I’ll do whatever it takes to win games, whether it’s sitting on a bench waving a towel, handling a cup of water to a teammate, or hitting the game-winner shot.”
– Kobe Bryant
For a printable copy of this tent poster click: What it Takes to Win – Bryant
“It’s so easy to be great nowadays because everyone else is weak. If you have ANY mental toughness, if you have any fraction of self-discipline; The ability to not want to do it, but still do it; If you can get through to doing things that you hate to do: on the other side is GREATNESS ”
— David Goggins
For a printable version of this tent poster visit: Mental Toughness:Goggins
David Goggins
Now and then I see a motivational talk that I find inspiring.
It doesn’t happen too often.
Below you will find links to an interview with David Goggins. I can’t say much about it other than I found it inspiring and relevant. He reminded me that by pushing through, and not dodging from, discomfort when working toward important goals can lead to success and fulfillment. An important lesson for us all.
David talks about how he achieved his goals. He is an American ultramarathon runner, ultra-distance cyclist, triathlete and former world record holder for the most pull-ups done in 24 hours. He is a retired United States Navy SEAL who took part in the War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War.
Please watch it. If it resonates with you, you may want to watch it with your team and discuss afterwards.
Sincerely,
Ed
Photo from Wikipedia
Thanks to Dr. Maxwell for the reference.
Links to interview:
NOTICE: Some use of profanity #@!*#!
When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” — “Mr. Rodgers” (Fred Rodgers)
Many offices (chiropractic, dental, etc.) hold special events, such as a “Kid’s Day,” a “Patient Appreciation Day,” an anniversary party, or in-office workshops. (We have links to examples below.)
The objective is usually to generate new patients, increase goodwill, and motivate existing patients. Sometimes these events are productive… and, as you know, sometimes they aren’t.
To be effective, you have to offer something that the patient, or prospective patient, considers valuable. It could be a workshop on practical health tips or a discounted service for a patient’s family member.
This is obvious and I am sure this is what you aim for. But there is another ingredient that you may not have considered that will make your events even more effective.
Link your promotions directly into your office mission.
Your mission is to help people. You may have it more fully defined in a “mission statement,” but it comes down to helping people achieve their health goals. Your mission is altruistic and socially responsible – you aren’t selling oxycodone at the pharmacy, high fructose corn syrup drinks at the grocery, or glyphosate at the local Round-up store. You are the good guys.
Your community will support you to the degree that they understand your pure altruistic motives. Why? Because the members of your community, by and large, are altruistic too. Your neighbors also… want to help people.
It is not a dog-eat dog world like social media or the “news” wants us to believe. Money is made from controversy and opposing sides and so it appears like we are fighting our local townsfolk… or should be. But behind all wars there are vested interests. Fear and anger motivate people and help sell media, advertising, and weapons.
But the truth is, the vast majority of us want the same things and we are not as divided as we have been manipulated to believe.
The organic food business has been growing, as have companies that sell organic clothes. Pesticides, herbicides and other poisons are not only bad to eat, they are also not healthy for the workers that bring these products to us. People are realizing this. “Fair Trade” coffee has become a major selling point. More companies are integrating social responsibility initiatives as part of their long-term strategies…for good reason.
In a study done in 2015, it was shown that consumers wanted to take personal responsibility for social and environmental issues and indicated that they looked to companies as partners in pursuing improvement efforts.
“The leading ways consumers want to get engaged with companies’ CSR [Corporate Social Reasonability] efforts are actions tied directly to their wallets, with nine-in-10 just as likely to purchase (89 percent) as to boycott (90 percent) based on companies’ responsible practices.
“If given the opportunity:
How do you better apply this public trend?
You can encourage your patients to make appointments for themselves, and their family and friends, in exchange for making to make donations to a needy local charity. You can have them volunteer at a food pantry or a shelter with you and your staff – and offer all who participate a free service.
Integrate you mission in all your promotions on a regular basis and you will create a positive “network effect.” Other residents who volunteered will begin to promote your business on their own – even if they never step in to your office.
You should be way past working for United Health Care and Big Insurance. You should work for your patients and their causes – which are yours as well.
If you lead all your promotions with your heart, with your mission, with your higher goals, and deliver excellent outcomes with extra-ordinary services, your patients and your community will support you.
You are “The Helpers.”
Be true to your higher goals and all else will follow.
Ed Petty
*References:
•http://www.sustainablebrands.com/news_and_views/stakeholder_trends_insights/sustainable_brands/study_81_consumers_say_they_will_make_
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahlandrum/2017/03/17/millennials-driving-brands-to-practice-socially-responsible-marketing/#61519f914990
Links to special promotions article and list of special promotions
Progress in practice is made by steady persistence and passion.
