain sight, and some are difficult to recognize, accept, or overcome.

Here are a few:

  1. You are a chiropractic or healthcare entrepreneur. You like the challenge of growth. But you get bored easily. After you reach the top of the mountain, you look around for another challenge, and in the process – oops! You stop doing what worked.
  2. Passion, Inspiration, & Fast Marketing. You can often achieve high production because of sudden inspiration from a recent seminar or tapping into a new marketing niche. In either case, passion doesn’t last forever, and fishing holes are soon fished out.
  3. Your team is not ready. You don’t have the team in place to support the higher volume.
  4. Doctor AND CEO. You don’t have the time and energy to provide high-quality care to more and more patients AND manage your business at the same time.

Other snares, barriers, landmines, pirates, and even false prophets block your growth, pull you down, or lead you astray and keep you from hitting your maximum altitude, but the above four are common.

Here are remedies to the above 4 hurdles:

  1. Yes, you are an entrepreneur — but keep doing what works. It may need some adjusting now and then, but if you were calling the new patient after their first adjustment and treatment when you were growing and doing well – keep doing it!
  2. Generate your own inspiration weekly. Read, watch videos, go to where you go for spiritual revival, and talk to positive colleagues. Talk to your coach(s)! You could go to a hospital or talk to nurses and see what happens to people who didn’t see you! Remember, the Power comes from above down and then inside out.
  3. Invest in building your team. It takes time to build an expert team. Ensure you hire right and then regularly coach your team.
  4. Systems. The dilemma of being an expert doctor while also a competent CEO is solved by implementing systems, especially management systems. Michael Gerber discussed this in his book, The E-Myth, a standard text for most owners of service businesses. My book, the Goal Driven Business, expands upon it.

Apply these 4 remedies now — and when you do reach your full capacity, you will have a much easier time staying there.

If you are looking for a guide or a flight instructor to help you reach your cruising altitude, let me know!

Seize Your Future,

Ed

Three Phases of Chiropractic Care are Like 3 Goals for the Patient

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chiropractic, goal, driven, chiropractor, petty, michel

It was a warm summer day when I was driving my Kawasaki Intruder south down Highway 101 in Oregon near the California border when the fog rolled in. Although I had gloves on, they didn’t help. Hitting a cold fog bank on a motorcycle, the wind chill hits you hard. I was cold, but when I noticed that the front wheel was shaking because I was shaking, I decided that was enough. I found a roadside motel and called it a day.

After a two-hour shower just to warm up, I settled into a chair in my room and started reading some material from a client’s office. It talked about the 3 Phases of Care for patients. I knew about these phases, though never paid much attention to them, and I don’t expect many doctors I worked with paid much attention to them either.

Then, it hit me: these Three Phases of Care are like three goals of care:

  1. Relief – Goal 1
  2. Correction-strengthening – Goal 2
  3. Maintenance-Wellness — Goal 3

Then I had this kinda mind-blowing experience: Could these three goals for patients also apply to three goals for a practice? This was a mind-altering question, and after the room stopped swirling, the answer was obvious – YES. The three goals for a patient were similar to the three goals for a practice.

  1. Profit — Goal 1. (This comes from immediate production from marketing. Not enough cash flow is painful!)
  2. Service — Goal 2. (The best quality at full capacity comes from a strong practice where all major issues are corrected and in alignment.)
  3. Higher Purposes. — Goal 3. Our why, our mission, our reasons for Goals 1 and 2.

From this experience, we named our seminar series in 2008 – 2010, The Three Goals. And it was from this that I later named my book, The Goal Driven Business.

3 GOALS FOR YOUR CHIROPRACTIC AND HEALTH ORIENTED PATIENTS

I think to be agreeable and to give patients what they think they want, doctors often focus on relief care, and once the patient feels better, the patient leaves. Trying to convince patients to stay longer can seem like pressuring the patient, or it just takes up too much time.

Yes, educating your patients on correction and wellness does take more work. But your patients want this. They just don’t know it. They are symptom oriented – trained and treated by a medical system rather than an actual health system.

The hardware store thinks it is selling a hammer to a man. Yes, but they are also selling something that puts a beautiful painting on a wall at his home that makes his wife happy. The hardware store is selling… a hammer, a hung artwork, and happiness.

As the doctor, are you selling just a hammer, or are you also selling happiness?

