Category Archives: Practice Administration

Why Goals Work and How to Harness Their Power for Greater Prosperity

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Goals are the 20%of efforts thatWhy do goals work?

We all know the obvious: they help keep you focused, and as Yogi Berra, the baseball catcher, said, “If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up somewhere else.”

We have all heard about their importance.  But we may not have heard or understood WHY.

What is the underlying principle behind goals, and why do they work?  What gives them their power? And can you harness it improve your business and its bottom line?

Stick with me and find out…

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It was one of those September days in the Midwest when the leaves were turning orange, and the wind was blowing.  I was in Chicago – the Windy City – where I attended a seminar downtown at one of its plush hotels.

The program was kind of out of my league – at least then.  The fee for three days was $7,000.  I was only attending the first day, which was $1,000 – still a lot of money.  But I was drawn to the subject, and I was familiar with the person who was putting it on.

There were aggressive young MBA types flying in from around the country and the world.  On the night before, at the hotel where the seminar was to be held, I saw several small groups in lively discussion around laptops – as if they were in the middle of inventing the next Big Thing.  I remember talking to one young man from Singapore and learning about the high-energy atmosphere of entrepreneurship there.

The seminar focused on building, buying, or overhauling a business.  The speaker was a self-made billionaire, a former management consultant, so his teaching fees did not come cheap.  This was not a seminar for dabblers!

The subjects discussed on the first day and, as I learned, on the other two days, were surprisingly uncomplicated.  They discussed the key ingredients to look for when deciding what business to build, buy, or grow.  These few key factors were introduced on the first day of the seminar and then expanded upon the other two days.

But it all started around one principle: the PARETO PRINCIPLE.

Many of you know the Pareto Principle and the Rule of 80/20.  This Principle has been used over the last 50 years by major manufacturing companies to improve the quality of their products.  The concept is easy to state but often difficult for entrepreneurs to apply.  It predicts that roughly 80% of valuable results come from just 20% of efforts.  In some cases, the ratio can even be more extreme so that 10% or even 5% produces 90% or 95% of the results.

Not all efforts are equal: there are the “vital few” efforts and the “useful many” efforts.  Workaholic entrepreneurs can struggle to put this concept into practical use.  We find that delegating a $20 an hour task is risky, so we will spend time organizing a bookshelf or driving to get office supplies ourselves instead of taking care of a potential $1,000 an hour task, or even a $10,000 an hour task.

As a non-business example of the 80/20 Rule, consider all the clothes in your closet.  I bet you wear just 20%, or less, 80% of the time.  Then, consider how you get to work – out of all the choices of roads to take, you use just a few of them.

Look at a winning athletic team.  Just a few players are responsible for 80% of its success.  This does not mean that the other players are not important – just not THAT important.

All efforts are just not equal or average.

How might this apply to your business?  Well, for example, 80% or more of customer dissatisfaction comes from 20% or less of your patients.  On the other hand, 20% or less of your patients account for 80% of your patient referrals.

As the CEO of your business, what are the vital few actions you can take that will produce the most results?  I suggest that defining the business’s goals, ensuring that your team understands them, and keeping these goals alive each week is key.

As Stephen Covey advises: “Begin with the end in mind.”  Goals are simply the end you have in mind.  On the higher end, they would include your mission, vision, and reason for them – your WHY.  They would also include the values you hold as standards of behavior and performance.

These greater goals would be manifested as products or outcomes.  For example, if your mission included helping people have healthy teeth, then a practical manifestation of this goal would be “Jim,” a patient, having his teeth cleaned today.  If your vision were a healthy and pain-free community, the practical outcomes would be 100 patients adjusted today.

As a doctor, what would be the 20% of your actions that account for 80% of your results?  I suggest letting the patient know that you understand their goals and work to help them achieve those goals at each encounter.

As the manager of your business, ensuring each team member knows the goals of their roles and helping them achieve these goals, with good coaching and communication, will produce 80% of their successful efforts.

It all goes back to goals.  

They are the leverage points that direct and amplify all your efforts.

But here is the truth you must understand:

A small amount of time consistently spent defining the goals of, and within, your business — and working out how to achieve them — are the vital few actions that produce most of your excellent outcomes.

Know before you go.

If you and your team routinely define and redefine your goals, both the higher ones and the practical ones, and work out how to better achieve them, you will have a more prosperous and stress-free business.

Get the goals right each day, and all else will follow in your favor.