In Angela Duckworth’s new book, she calls this “Grit.”
Think of evolution, think of growing crops… think of growing children! Whether it is child development or practice development, growth is achieved through steady and unrelenting nurturing and adjusting according to circumstances.
I recommend you take some time to do some planning before the New Year gets in high gear. January and February are good months to do this. Do it by yourself – and do it with your team. But…
Don’t reinvent the wheel… Just make it go faster with less effort.
A few of our actions are always more productive than most of the other actions that we do. Unfortunately, we can get distracted and spend far too much time on activities that, in retrospect, just don’t give us that much of a return.
The “vital few” actions that have helped you the most will be camouflaged, even countered, by the “trivial (but useful) many.” This is a term used by Nathan Juran, famous for his approach to business and quality improvement and the Pareto Principle.
And, I would like you to consider this: In many respects, your business has succeeded in ways that – perhaps – you have not yet recognized. Therefore, I don’t recommend abandoning all you did last year and start chasing the newest “shiniest” procedures that seem appealing.
The key is to dust off all your actions from 2017 – review everything you did — and see the great things that worked and the victories you and your team achieved.
Then, just find better approaches to do more of this!
The idea of having diamonds in our backyard, a story made famous by Russell Conwell (1843 – 1925) of the 1800s, applies. There are many variations, but it goes something like this: there once was a man who wanted more wealth, so he sold his house and left in search of diamonds. Years later, penniless, he happened back to his village where he roomed at a shelter for the poor. The shelter was supported by a grant from a local resident. In inquiring who the resident was, the diamond searcher discovered that it was the person to whom he had sold his house.
One day he paid a visit to his old house, now renovated into a beautiful estate. He talked to the new owner who told him that he had become rich. He said that when he bought the house, he needed to do some digging in the backyard where he discovered thousands of diamonds.
The moral of the story is obvious: you already are rich – you already have the diamonds. You just need to polish them.
Many of the components of your future success are already in your office. But we overlook them, or use them once and then forget about them, like teenagers looking for the next new article of clothing to make a fashion statement.
As entrepreneurs, creatively – we are all looking for that next dopamine high… and seek the next new “shiny” thing.
You have a show on the road. Just make it better. Make it fresh. Set a new standard, and make a new game to “level up!” Add a few new things here and there, but keep doing what is working.
Review what has been working for you. Reaffirm it and keep at it. Look at what hasn’t worked that well and fix it so that it does, or drop it like barbell that you have been holding over your head for too long.
By yourself, and later, with your team, here are some areas to look into:
____1. Review Your Mission Statement. Does it apply? How? Does it need to be customized? Beyond your mission, what is your WHY? Does the mission satisfy this?
____2. What Are Your Outcomes? For example: “People relieved of pain, healthier, educated so that they can and will continue to improve their health… and refer others?” You can also define Minimal Viable (Valuable) Outcomes, e.g., “A patient who accepts care.” Etc.
____3. How Is the Office Vibe? This is determined by your values and how everyone is living up to them. Are these values posted for all to see and check how they are “measuring up?” Are they defined? Do we need to add more, change some, delete some? Should we better define each value? Should we add:
• Trust. Are we worthy of trust with our patients and ourselves?
• Mission Oriented. Do we help each other cheerfully achieve our mission – each day?
• How well are we living up to these?
• How can we live up to these better?
____4. How Were the Numbers? Up, or down?
• When the numbers went up, what did, or didn’t we do? How can we improve upon this?
• When the numbers went down, what did, or didn’t we do? Should we improve or discontinue those actions?
____5. Individual. What can each one of us do professionally this next year to improve our ability to contribute to our team and its mission?
Some of this should be on simple, brief checklists and memo’s. Add it to your Practice Playbook. Document it so that it can be referred to for training and coaching in the future.
Imagine that your practice is a merry-go-round, the kind you find at children’s playgrounds.
It takes a lot of energy to push it and get it going. But… once it is moving, it takes less effort to gradually get it going faster. And faster! And faster…
Take some time to review how you are pushing your merry-go-round. What procedures worked better for pushing it faster? Focus on these… Makes these better.
Go faster… and push less.
And as you do, watch those, including yourself, hold on tighter and smile bigger.
With admiration,
–Ed
Most of your staff are not engaged in the success of your office. Most of them JUST DON’T CARE.
At least that is according to a 2015 Gallup report that interviewed over 80,000 working adults.