3 GOALS FOR YOUR CHIROPRACTIC AND HEALTHCARE PRACTICE

Unfortunately, the habit of only treating symptoms carries over to practice management. We don’t take the time or feel we have the time to invest in ourselves, let alone our staff. Constant training, coaching, and sometimes counseling for yourself and your team are required to become stronger and more in alignment with the goals of a healing office. In the end, this improves income, service, and practice freedom.

For happier patients and a happier office, apply all 3 Phases of Care, or Goals, to your patients and to your practice.

Ed

I can show you how this is possible. Read the Goal Driven Business and contact me!

How to Be a Health Patriot – Don’t Be a Colonialist!

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July 4th weekend is coming up, and here in the United States, it’s a pretty big deal.

It should be.

July 4 is Independence Day, a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain. It was ratified on July 4, 1776, establishing the United States of America.

Reading the Declaration of Independence and the history of how it came about is sobering. Times were very rough, and those who worked and fought for independence were brave and sacrificed a great deal.

Britain had established colonies in North America. And as enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, they treated the people in these colonies unjustly.

A colony is defined as: “an area over which a foreign nation or state extends or maintains control.” It seems to me that big corporations have captured healthcare institutions, both private and public. And therefore, healthcare has been colonized.

Every year, especially these last few years, I think of you and your dedicated staff – chiropractors and other independent healthcare practices – like the revolutionaries of 1776.

You are the HEALTH PATRIOTS, and so are your teams and your patients. I recommend that you take some time, now and then, to acknowledge this. It’s an honor but also a responsibility.

“The Rights of the Colonists” is a 1772 essay by Samuel Adams (not the beer lol!), a Bostonian revolutionary leader. He wrote:

It is in the interest of tyrants to reduce the people to ignorance and vice. For they cannot live in any country where virtue and knowledge prevail.*

I suggest one of the best methods of growing your practice is through education. Teach your patients, your team, and seek knowledge yourself. Give them your wisdom, your experience, and help them become independent and, ultimately, interdependent.

Use your table talk, personal newsletters, thorough report of findings AND progress reports, and heck, even the old fashioned spinal care classes.

We are awash in corporate marketing and influence. * Fight colonialism through education and question everything. And encourage your patients and team to do the same.

All of us at PM&A want to thank you for your courage and generous care of your patients and community.

Respectfully, let’s Seize the Future! (Carpe Futurum!)

Ed

ALSO, seize my book The Goal Driven Business. Almost free! ($8.00) for the next 2 weeks. ($3.00 for Kindle version.) Plus, you will receive 10 practice-building tools to grow and develop your practice. If the information in the book is applied, you WILL increase your profit, improve your service… and achieve greater freedom. Buy a bunch and give them to your colleagues. Let’s help more people!

The photo above is taken in the Boston Public Garden next to the Boston Common with a statue of George Washington behind me. The Boston Common was used as a training ground for colonial militias and served as a gathering place for political rallies and public gatherings during the pre-revolutionary period. It is also close to Lexington and Concord where “The Shot Heard Round the World” occurred on April 19, 1775. I was sightseeing before I attended RFK, Jr.’s announcement nearby for his run for President. RFK, Jr. said that this is one of the reasons he picked this location to announce his presidency — which he did on April 19, 2023.

References:

Pharmaceutical companies spend around 68% of their $30 billion ( a year) medical marketing budget on persuading medical professionals of the benefits of their prescription drugs, with the largest payer being Bristol-Myers Squibb https://www.fiercepharma.com/special-reports/top-10-pharma-drug-brand-ad-spenders-2022 According to Vivvix

The pharmaceuticals and health products industry in the United States spent about $373.74 million on lobbying efforts in 2022, https://www.statista.com/statistics/257364/top-lobbying-industries-in-the-us/ Statistica

Pharmaceutical companies contribute significantly to medical schools and hospitals for research grants and continuing medical education classes. Pharmaceutical and medical device company contributions accounted for 28% of continuing medical education funding in 2017. https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/pharma-medtech-spending-accounted-for-28-of-cme-funds-in-2017/528598/

Of Harvard’s 8,900 professors and lecturers, 1,600 admit that either they or a family member have had some kind of business link to drug companies — sometimes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars — that could bias their teaching or research. Additionally, pharma contributed more than $11.5 million to the school last year for research and continuing-education classes. 2008 https://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1883449,00.html

The U.S. taxpayer indirectly supports Big Pharma by funding research grants to universities and other institutions, which are used by pharmaceutical corporations to develop products to sell back to taxpayers. https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/us-tax-dollars-funded-every-new-pharmaceutical-in-the-last-decade

Samuel Adams (1906). “The Writings of Samuel Adams: 1770-1773” azquotes.com

What Is Effective Chiropractic Practice Management?