Working towards a better future,

Ed

If you don’t have it yet, get my book to learn more about how to use goals in your practice. The Goal Driven Business.

***New Training Program***

Also, stay tuned for a new training program we will be offering on the Goal Driven System. It will be limited to just 10 offices and last for 6 months. Its goal is to train the business owner and manager/senior staff member on the Goal Driven System to transform their practice into a Goal Driven Business. A Goal Driven Business is a team of Goal Drivers. That is what this program will teach you to create. (What is a Goal Driven Business? )
If you are interested in taking the training program on the Goal Driven System, for you and 1 team member, please go here to schedule a time to learn more about it. Schedule a meeting with me.

Goal Driven.com
Petty Michel & Associates

10 Practice Development Strategies for Chiropractors in 2015

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[If you think that you could make more money selling pharmaceuticals, injecting patients with vaccines and promoting flu shots in front of your office, these recommendations are not for you. For those matters, you might want to ask Palmer Chiropractic College or the Wisconsin Chiropractic Association for their opinions.]

What strategic moves should you be taking now to make sure that you have a better year in 2015 and in years to come?

After reviewing current literature and statistics, and based upon my observations and experience, I have put together a report which makes a number of recommendations that can be helpful to you. I have also included an extensive list of references for your further study.

The report contains a lot of information and so it is only for the serious practice executive. It will be a useful resource for you to refer to while you implement some of the suggestions I offer. Reading time is about 15 minutes. It offers new views on practice marketing, management, and leadership, with 25 specific recommendations.  To go straight to the main course, go here:

Here is a shorter version:

Executive Summary – 10 Strategies to Prosper and Flourish in 2015 and Beyond

1. Know Your Environment. The Medical-Pharmaceutical industries are spending more to dominate the market place. Their efforts are becoming more pervasive in reach and more covert in manipulation. At the same time, wellness statistics continue to grow. More people are turning to organic foods and are focused on wellness.

2. Marketing Positioning. My recommendation is to embrace the popular movement towards natural health and own it. Be its champion. You are the Healthy Life Doctors. This is your niche.

3. Unique Selling Proposition. Stay committed to your core services, but articulate your Unique Selling Proposition to your specific market niche(s). Not everyone is your patient. Select certain markets that are already reaching for your type of services: people fed up with drugs, baby boomers who want to stay healthy, mothers who want to avoid drugs for their children, athletes, employers who want healthy employees, etc.

4. Get More For Less. Watch your economics but don’t get stuck in a scarcity mindset. Central to economics is a return on investment -ROI. Invest in yourself and especially in making your support team expert professionals. Learn and apply the Pareto Principle (how 80 percent of your results come from just 20% of your efforts).

5. Insurance or Cash? Yes! Take insurance but don’t kowtow to the Insurance Cartel. There are millions of people who want help and can pay for it and are just looking for a solution. You have to let them know that you have their solution.

6. Shift from Personality Driven Practice to Team Driven Business. The successful offices of the future will be team driven and systematized. Each team member has to be an expert as a specialist, as a team member, and as a marketer. And each should try to achieve this as well. The doctor will delegate most marketing and administrative details to others.

7. Shift from Solo Practice to Group Practice. For those of you who are ready, you should join forces with other doctors in a group practice. This has not had a lot of success in the chiropractic profession as it has in other professions, but the time is right now to band together synergistically as brothers and sisters. There are many good reasons to do this now. However, it has to be set up — and maintained — correctly.

8. New Role: CEO and Leader. Why do CEO’s get paid so much? Because they can make such a positive difference in the business. Up to now in your career you have taken on administrative and marketing projects mostly from the role of doctor, or perhaps owner. The CEO role probably has not been emphasized. Shifting to the role of CEO changes everything. Growing a business becomes easier, you have more time available, and you make more money.

9. Seek Out and Integrate Your Greater Purposes with Your Business. The power for your office, and you, comes from those things that mean the most. This would include your family and your spiritual pursuits. But our world is smaller and we live in a networked economy and culture. Your office, in its own right, has to be a leader in your community and environment and contribute in some way beyond its walls. This also includes having a voice in your professional organization. Your greater purposes also include your personal hobbies. Since you are not working on an assembly line, many of these purposes should be integrated into your work.

10. Get an Executive Coach. Why does corporate America spend over a billion dollars on executive coaching? Because the return of investment proves to be at least 7 times, and in some cases, 10-49 times cost. Executive coaching doesn’t cost – it pays.