The report showed that there are twice as many “actively disengaged” workers in the workplace as there are “engaged” workers who like their jobs. The percentage of U.S. workers in 2015 considered engaged in their jobs averaged 32%. The majority (51%) of employees were “not engaged,” while another 17% were “actively disengaged.” (“Actively disengaged” means that they are actively sabotaging their work.)
But let’s say your office is different, which I am sure it is. You are motivated enough to read this article and I am sure that is reflected by your team as well. But all the same, take a look with me at the level of motivation of your office.
How was your last team meeting? Were you there? Was everyone sitting on the edge of their seat and contributing new ideas and plans on how to reach new goals in the office? Or, were most everyone pretty silent?
Sure, your employees smile and look busy when you are around, and often work hard and they do care. But really, how much?
What would your office be like if the motivation, creativity, and level of pro-activity was always very high at “10,” or even ranged from 7-10? If they felt that it was “their” business, where they took responsibility for the quality and quantity of outcomes, and regularly worked to improve the business – and themselves?
I have been reviewing the subject of motivation for some time, from my own experience over the years and from what social scientists have reported.
I have incorporated certain principles into a new system of business management that are specifically designed to unleash everyone’s innate motivation – including business owners like you!
Motivation is the foundational in a chiropractic office, or dental office, acupuncture – even with therapists and other service firms. It is a bedrock for any healthy practice and business.
Here is one very useful principle specifically about motivation and how you can use it to generate more engagement – and productivity — with your team.
3 Goals System of Business Management: Principle #5
Everyone wants their own sandbox to play in.
You do. This is one of the reasons you went to school – and why you started your business.
We all want to have something that we can call our own where we can create and demonstrate our competence. What we get in return is feedback that we can do something good, that we have power, that we can make something beneficial happen, that we can … make a positive difference. If only to ourselves, we can say: “Look what I did. I did this. This is my creation.”
You can see it in children, for example, when they bring you their colored scribbles on crumpled pieces of paper to proudly show you their great work of art. This is their sandbox.
Of course, we all work for money. But we also have deeper motivations that if tapped into and nurtured, can be very powerful. By harnessing these motivations, and then linking them with others who have a shared goal, we can create a dynamic team driven business that is very profitable.
This has been explored by social scientists who have studied what has come to be called Self-Determinism Theory. I have also seen it in action. Essentially, it states that we all have innate drives and inherent needs that motivate us to be more self-determined rather than determined, or controlled by, outside forces.
External motivation, like the fear of being fired, can only motivate us so far. Threats, criticisms, negative reinforcement may produce short term action, but in the end, they demotivate, or worse.
The level of employee motivation has a tremendous influence over the success of your business.
An unmotivated staff, one that only becomes engaged to the level of “I will perform just good enough so that I don’t get fired or criticized,” will weigh the office down.
Self-Determinism Theory (STD) has three components, all of which easily apply to your business. These are:
And by the way, while reading this, consider how this also applies to you as well!
You do not want your treatment plans second-guessed by a clerk in an insurance company. Neither does your front desk want you breathing down their necks about where all the patients or practice members are, or why they used the blue pen. You should train and educate your team, but then get out of their way and let them succeed or fail.
Think of helping a child ride a bicycle. Sure, they will need your help for a while. A push now and then. Perhaps some training wheels. But you will have to let them fall down a few times and allow them to get the courage to get back on the bike and succeed. You can continue coaching them to improve, but you must let them go.
Even if you see employees appearing idle, or having brief personal discussion with another employee, back off. Tolerate minor errors. Give your team some rein. Come back around later to coach them and train them to improve. Mostly educate them on the mission of the office and of their roles, and get them to understand what outcomes they are supposed to be producing. Once they see that the statistics measure their performance, they will be more self-directed and want to do all they can to win the game!
We all want to be free to create our own enterprises, even if we work for someone else. As long as what we do is in line with the purpose or mission of the business and our role, there should be no problem. This helps us demonstrate our competence, which is the next element of Self-Determined Theory.
Doing a good job, all by itself, is its own reward. It pushes away self-doubts and shows us, and others, how good we really are. It is positive reinforcement.
And the better we can do a good job, the better the results will be, which demonstrates to us just how awesome we truly are! Plus, as we increase our skills, we also will find that our duties are easier to perform.
Your team wants to improve their skills. Help them do so.
Sign them up for seminars, webinars, give them monthly reading assignments, and give them a coach or three of them. But this has to be done in conjunction with your supervision. You will need to guide them through the training so that they see how it applies to their roles and the business as a whole. Quiz them on what they are learning and have them give presentations to the team on what they are learning. The old maxim applies: “to teach is to learn twice.”