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You would think that management, by now, as a subject, would be scientific. That corporations would employ skilled managers with their MBAs from prestigious universities that effectively applied administrative technology to nurture their companies.

Nah, it’s not like that.

A research study was conducted by Nicholas Bloom* and others aimed at determining how effectively management procedures were being used in U.S. companies. They found that only 15% of U.S. companies scored above a 4 on a 5-point scale. More than 30% scored a three or lower. Companies outside of the U.S. scored much worse.

Management is primarily personality driven – a little like politics and show business. And sometimes, the mafia. Some companies do well because there is a dynamic genius at the helm. Others do well because they were there at the right time. Others appear to do well because of the money they borrow, steal, or collude with government regulators.

I know some very successful chiropractors who are good managers. But they were good mostly because of their temperament and not because of their conscious use of management techniques.

Unfortunately, most management focuses on supervision. It is a form of spectator-ism and policing. Like watching robots on an assembly line and reprimanding errors and deviations.

Good management focuses on improvement. First, keep things working, then how can we all improve it? It is servant based.

In my book, Goal Driven Business, I cover this as part of the Goal Driven System.

For practical purposes, management has two different functions:

1. Keep doing what works.

2. Continually look at how the procedures and systems could be improved.

If it worked yesterday, you should do it today and also tomorrow.

Then, improve it – little by little.

If you want to make a big change, when the entrepreneurial spirit hits you, do a trial run first. Don’t disrupt the systems that are working.

A good number of practice problems occur for one reason:

You stopped doing what worked!

This applies to the front desk, patient accounts, new patient onboarding, team management, and marketing procedures.

If it worked once, it would probably work again. Just improve it if it is outdated – and if that doesn’t work, revert to what worked.

I know – your workdays can get boring and sometimes you want to go and chase the shiny things. Fine. But keep doing what works until something proves itself to be better.

I will be teaching a management course later this year. If you are interested, let us know and we’ll get you on the waiting list. It will be for you and your manager. Each class will be small to allow for more personalized instruction.

Good management underlies all your activities – managing your patients, your practice, and even your life. And especially your future!

Seize the future with good management!

* Harvard Business Review, November 2012 Nicholas Bloom

—————————————————-

If your practice building efforts aren’t taking you to your goals, there are reasons — many of which are hidden from you.

Find out what they are and how to sail to your next level by getting and implementing my new book, The Goal Driven Business.

The Goal Driven Business By Edward Petty

Chiropractic Has Always Been Organic

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Chiropractic has always been organic. Earth Day, goaldriven

You can improve your marketing by aligning your services with positive causes in society.

A fitting example occurs this time of year.

Earth Day is on April 22 (Saturday). It promotes a healthy planet and stands for protecting the earth’s natural resources for future generations.

Earth Day had several early separate beginnings but was finally pushed home by a senator from the great state of Wisconsin, also its former governor, Gaylord Nelson. The first Earth Day was in 1970 and “brought 20 million Americans out into the spring sunshine for peaceful demonstrations in favor of environmental reform.”

But Senator Nelson was also a proponent of natural health and fought for chiropractic.

In a statement to Congress in 1963, Nelson said, “Chiropractic has become increasingly accepted as a safe and effective form of health care…I believe it is time that Medicare beneficiaries be given the opportunity to receive the benefits of this form of health care.” Nelson’s efforts helped pave the way for chiropractic care to be included in Medicare in 1972.

If you distill it all down, it is all about health: a healthy planet and a healthy body, naturally.

People want this – your patients and your community. They want a healthy planet and a healthy body.

This may not be apparent because of advertising and corporate news. There is a relentless pitch to your patients and community to eat cheap bad food, that a toxic environment is no big deal (“move along, nothing to see here”), and that drug stores are health stores.

But despite the billions spent on promotion and lobbying for bad food, bad medicine, and covering up the poisoning of our planet, the innate (and tribal) wisdom of us all prevails. The sales of organic foods and health supplements are booming. The natural healthcare industry, including chiropractors, acupuncturists, and integrative health providers, continues to grow. And there is increasing concern about how pollution causes deaths and illnesses, not to mention climate change.