An executive coach is different from a clinical coach. An executive coach will help you be a better CEO – a better leader, marketer and manager who builds a team driven business which allows you to delegate most non clinical duties.  He or she will help you sort out what tasks will produce the greatest positive effects for your business, and help you get those tasks done. He or she will be your partner, counselor, confident, coach, teacher, drill instructor, and friend.

The future has never looked brighter, but the challenges are not slight. This makes your success all the more important – and sweeter.

Ed Petty

 

Giving Thanks – Appreciating Each Other

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I know you are busy now.

We all are.

We fly through our days, adjust and treat patients, make our calls, do our paper work, and then rush out to our personal lives.

But often we are like bus drivers, driving so fast that we drive past of our bus stops where our passengers are waiting for us.

So this is just a short note to remind each of us to stop, now and then, and say thanks. (And I know you know this, but a gentle reminder never hurts.) Over here in the U.S., we are celebrating Thanksgiving Day, so it is a customary holiday for us. But we really need to give thanks daily.

Gratitude is a powerful attitude and a feeling that we can use and regularly adopt to make our lives better. But its practical application derives from the fact that it is a basic recognition of a deep truth that we probably too often overlook.

The truth is that we are given so much — and that there is so much goodness in the world that deserves our appreciation.

And so this is a note to also let you know that all of us at PM&A are truly thankful for the work each of you do.

We know how hard you work and we know how much you help your patients and your community and we sincerely honor it. In fact, it is the reason we do what we do.

Unlike other management companies, we have seen you in your offices, talked to your staff, and know your numbers. We know that you don’t really get the appreciation that you deserve, but thankfully, you are not waiting around to receive “thank you” cards! Each of you are too busy helping others.

You really are the leaders in health care. You haven’t sold out. You are strong in your principles and motivated in your mission. And so are we. How each of us arrived in this line of work — who knows? Perhaps it is part of a plan, or a calling… but here we are.

I think it is safe to say that each one of you also appreciates the good work of each other across this planet in helping others get better naturally – even though you haven’t all been introduced. We are all connected by our basic efforts to help others get healthier.

And when you think about what we are all doing to help others, there certainly is a lot to be grateful for. It can almost give hope that the world can be, and will be, a better place.

With much gratitude and best wishes,

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all.

Happy-Thanksgiving

Your Biggest Chiropractic Bill Each Month

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You may be overlooking your biggest bill. Most chiropractors do.

What is it? If you are in the upper Midwest or Eastern part of the US in the winter of 2014, it might be your heating bill.  It has been pretty cold.

How about personnel or marketing? Your lease? Staff benefits? How about your pay? (Probably not, I would guess.)

In running a chiropractic business, many doctors try to maximize the profit of their business by reducing expenses. They often get this idea from their accountants, and, from a certain perspective, it is a good idea. But accountants are trained such that their primary function is reporting income for tax purposes and not managing business finances.

You definitely need to review your Profit and Loss and Balance sheets regularly. Sometimes you can get carried away with expenses, not noticing that things are getting out of balance when you have 4 x-ray units, 15 computers and only 1 staff member.

But what your financial statements don’t show you, and what your accountant isn’t trained to see, is your ROI – your return on your investment.

And what is your biggest investment? (Pause while you consider this question….)

It is YOU.

And what is your biggest bill? What is your biggest expense?

It is the income that you could and should be making that you aren’t.

Your biggest bill is the amount of money you could be making if you were operating at your full capacity but aren’t.

Here is an example: Let’s say you are relatively healthy and are capably of seeing  200 patient visits per week comfortably. This excludes new patient visits.  This averages out to about 860 visits per month.  Let’s drop it down to 820 visits for vacation days, etc.  Now, let’s say you collect only $40 per visit, average. This would mean you would be collecting $32,800 per month.

Let’s leave aside the possibility you could collect more per visit and imagine that you are seeing 150 visits per week, or 645 visits per month, or 605 if we take out a few visits for vacation days (40 visits per month).  At $40 per visit, this leaves you with $24,200 per month, or $8,600 LESS than you should be making each month.

In other words, if you could and should be making $32,800 per month and you are only making $24,200 per month, you are essentially writing a check for $8,600 EACH MONTH, payable to “Inefficiency, Inc.”

You are wasting that much each month as a negative return on your investment on yourself.