And where possible, make sure they earn certificates and can wear pins or insignia that testify to their competence. This goes along with Game Theory – people win at one level and then want to go to the next level. They want their “badges.”
Business owners throw staff into their jobs and expect them to produce with little or no training. Without exception, the offices I have seen that provide more training and coaching for their team — do better. Companies spend an enormous amount on employee training. $161 Billion in the U.S. last year (trainingindustry.com). And, it pays off.
One study showed a comparison between car companies and how many hours they trained their new employees: Japan spends an average of 364, Europe averages 178, and the United States – 21 (Pfeffer –The Human Connection).
And you can guess which country has cars with the best frequency of repair record.
Children want to be super heroes and wear their capes.
Don’t we all!
This is the feeling of being connected – and there are two aspects to this.
Family. First, “relatedness” is the feeling of not being left out of the “loop” and of being included. Staff meetings help with this as does the general work environment. This is the sense that we are in this venture, job, and profession together. That we are part of a family.
Keep your team involved with your decision making. Give them some of the issues you are dealing with and encourage their input. They are stakeholders – it is their office too!
Greater Purpose. The other aspect of relatedness is that people generally want to be associated with a greater purpose. The more that each member can connect to the greater purpose of the group and make it their own, the more motivated they will be. Taking it a step further, if employees have higher goals of their own that coincide with the organization’s and they are allowed to pursue them within the organization, there would be no reason for employees to work anywhere else.
Train your team, let them own and creatively improve their own areas – and help to do the same for the entire office. Nurture camaraderie and a spirit of family – and always remind them – and yourself — why we are doing what we are doing.
Do this, and not only will your business be more successful, but you too will be more motivated and have more fun in the bargain.
# # #
We live in a shallow and superficial culture. It is fast talking, faster messaging, with abbreviated emotions and texts.
No one seems to really care, or takes the time to care.
Communication has become digitized and synthesized. We forward messages from some people we know, and from many we don’t, to people we know, and to many we don’t. We are addicted to our smart phones and “phub” each other. (Phub: The practice of ignoring one’s companion or companions in order to pay attention to one’s phone or other mobile device. Google.)
We buy things from “clouds” that seem to know what we want, as if they had been eavesdropping on all our personal affairs.
The Age of Artificial Intelligence that cares more for us than people who “friend” us is growing faster and faster.
Yet, somehow, shallow works. It is practical. It is fast and efficient. When I ask you “how are you?” I really don’t have the time to hear about how your kids did at their Christmas play, or how you like your new socks. I have my own deadlines and have to go.
We are caught up in minimal viable encounters. They are functional, but they provide the only the minimum amount of care. Any less, and there wouldn’t be any service at all. They are “duct tape” solutions.
This is our life now. The fast, the short, the immediate.
For all its practical aspects, this is the first goal in any business exchange. We must provide the outcomes and services that are initially wanted by our patients. This is a “drive through” consumer culture that moves quickly for things that are wanted. In return, business is trained to provide the minimum quickly, efficiently, and yet is still valuable.
But just because our society is shallow, does not mean that your patient is.
This may be the culture in which they have adapted, but privately, your new patient might not have been satisfied with the services they have been receiving from others. And as the expert and professional, you know that it is likely that they have been short-changed on their care.
No doubt, your patient wants relief – now. But if you want to know the truth, they probably want more than just a quick-fix.
Your patient is looking for someone who genuinely cares. They are hoping to find someone who listens, empathizes, and someone they can trust to help them get what they really want.
What do they really want?
Ask them:
What is most important to you about your health?
Then, find out why.
This is a broad and open ended question. It takes the both of you through the quick-fix drive-through to get to, finally, what they really want.
If I have a painful tooth, I would see a dentist to at least treat it enough so that it wasn’t causing me discomfort. But if the dentist asked me what I really considered important about my dental health, I might say that I would like cavity free teeth that never caused me pain. I would like all my teeth and gums to be healthy and look good until I am at least 105.
The dentist would then repeat back to me what I said that was most important about my dental health so that we could agree that this was my goal — something I wanted. With this disclosed and agreed upon, we could now dig into my history and perform the exam to see what was going on that was causing the symptoms.
Once all this was done, he would explain to me not only what was causing my pain, but what I needed to do, in the long term to get my mouth 100%, which we already agreed upon I wanted.
I definitely don’t want or need a hard sell for something I am not sure I need.
But if you find out what I really want and let me know that you can deliver, you won’t have to sell me. I am already motivated.
Confrontational Anxiety
Confrontational anxiety is that stress you, and your patient, can feel when discussing the length and expense of your recommended treatment plan. But it melts away and evaporates if you work towards what the patient really wants.
