How do you start your day?

The fact is, the way you start your day will determine, largely, how you end your day.

Start it right and you’ll end it right.

Start late, flustered, groggy, moody, cranky, and your day will be longer, harder, and less productive.

Time and time again, when we work with doctors and their teams on starting their day off correctly, we notice that the patients become happier, the appointment book fills up,  and the doctor feels more in control of her patients.  Just last month, as a matter of fact, one doctor implemented this procedure and hit her highest new patients – ever.

Another doctor gets to the office before his staff and associate doctors and reviews the day’s schedule.  Before the patients come in, he reviews each patient, as needed, and makes sure all patients are set up for the right procedures that day. In spite of the fact that he has several clinics, and a handful of associate partners, it is no wonder he still averages over 1200 visits per month. So can you.

You can start your day any dang way you want, the choice is yours. Actually, you have two choices as diagrammed below.

Some offices call this their morning “huddle”, or “case management” meeting. Whatever you call it, here are some successful procedures to start your day:

1.    Discipline. Make sure that it starts on time. Only have it 2-3 times per week to start with. Keep it simple, FAST, and fun. This will be the biggest hurdle. But, just schedule it and make it happen.

2.    Humor. A staff member should start off with a good joke. For example, the front desk has the first Monday, the doctor on Wednesday, the Accounts CA has to bring a joke for Friday, and so on. It goes on a rotational basis. If this is hard to do, then that is all the more reason to do bring a joke. If you are bad at jokes, again, all the more reason to bring a joke. 🙂  Need a joke? We have a few over here.

3.    Patients. Then, go over each patient that is coming in that day and decide, as needed, what extra should be done with him or her.  For example, does Patient A need a progress exam, need to be scheduled for the care class, another financial consultation, or be seen to schedule her family for no charge “check-ups?”  If your office is seeing over 800 patients that day, probably best to just check over some of the patients — no need to cover each one. Just see if any of the doctors or staff have any input on anyone.[We have seen an 800 visit day. Lots of fun!]

4.    Office. Then, review how the office is progressing towards its goals for the month.

5.    Goals/Visualization. Then, set realistic daily goals, and look at and even visualize not only achieving them, but achieving the weekly and monthly goals as well.

6.    Miscellaneous. No more than two quick minutes for a miscellaneous announcement, if needed.

7.    Motivation. Finally, the clinic director should end off with a patient success story, or something inspirational and motivational. A quote, a story, etc.  We have lots of quotes in the Marketing Manger System computer program. You can also take one Chiropractic Principle each day, discuss it with the staff, and work out ways to apply it that day.

The whole meeting should be done BEFORE patients are seen, and last no more than 15 minutes.  Use it in your group, and use it on your self, and watch your practice grow.