This is so brutal to face that most doctors would rather look the other way.  But whether you squint at it, or not, the reality is there: you are wasting your hard earned cash each month that you are not operating at full capacity. You are throwing away a portion of the time, training, and sacrifices you have made to get to where you are now.

It is as if you are writing a check, each month, for the amount of money you should be making, but aren’t.

Savvy CEO’s and large corporations understand this.  They need to get the full measure out of their investments. As a result, they invest heavily into solutions that improve production and services so their business can achieve full capacity.

One investment that shows the greatest return is corporate training and coaching. This is a huge industry: corporate training grosses $138 billion yearly in North America and executive and business coaching is at $9 billion a year and growing.

Various studies show that executive coaching brings back a return of 5 to 8 times the investment.

Obviously this speaks to our services, but beyond us, coaching and team training help you get the most out of your biggest investment – you.

Read a book, go to a seminar, watch a webinar, participate in 4 Mastermind groups, and get an executive coach to help train and guide you. Invest in yourself so that you can take the necessary actions to reach your full capacity.

In today’s economy, you need to get more out of what you have.

Quit wasting money. Invest in yourself. You can afford it.

Ed Petty

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References

Chiropractic Team Tryouts: Tips on Interviewing Potential New Team Members

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tryout
 Tryout: a test of someone’s ability to do something that is used to see if he or she should join a team, perform in a play, etc. (Merriam-Webster)

 

We routinely help our chiropractic teams with the hiring process.

Getting the right players can make all the difference in whether you are a winning team or just a mediocre one.

 It is often difficult to find the right candidate for the job. The prospective employee is trained to be sweet at the interview and have an impressive resume and you are expected to ask her just the right questions that will evoke her true character. This is usually not adequate.

In addition to interviews, practical tests that challenge candidates for the job position can be included as part of the hiring process. Much like a “tryout” for any sport team, musical group, or an audition for a play, we want to see how the prospective new employee performs.

A good management motto is: “Look, don’t listen.” This definitely applies to hiring.

After the first interview, if you are still interested in the person, have them come in again for a practical interview. This is the “tryout” or audition. For the front desk position, present them with some challenging but common situations and have them demonstrate how they would handle each. Have them demonstrate as in role playing, not just tell you how they would do it.

 In the examples below, the doctor can be in the role of the patient, or prospective patient, or have another team member in that role.

For the Front Desk position, you can have the candidate take on the following situations:

  •  Appointment book is full. Patient calls in and wants to see the doctor.
  • Patient calls in and is in pain.
  • Calls but is skeptical of chiropractic
  • Calls, asks how much for an adjustment, and then says it costs too much
  • Patient is leaving after an adjustment, needs to be scheduled, and the phone is ringing.
  • Patient owes $37.67. Collect it.
  • Promoting upcoming talk, next Tuesday at 6:30 on “Spinal Fitness.”

Someone applying for Patient Accounts could role-play the following:

  • Perform a patient financial consultation on a new Medicare patient who also has a secondary.
  • Call for chiropractic benefits.
  • Receive a letter “not medically necessary.” What actions to take?
  • Promoting upcoming talk, next Tuesday at 6:30 on Spinal Fitness.

Other situations can be presented that are appropriate for your office, depending on the position, such as therapy, external marketing, etc. Be creative and keep it fun, but challenging.

You can give the candidate a few lines to help them, but tell them you want them to improvise to the best of their ability. It doesn’t have to be perfect and probably won’t be that smooth as they are new to your office.

What you are looking for is their ability to be genuinely interested in the patient. You want to see how much in command they are of the situation, their friendliness, compassion, and general quality of their communication.

If you want a winning team, when hiring, use “Tryouts.”

GOOD TO GREAT: The 1st Step in Taking Your Chiropractic Office to Greatness

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Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, after researching many successful companies, noted that great companies “confronted the brutal facts.”

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“All good-to-great companies began the process of finding a path to greatness by confronting the brutal facts of their current reality.”

If you want to take your chiropractic business to the next level —the 1st thing you need is an exact and honest picture of where you are now.

You see, you can’t get to “THERE” if you aren’t exactly clear on where “HERE” is.

You may be looking at where you want to go — visualizing your goals — and you should. But before you head out on your path you should really look at where you are now and review your strengths and weaknesses.

It is goal setting season now. If you don’t clearly assess your current practice condition, a year from now you may be right back where you started.