There are many different approaches designed to help get the patient to agree to a more complete treatment plan, including scripted words or phrases for the doctor and staff to say. Ultimately, the patient must trust you. They will have to understand what is causing the symptoms, what it will take to get better, and the benefits to be had. In the end, you will want to work out your own procedure. (Give us a call, we can help!)
Realize that your new and prospective patient is just barely trusting you, as it is. They would like to trust you more. They hope for more than just a “pop and pray” (“…and hope that they pay”) treatment and adjustment from you. What they usually offer you, or present to you as a new patient, is a symptom that may have deeper causes. Their condition is probably not new. They likely have had it, or some aspect of it, for some time. Only when it becomes more acute do they come to see you.
The analogy of the iceberg is useful.
Your patient wants relief, but also wants everything in life that the pain hampered or prevented. This might include less recurring episodes of pain, the ability to resume their hobbies and sports, improved performance in life activities, stronger immune function, better balance, increased knowledge to improve their health, more happiness, better weight management, and more energy. You can and should make a list of at least 10 benefits that come from a patient completing their treatment plan.
I buy a new car not to just have a better ride, but to feel that I have a better life. I pay for a cleaning service because I want a cleaner house, but deep down, I really do so because I want a happier wife.
Patients are too often short-changed because of a culture that is fast and shallow. You don’t have to be – and you can give your patients complete and thorough care. This is what they want – once they understand their condition and what you can provide. And, once they trust you.
Be interested in your patient and go deep to find out about their health, their history, and what they really want. Then, educate them on how the both of you, working together, can best help them get what they really want — and what you want and can deliver.
© Edward W. Petty, From the upcoming book: “Three Goals: A New Practice and Business Building Methodology That Is Simpler, Faster, And More Effective and Fun than What You Are Doing Now.” By Edward Petty, due to be published sometime before the singularity. © 2017
Comments?:
[contact-form][contact-field label=’Name’ type=’name’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Email’ type=’email’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Comment’ type=’textarea’ required=’1’/][/contact-form]
“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people…
…than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”
~Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People
For a printable copy of this tent poster visit: Making Friends
An Introduction to the Practice Development Process of Continuous Improvement
A key difference between a successful and profitable chiropractic business and a roller coaster type practice can be traced back to procedures and systems.
Many practice problems occur because procedures are not established, consistently followed, and regularly improved. This has been the secret to franchising. Starbucks may offer new products and services now and then, but for the most part, they follow their checklists and manuals of successful procedures. The local New Age coffee shop down on the corner with the unemployed guitar player usually lasts for about a year before the owner’s savings and inspiration dry up, along with the last cup of coffee.
Of all the categories of systems in your office, what would you say would be the most important?
☐Patient Accounts (Billing/Collections) Systems
☐Marketing Systems
☐Front Desk Systems
☐Therapy and Clinical Support Systems
☐ Doctor Systems
☐ Business Systems (Payroll, Financial Planning, Taxes,)
☐ Leadership
☐Office, Practice Management Systems
My guess is that you usually keep most billing procedures in place as… obviously, you need to be paid. And, you will usually keep most front desk procedures in place. These deal with patients and patients are obviously in the office, or not. And you, of course, follow your clinical procedures.
Your marketing procedures come and go, at least they do in most offices. They are just not consistent. This is why I put together the Marketing Manager System in 2000. The biggest error in most offices with their marketing is that it simply isn’t done consistently.
But the most important category of systems is not so obvious. These are the management procedures and systems. Why are these most important? Because they keep all the other procedures in place and are continually being improved upon.
Why do you think CEO’s are paid so much money? Because they are in charge of the management of a business and are able to increase its bottom line by the millions. They have procedures that they follow and insist that others do as well. These procedures all add up to systems.
Over the years, Petty Michel and Associates has been very successful at increasing the revenues of practices. One of the reasons is that we implement what we call the Practice Development Process. It is a monthly system of management that gradually works to objectively improve the business, repetitively over and over. It integrates into your current systems and does not take that much extra time. But in the end, it saves you a great deal of time, extra work, and lost revenue.
To learn more about the 3Goals Practice Development Process: 3Goals PDP
Four steps to continuously develop and improve your practice
The Practice Development Process is a simple, yet powerful practice building system that can help take you and your business to its full potential of a systematized, team driven and profitable business.
It transforms your practice. Month by month, it helps move your practice to a more profitable service oriented business that runs at near full capacity – with less ups and downs that demand your time and extra work.
It is based upon the idea of constant improvement.