I bring this up for two (2) reasons:

Reason #1: Marketing: Chiropractic and Earth Day

By aligning your office with Earth Day, eco-conscious consumers who value natural and sustainable products and services will see your services as a desirable alternative to medical practices. You are the obvious choice as health doctors.

Years ago, we put together some posters and pins related to Natural Health Week, coinciding with Whole Earth Week and Earth Day. Some offices still use versions of them! (Link below.) You can do something similar this Friday, next week, or all month. For example:

  • Hand out seeds to grow vegetables in the backyard. Include a coupon for a family member or friend.

  • Support a local health food coop and bring in healthy muffins for your patients.

  • Create a community clean-up drive.

  • Partner with environmental and health organizations. You can share events, newsletters, and create allied relationships.

But there is another reason I bring this up.

Reason #2: This reason is BIG. It will have to wait till tomorrow,
Wednesday, April 19.

But please stay tuned!

See you Wednesday!

Ed

Link to Posters and References at our blog.

 

Tribal Knowledge Can Improve Your Practice

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teams, management, chiropractic, knowledge

Mining the Underground Innate Knowledge of Your Team

You may not have run into this term before… maybe you have. It was new to me before I began putting together the notes for The Goal Driven Business.

In any case, it is a concept worth knowing and one you can use to improve your business. I’ll give you an example and then define it.

It was spring years ago, and I was meeting with a motivated practice owner who was already doing well. We were discussing marketing plans for the next several months, and some of our programs ended in June. We needed something that would work for July. So I said, “Why don’t we ask the staff for some ideas?”

We were scheduled for a team meeting anyway, which I attended. After the usual topics were covered, the doctor asked the staff for some ideas for marketing in July. Now, the doctor was relatively new to the community, and the team was long-time residents. Various ideas were thrown around, and one seemed to percolate and draw enthusiasm from the staff. A popular promotion that they had experienced as local consumers in their town was “Christmas in July.” Since their community was familiar with this promotion, they were sure it would work well if it were tied to a patient referral program.

Both the doctor and I thought it was a dumb idea. However, the staff was already in high gear planning the promotion by the end of the staff meeting. I suggested to the doctor that he let them run with it. He did, and as it turned out, it was a big hit. They had one of their best new patient and office visit months ever… in July.

At another office, some years later, I was helping the doctor work out her mission statement for the practice. She and her associate were hitting speed bumps trying to come up with a simple definition. I recommended putting it to the staff to see what they might come up with. At the next team meeting, the doctor discussed the idea of a global statement for the WHY of the office and its higher goals and asked them if they could work it out as an office mission by next week.

And that is what they did. The following week, the manager and staff presented the mission statement to the doctors. The doctor emailed it to me.

I didn’t really like it as it was long and too mushy, at least for me. But the doctor approved it and posted it in the reception area. The staff loved it. It fit their compassionate attitudes towards the patients and captured their existing relationship with them. They memorized it, and it was recited after every staff meeting. Their stats haven’t come down since. They are a happy and Goal Driven group!

In our consulting, we routinely encouraged the wisdom of veteran staff to be integrated into the management and marketing of the office. We didn’t have a definition for this knowledge, but it was effective nonetheless.

Here is the definition of Tribal Knowledge according to Leonard Bertain in his book, The Tribal Knowledge Paradox:

Tribal knowledge is the collective wisdom of the organization. It is the sum of the knowledge. It is the knowledge used to deliver, to support or to develop value for customers. But it is also knowledge that is wrong, imprecise and useless. It is knowledge of the informal power structure and process, or how things really work and how they ought to. … But more importantly, it is the untapped knowledge that remains unused or abused.

There is much more to this, of course. A valuable management and leadership skill is how to elicit tribal knowledge, decipher it, filter the practical from the impractical, and put it to use.

I try to keep these newsletters as short as possible. If you want to set up a time to discuss this subject more, just make an appointment (link below). No charge for subscribers to this newsletter.

Not everything can be put on job checklists. Job checklists are very useful, but there is a wealth of knowledge just under the surface with your team, even your spouse, that can be accessed and put to good use.

By creating a culture where it is safe to contribute learned experiences in team meetings, coaching sessions, and other opportunities, improvements in your practice can be made faster.

Seeking and honoring the tribal knowledge gained from the experience of your team respects them, whether the information is useful or not. This is the essence of creating a synergistic office – where team members help each other — to help more people become healthier.

Carpe Future (Seize the future)

Ed

Want to discuss how to uncover the Tribal Knowledge in your practice, schedule a short call with Ed here.