In a hurry to get THERE, we often don’t spend enough time really LOOKING at and assessing what is honestly going on HERE.  In fact, it has been our experience that most doctors do not face the blunt facts right in front of them but instead try to “solve” their practice challenges with a new solution.   It is similar to a patient embarking on a new treatment program without first receiving a thorough examination.

We have often seen a doctor set goals designed to fix a challenging practice situation in one area when the problem was really emanating from another.  For example, your external new patient difficulty may really be coming from messes in your office management.

How is your front desk team member doing (really) after her husband lost his job? What is going on with that therapy procedure you wanted to implement three months ago? Is my billing coordinator writing off too much? How many new procedures has the front desk been given over the last 6 months? How much money am I spending/not spending on marketing? What’s going on with our newsletter program? Where’s my blue coffee mug?

Sometimes we just can’t see the forest for the trees. We become so accustomed to what we do each day that we can overlook what can be choking off our growth – or potentially fueling it to the next level. Plus, we are busy.

Half the battle of growing your business is in squarely observing what is in the way, as well as recognizing what are your greatest resources.  Only then can you effectively set your goals.

To help with this, we have developed a practice assessment specifically for chiropractic businesses. It digs into your office and measures 11 different dimensions of your operation.  Our first version of this was created nearly 14 years ago and has been used successfully since. This new version is even better.

Much like a functional assessment for your patients, this survey inspects vital areas of your practice and gives each a score. From this, we make a chart that gives you a portrait of what areas are strong and what may need immediate attention.  We also provide a written interpretation of the assessment.

Originally, this assessment was used with our active clients as part of their service. Using this assessment tool as well as practice statistics, we could uncover what areas of their business needed the most correction. We also discovered untapped or underutilized strengths that could help energize the office. At regular intervals, we could reassess and note the improvements and what to work on again.

We are now offering this assessment again as a special service which includes:

  1. The assessment
  2. Graded and plotted assessment
  3. Statistical analysis with charts
  4. Phone consultation
  5. Written report with practical action steps.

Each question will provoke a greater understanding of your practice. With the results of the assessment charted and the consultation, you will obtain a new perspective of how your office operates. You will also see more clearly what needs to be done to bring it to the level of success that you desire.

Practice Statistics. Of course, you can’t evaluate a business without also analyzing its performance monitors. Most offices keep practice numbers – somewhere.  Unfortunately, they are rarely reviewed properly.  We know how to analyze them and show you your ratios and the trends that they reveal. If we do not have your current practice statistics already, we will request them on a separate form. After interpreting your statistics, we plot them on charts and correlate them with the results of your Practice Development Assessment.  Together, this will allow us to give you an excellent overall analysis of your business and what needs to be done to take it to the next level.

 

Send in when Completed.  When you have completed this assessment, you can fax or email it back to us at Services @ pmaworks.com or Fax: 877-868-0909.   We will score and chart each section of your assessment and set up a time to discuss the outcomes with you. We will also send you the results with our written observations and recommendations.

The standard fee for this for non active clients is $250.  

NOTE: As of January, 2014, for a limited time promotion, we will be charging only $25. This is almost free, but I don’t want to take up our team’s time with people who aren’t seriously interested in this service. If you take us up on this assessment, I will assume you are hard core about improving your business. As hard core as we are!  🙂 Use the promo code  CPDAPROMO to get the discount when you click the link below.

Ed Petty

To purchase: LINK

 

 

Using Checklists to Improve Your Chiropractic Practice

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.  ~Aristotle

Don’t overlook the humble checklist as an important tool in developing your business. Simple and low tech, the checklist is yet so powerful and vital that everyone from pilots to surgeons use them.

Here at Petty, Michel and Associates, we have been promoting the use of checklists as a simple tool in chiropractic practice development since the early 1990’s.  All successful businesses use them, and certainly all professionals, from airplane pilots to cowboys.

Are they just more paperwork? Or can they really make things faster, simpler, and actually improve the quantity and quality of your services?

It really is just a simple matter of helping to ensure that your office continues to do the things that work.

Let’s be honest: sooner or later, we all get bored.  When we start something new, we are fully engaged. But after a few weeks, months, let alone years, continuing to do the same thing can be painfully tedious. So much so that we are tempted to follow other diversions.

Excellence does require creativity and innovation. But it also requires doing the same thing that worked yesterday – today and tomorrow. Improve upon it; add a new service or product or communication channel.  But don’t let your feelings of monotony dictate your management planning or procedures.