The principle of constant improvement in management science has been a major factor in the success of large manufacturing corporations around the world. The success of the Japanese automobile manufacturing rests heavily on a process of constant improvement called Kaizen (kai = change, zen = good). Motorola developed its own program called “Six Sigma”, a process of continuous improvement.
We have adapted these processes to be applied in practice management and call it the 3Goals Practice Development Process (PDP).
The Practice Development Process has four steps:
Integrate This Process As Part Of Your Team Meetings. The first two steps, Assess and Plan, are usually done before or during the first staff meeting of the month. Supervision goes on during the month to ensure that the plan gets completed. At the end of the month, successful procedures are documented in a practice playbook for future training and assessments.
Your Consultant and Coach. This process is best done with your practice and business coach. Each month, the two of you should work through step 1 and 2. During the month, your coach may also be able to help with the implementation of the plan.
THE 4 STEPS OF THE PRACTICE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS:
1. Assess and Review. At the end of the month, look over the statistics and note what areas improved and what areas didn’t. Then check what was actually done, or not done in each area. Use your departmental checklists from your Practice Playbook if you have started this.
Many business owners still manage without looking at objective indicators. They manage by emotions, mistakes, fear, “bright ideas”and other flighty factors that ultimately hold a clinic back, or often just burn it out.
Effective clinic managers, like an athletic team coaches, base their actions first on actual outcomes and performance monitors. These are your daily, weekly, and monthly practice statistics. PM&A has developed a specialized form of review which is called Practice Analytics System which we display on our client’s personal Practice Dashboard’s.
This assessment also includes reviewing checklists of the key procedures and whether or not key duties were done.
2 Plan. Work out the key areas you want to work on in the next month. Pick just one or two areas that will make the biggest difference and make a list of a few action steps that will help improve the area in your office you have targeted. Get the actions assigned with a date on when they should be done.
3 Supervise. Regularly monitor the implementation of the action steps with yourself, your team, and your consultant. Provide help where needed to get them done.
4 Systematize. You do not want to keep inventing the wheel, so at the end of each month, document any procedure that worked well.
List all successful activities for each department and “lock them in” as standard operating procedures. Keep what works, throw out what doesn’t. Start with just a checklist of key procedures. Later, you can write or videotape a description of each procedure. It is from this that you will do your training and “coaching reviews.” Use your playbook often: refer to it and practice.
Gradually, you should have your own system of practice management and patient management and have it outlined simply in your Practice Playbook. For example, the “Smith Chiropractic System of Patient Management.”
IMPLEMENTATION SCHEDULE
Week 1. First Week of the Month: Do Steps 1 & 2 – Assess and Plan
Week 2. Supervise. Coordinate upcoming activities. Study and Train. (Optional: Separate Marketing Meeting)
Week 3. Supervise. Coordinate upcoming activities. Study and Train.
Week 4. Supervise. Coordinate on upcoming activities. Celebrate and party for a great month! Add to Practice Playbook.
REPETITION
Do The Practice Development Process Every Month.
The success of this process derives much of its power from a simple principle from Aristotle.
“We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
This often referenced quote is from a series of lectures he was to have given at the Greek Lyceum on ethics (300 B.C.). We could say, then, that continuing to do the Practice Development Assessment, and all of your procedures and systems, is ethical and leads to excellence. The contrary would also be true.
GOALS AND CONSTANT IMPROVEMENT
It is important to keep in mind WHY we are doing the PDP each month.
It is assumed we all want to improve, that improvement is possible, and that we have higher purposes and goals. Our patients do. That is why they see us and we help them improve and get closer to their goals at each visit.
By consistently working the 3 Goals Practice Development Process each month you, the practice, and each team member will also get closer to the higher goals each of you share.
[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:
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
Forget about the roller tables, stretching bands, balance boards, traction devises, taping, decompression, protein powder, vibrating platforms, laser, lipo body sculpting, ultrasound, stim, tens, supplements, orthotics, etc.
Any or all of these may or may not be appropriate for your practice, but they should not be your first choice in providing a modality or ancillary service to your patients.
Think about this: what could you do for your patients, in addition to your adjustments, that would help them improve their health the most?
EDUCATE THEM
The more the patient knows about how chiropractic works – and how your services help them – the more motivated they will be in following through with their health care plan.
People don’t know about subluxations just like they really didn’t know about asbestos or cigarettes. It was a while ago but advertising was rampant on television and in print promoting cigarettes. MD’s were often used to legitimize the use of cigarettes.
Today, your patients are also being inundated with propaganda about food, drugs, and basic lifestyle choices that are not healthy, let alone not true. They are told that drugs are safe solutions for headaches, back pain, and other ailments when in many cases they are found to be poisonous. (Vioxx, Accutane, Cylert, Darvon & Darvocet, for example.) Nearly all the food they eat has various toxins, from aspartame in diet food to herbicides that linger (glyphosate, used in “Roundup” and sprayed on your kid’s schools playgrounds).
Educated patients are better equipped to keep to their treatment program and continue improving their health. Isn’t this what you want?
This is your #1 ancillary service.
#1 Marketing Tool
Educated patients are more motivated to refer those they know to you and to help you set up external events. They can become your ambassadors, field representatives and sales force. They know that someone with headaches, low back pain, or other odd symptoms may be helped by chiropractic and your services. They may be able to refer them directly, or you can help them by providing special workshops, special events, and opportunities for external programs at their place of work.
#1 Team Management Tool
All of this also applies to each of your team members as well.
We are all “numbed down” by a conventional lifestyle and a culture that is greatly manufactured by just a few large industries such as Big Pharma and Big Food that use media and government to achieve its ends.
And, frankly, we tend to take what we do for granted. Imagine a patient who had a headache for years and after your care is now pain free and can get a full night’s sleep and her relationships with her family have improved., etc. Amazing, right? But for us, pretty routine. We can end up being more concerned about billing her secondary or supplement insurance or keeping her scheduling than in just celebrating with her.
Almost anything you know about health care will be “new news” to your patients and probably many of your staff. Plus, we all tend to forget what we once knew.
What is the big difference with you from when you started chiropractic college and after you graduated (Besides debt) . THE difference was and is that you were motivated. And you were motivated because… you were educated and even more, you were enlightened. You were able to see things in people’s health conditions that you never saw before. And with all this understanding, you were now more motivated.
But in time, awareness can dim and so can motivation. New patients start dropping off, treatment plans get shorter, and the quality of staff performance erodes. The solution is to keep educating patients and team members so that they stay awake and motivated.
In other words, WAKE THE FLOCK UP!
Patient and staff education provide the best ROI of any activity you have. Modalities and extra services have many overlooked costs such as staff time to account and bill for the therapies, extra staff to apply the services, someone to take inventory of the products and to sell them, etc. Patient education is pretty much a no cost proposition. How much does a care class cost? Watching “Doctored” or “Food Inc. ” or “Bought” with your staff and then discussing it afterwards (that is very important), it is much cheaper than flying to Las Vegas.
And if you do it often and effectively, you will be able to afford that next seminar in Hawaii.
As the doctor, you are the CEO, the Chief Evangelizing Officer. I first heard this term from Guy Kawasaki, who was called this when he worked for Apple when the Macintosh was first launched in the early 80’s. Macintosh was trying to win over users from IBM computers to the Apple Macintosh.
You are creating converts to a chiropractic and natural health lifestyle.
Remember that education, both staff, patients, and your own education as well should cover not only what your services do, and how they do it, but WHY you provide these services. In fact, your emotional connection to the reason you do your services communicates the strongest.
WHAT TO DO
1. First, keep yourself aware and amazed at the innate healing power of the body and the great affects your services provide. Provide an hour or two of study for yourself each week. Just like you work IN your office, you have to work ON your office – and that includes yourself.
2. Let yourself get emotional about what the FLOCK is going on! Don’t be “correct”, well heeled and a good little domesticated “provider.” It is natural that you become somewhat “riled up” about the injustice that your patients and their family and friends experience in receiving “health care” or at the misinformation “fed” to people about healthy living.
3. Educate your team. Watch a movie with them and then have a discussion period afterwards. (The discussion is very important as it helps get everyone engaged in the process.)
4. Staff Meetings. Go over a case history or two.
5. Patient Care Class. There are many different names for this, but all patients get better, faster, and stay healthier longer if they know more about chiropractic and health. Make it a part of their treatment plan and bribe them with food!
6. Start a Lending Library and position your office as an educational facility. Even if you lose a few books or DVD’s each month, it is worth it as your patients will see that you are serious about health and health education. Give each staff member a bonus for a book report presentation at a staff meeting.
There are many ways to educate yourself, your team, and your patients. Done right, education turns into enlightenment and this will produce a greater return than many other activities you do.
# # #
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
=====================================================================================
References
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:
Someone applying for Patient Accounts could role-play the following:
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.”
This short story may not seem at first to pertain to your chiropractic office, but it does.
In the hot afternoon Sunday traffic, in the right lane waiting to turn right, our lane had stop moving.
Crossing the busy six lane intersection heading toward us was a man in a motorized wheelchair. His face was full but motionless and looked worn. I couldn’t be sure, but he had that straight-ahead look of someone who was blind. He was maybe upper thirties or mid forties with short hair, perhaps a wounded veteran who paid no mind to the antsy cars that waited for him and his wheelchair.