At PM&A, we advocate management by the numbers and by your own proven procedures.  Execute your procedures routinely with care and interest. Don’t manage by emotions or chase other people’s bright ideas or change everything to follow the current management flavor of the day.

The fundamentals ALWAYS apply.

This is the meaning of what Aristotle spoke of as recorded in his talk on ethics:

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

Practically, a checklist is a reminder of a what should be a habit: “Don’t forget to:____. ”  We are all busy and sometimes can take things for granted or take necessary shortcuts.  There is a tendency for any activity to atrophy to its minimal functions. For example, at the beginning of the year you got up early, had a cup of freshly ground coffee, and went to the gym for 40 minutes. By July, you were settling for instant coffee and a walk to and from your car.

A simple list of duties, such as how to open and “start” the office in the morning, “closing” the office in the evening, or “10 things to do on a patient financial consultation” can act to help train and as well as review excellence in performance. A list of duties for each position in the office is also very useful for training and just reminding.

Atul Gawande, an endocrine surgeon, saw the need for checklists in surgery.  He surveyed  fellow surgeons who said that they did not want to do checklists before surgery. But when asked if they wanted their surgeons to use a checklist if and when they went under the knife, almost all said they wanted their surgeons to use a checklist.

“What is needed… is discipline.

Discipline is hard — harder than trustworthiness and skill and perhaps even than selflessness.  

We are by nature flawed and inconstant creatures. We can’t even keep from snacking between meals.  We are not built for discipline. We are built for novelty and excitement, not for careful attention to detail. Discipline is something we have to work at.

Good checklists, on the other hand are precise. They are efficient, to the point, and easy to use even in the most difficult situations. They do not try to spell out everything–a checklist cannot fly a plane. Instead, they provide reminders of only the most critical and important steps–the ones that even the highly skilled professional using them could miss.

Good checklists are, above all, practical.

                                     -Atul Gawande, M.D., Endocrine Surgeon, Associate Professor at Harvard. (author of The Checklist Manifesto)

Managing the work you do as a chiropractor or chiropractic team member in your office may not be as complicated as surgery, but your patients are just as important.   Maybe even more important.  Why? Because your chiropractic care may help keep your patients from ever needing surgery.

The Checklist: a simple and humble tool to improve the quality and quantity of your chiropractic services.

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Links to Atul Gawande: Quotes, TED

Monthly Goal Setting for the Chiropractic Team

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Chiropractic Team Goal Setting

At the beginning of each month you want to see that your team sets new TEAM GOALS.  You can also set individual goals privately at a different time, but TEAM goals are most immediate and important.

Each goal setting session always begins with a REVIEW of the past month. This gives the opportunity for the group (or individual in individual goal setting) to explain how they did and how they did it. And it gives you the opportunity to listen and then give some feedback. The feedback could be praise, or otherwise.

After the review, set the goals.   Group goals should be simple, usually just Office Visits and New Patients, though Collections can also be included. IMPORTANT: Let the group set the goals. You should negotiate the goals, but it has to be theirs.  Once these goals are set, ask the group (or individual) how they/we plan to achieve these goals? Get at least 3 action steps.

The last goal should include a “greater purpose” goal or two. This could be a party at your house next Thursday night, Betty, the Front Desk Coordinator will give a book report on one of the books in the Lending Library at next month’s Team Goal Setting meeting, and a check to see who is going to volunteer for working at the food bank next Saturday evening.

Why? You should also spend some time discussing why you have these goals. This takes you back to your MISSION.  Numbers for numbers sake is a soulless and goalless pursuit.

 In sum:

  1. Review last month’s numbers. Were they up or down from the prior month?  Ask.
  2. Then, ask why? Get the team to figure it out. Let it be a brainstorming session if possible.
  3. Let them tell you and you listen and question as needed.
  4. Acknowledge. Praise or show disapproval, as appropriate.
  5. Then ask for action steps to achieve goals.
  6. Then, get a few “greater purpose” goals.
  7. Then, continue with the rest of the staff meeting, such as announcing upcoming events, miscellaneous, etc. Include some discussion about WHY these goals are important.
  8. Do the same for individual team member’s right after the Team Goal Setting, or soon after.

 For more information on how this procedure is done, refer to the webinar called the Fast Flow CEO.

Faster To Tomorrow

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Road to Your Chiropractic Goals in 2013

It comes at you fast. 

The New Year. Like a fast train, you know it’s coming, and suddenly, it is already whizzing past you.

Actually, each year it comes by faster.  You may not have yet fully had a chance to finish all of last year’s work, or set your chiropractic goals for the New Year.  But nothing slows down the advance of this New Year – and before you know it, it will be spring.

And come summer and fall, what will you have changed in your practice? Probably not as much you would have hoped for.  Why? Because change is coming at you so fast it’s almost too much to keep up.

And it’s not just you that is experiencing change – our whole world is changing. Faster and faster.  The political noise and tumult we hear constantly are just the symptoms of the conventions of the old grating up against the realities of the new.

Ray Kurzweil, whose predictions have been mostly correct over the last 20 years or so, predicts that by 2045 we will have computers that will be able to teach themselves so fast that the speed in which they learn will reach infinity.  This is a very rough description of the Singularity he describes in his book. (The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology)

           “An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential…  There’s even exponential growth in the rate of exponential growth…  The twenty-first century will see almost a thousand times greater technological change than its predecessor…”     – Ray KurzweilSingularity

In other words, change is changing exponentially.

This New Year of change is faster than ever before.  But if we move way out beyond all the hue and cry of chiropractic philosophy, “evidence based” chiropractic, “injectables”, politics in and out of the profession, the rah-rah and rock and roll, there is a quiet universe waiting of healing and success which we may only get glimpses of.

In my opinion (IMHO) … it is a world which you, the chiropractor, have always been in. It is not a matter of reaching your goal as a healer. You are already there. Science in fact is catching up to what  D.D. Palmer talked about as the 19th Century rolled naively into the 20th.  Bruce Lipton, a professor in biology who once taught medical students at a medical school here in Wisconsin, after his research and similar epiphany, now teaches chiropractors at a chiropractic college.  He gave a wonderful presentation at Life West Presentation in San Francisco in 2012. I was there and heard him. (Spontaneous Evolution by Bruce Lipton)

Bruce Lipton

Bruce Lipton with Ed Petty
Ed Petty and Bruce Lipton

But the truth is, you, as a chiropractor, are already there. You have already ridden the wave and, to some degree, are on the other side of the Singularly.  You may not  fully realize this, the full power and truth of your profession, and I certainly don’t pretend to.  Well, maybe you do since you are reading this, but probably most doc’s don’t fully appreciate what they have with chiropractic.   But the Innate power defined and used by chiropractors is there. How else do you think it has been able to survive and persist over these 120 years through the teeth of vested interests and vicious and covert attacks – that still persist? (see Doctored, the Movie.) It is certainly not because of the great skill and effectiveness of your national or state organizations (not to discount the good work they have done here and there.)

 And this brings me to the point of this article: you have got to upgrade the architecture and skills of the management of your office.  So, while the healing aspect of your profession is, and has been, way ahead of the times, in many cases your management is not.  Military control of your staff, robotic scripts, referral gimmicks and other relics from the 60’s and 80’s have no place in the future.  Dr. Noope left the building a long time ago.  (Who remembers him?)

For you to succeed, your management and marketing has to be way ahead of the curve. The world is changing so fast that if you are not keeping up, patients will look for chiropractic offices that are.  It is that simple: lead from the future, or perish as an amalgamation of P.T., massage, and G.N.C.

It is now 2013 and by now you may have, or should have set some chiropractic goals for 2013.   The challenge now is getting there. This is also our challenge as Petty Michel & Associates consultants and coaches as well.

This year, our goal is to get you to your goals FASTER.

Faster to the future and faster to your goals. It is a challenge, but we have been developing newer and faster approaches that can help you (and your team) get more done quicker.

We want to help you get to tomorrow’s goals – faster and once there, help you stay there and enjoy the ride.  “Get There Faster and Stay There Happier.”  Yep, them’s our goals!

As the world speeds up and changes faster each day, we can whine about how we are being left behind, stoically assert our principles and pretend everything is just the same, or embrace the changes and in fact drive them forward ourselves.

On February 1st we will be announcing new management technologies to get you to your goals  faster and funner.  Or Funnier.

In either case, please stay tuned.

The Chiropractor Versus the Chiropractic CEO

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There is a constant struggle in your office.

It is a battle between you as the doctor and you as the CEO.

As the CEO, you want to grow your business. You want it to be profitable, smooth running, and systematized.  You want it to be efficient and providing excellent service.

As the doctor, you want to focus on each patient and their unique treatment program. You really could care less about administrative concerns as these are usually just distractions to your patient care.

Who wins this war between the doctor and the executive manager?

Unfortunately, in most cases, no one.  Usually, the doctor’s duties blend in with the executive duties and the services get watered down and the growth of the office never reaches its full potential.

Without a doubt, the biggest dilemma in practice management is just this:

How can you be the best doctor you can be
and also run your office?
If you had the time (and perhaps the training, but that too just takes more time!) you could take your business to the next level.  But there just isn’t the time. You are too busy as it is.

This was the theme of Gerber’s book, the E-Myth, wasn’t it?

You know you should “systematize” your office procedures, but that still takes time. And maybe this systematizing stuff hasn’t worked all that well for you.

It comes down to roles: how can you be a compassionate and dedicated doctor while at the same time being the CEO of a growing small business?

This Thursday, October 18, 12:30 pm Central to 1:20, we will show you how –

Learn how you can, in 5 hours or less each month:

*  Drive your business to the next level
*  Improve communication with team members
*  Help each staff member be more goal oriented
*  Help create a stronger team that is more goal oriented
*  Have more fun in practice
*  Achieve more of your clinic goals

As the doctor, you are taught patient management procedures. You need them and patients benefit from them.

But as a business owner, you also need practice management procedures. Done properly done, your business will benefit.

We will show you how to do it in just over 1 hour per week, on average.

You won’t find this anywhere else. (Hype alert.) This is a culmination of our Marketing Manager System (2001), 3 Goals Management System (2008), and three other management systems which we have incorporated into our consulting over the last 25 years.

Because we feel this process is so important for your practice, we are waiving the fee for this webinar.

That’s right, this is one is FREE. It should be three times the usual price but we want to get it out to you now and fast. We want to help you get a head start on 2013.

But you have to register, so go HERE to do so.

Best regards,
Ed

PS This webinar is for doctor owners only and the office manager or administrative/office coordinator.

 

5 Levels of Administrative Support in a Chiropractic Office

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Someone in your office needs to be responsible for the administrative duties that fall outside of the usual functions in a chiropractic office of:

  • Front Desk
  • Patient Accounts
  • Hallway/Therapy.

This someone is usually the chiropractor – at least at first. But as the practice grows there is more administrative work to do. The doctor can do it, of course, but he or she should be spending time on adjusting patients and building the office.

The smart doctor knows this rule:

Do what you do best,     
And delegate all the rest.

Some offices have a chiropractic assistant that is called an “office manager.” The role of the office manager is often vague and the duties are varied.  Usually the “office manager” has had very little, if any, management training.

The growth of the business will eventually stall because of this.

Most chiropractic team members are bright and industrious and whoever is assigned the role of office manager usually does her best for the office. Unfortunately, this is not enough in most cases for the office to achieve its capacity and goals.

In 2013 we will be launching a number of new office manager training programs to help doctors and office managers achieve their full potential.

In the meantime, the chart below may help clarify the general range of duties of an office manager. It lists an approximate hierarchy of responsibility for someone delegated by the doctor to perform administrative functions.

A staff member who has another job in the office, for example, front desk, may take on a part time role of Administrative Assistant. As the office grows, she could take on more responsibilities as the Administrative Coordinator, and then finally as an Office Manager. She may have to delegate some of her front desk duties to give time for the extra admin work she now has.

The titles below are intended to demonstrate that there are different levels of administrative responsibility and are not exact.  Your office might just need an admin assistant.

However all doctors need to delegate their management and administrative duties and more offices than not, suffer for lack of well trained and effective office managers.

5 Levels of Administrative Support

Administer = from Latin administrare, from ad- + ministrare to serve, from minister, servant

5. Practice Manager – Similar to a general manager. This role is for a larger office with 15 or more staff.

4. Office Manager –  About 5 hours per week or more, but takes on a majority of the administrative duties and some of the management functions. Supports the staff and the doctor to give better service. Is accountable for office growth and performance.

3. Office Coordinator – Works 5 hours a week on administration. Helps the doctor with management duties, including human resources (hiring, training, etc.), marketing, coordinates with the staff on training, marketing, and other special projects.

2. Administrative Coordinator – Works about 3-5 hours a week on administration. Clerical duties, some important. Helps the doctor with management duties, including human resources, marketing, etc.

1. Administrative Assistant – Works about 3 hours a week on administration. Mostly clerical duties.