Sitting on his lap was a thin little girl. Maybe eight years old. She was curled up, cuddled with one of her shoulders against one of his. As they were crossing the last three lanes, she stretched out her arm with an open hand as if to say “halt, please let us cross.”
She had the look of a girl who had not had an easy life but was happy to be with this person whose immobile legs she rested on.
Once they made it to the other side our lane started to move. The pair moved closer as I moved forward. It appeared as if she was acting as the man’s eyes and told him when to go. I had the sense that he was a family member, perhaps her father, by the bond they seemed to share.
As I passed them in my nice air conditioned car, I looked closely at the girl and waved to her and smiled. She looked at me directly as I drove by. She gave me a wave and beamed a big smile as if to say “Thanks. We just made it across a busy road and me and my pa are having a Sunday outing.”
In my mind, her face reminded me of pictures of Anne Frank, the girl in Amsterdam that kept a diary before being taken by the Nazis to her death in 1945.
I would have liked to stop and help her in some way. Or say “hi” to the man in the wheelchair who looked so stoic. Maybe there was something I could do for them.
But the fact is – they did something for me.
They set an example – of courage, caring and love. They had heart: For each other, for their goals, and seemingly for their adventure.
Not everything can be put into a mission statement or measured by statistics. No “boot camp” can teach this, and even if all your policies and procedures were followed perfectly, you could still miss it.
Heart.
One office I know has so MUCH heart the whole town loves the office and the office loves the town. The fact that there is a 2-3 week waiting list of new patients is the biggest challenge the office has.
By training and professional experience, I have a bias towards procedures, organizational structure and production. No doubt, without these, offices would experience anarchy or insolvency. But I have also learned that heart is more important.
We can all become discouraged at times. Emotions and confusions can affect your patients as they do you and this can put a barrier around our capacity to care. This may be affecting you or your office now.
But this is only temporary and not the real you.
This is what the little girl gave me. Her wave to me was a “thank you for stopping to let us cross the road”, but also, “we are all in this together.”
That is the lesson I am left with.
There is heroism all around us. Simple and quiet examples of selfless caring and love pass us by daily if we were to notice. People want to help others and want help as well. Why? Because we are all in this together. Because we care. Because we have heart.
Training on procedures such as the report of findings is fine, but your patients aren’t adversaries and neither is your community. They want to get better and they want to help others to get better. Really care for them, really love them, be honest with them, and have the courage to always do this, and they will never leave you.
Whatever your office mission statement says, if you have one, it should say what is in your heart. And if you follow that, I am sure you can successfully pilot your team on its adventure.
# # #
Ed Petty
THE PROMOTIONAL RIVER
I sometimes receive emails and calls from chiropractors requesting a quick fix for their lack of new patients. I often wonder if they ever got the idea of symptomatic care versus corrective and wellness care.
Effective marketing requires more than just a killer advertisement or long copy reactivation letter or a spinal screening. It has been said that good marketing doesn’t depend on one promotion to get 50 new patients, but rather 50 promotions each generating one new patient.
Generating a high volume of new patients in your chiropractic office requires multiple channels of communication. Consider how a river grows – through lots of tributaries. The Mississippi starts out like a creek, but then other creeks run into it and it grows and grows.
We call this the promotional mix – the blend of different approaches you use to communicate the benefits of your services.
On the following page, we have listed just a few important categories of effective promotions for your office. Of course, there are others, but we have found that these work well and can act as a good foundation.
FOUNDATIONS OF PROMOTION
Effective promotion starts with individual and team motivation. It then should be entwined with all of your basic routines each day, from the way the phone is answered to the consultation and patient examination.
Beyond this, you can schedule specific health topics months in advance and offer them as workshops or “Awareness Weeks” where you provide a free screening exam and info.
Occasional special promotions should be scheduled, such as “Kid’s Day”, and community services should also be scheduled, such as screenings, relationship building with external referrals sources, and workshops.
Your presence on the Internet has to be constantly added to.
These are some of the main categories of your promotions, though advertising and public relations events can also occur now and then.
(larger image) KEY PROMOTIONS
1. Motivation. You and your team’s desire to promote the benefits of your services create the energy to make your marketing work. Constantly nurture this. Start with WHY?
2. Basic Service and Chiropractic Care Procedures. This is your foundation. Marketing is embedded in the heart of all the basic duties you do every day. You should constantly review and try to improve on the marketing aspect of your procedures. Be ever more cheerful, more genuine, more caring, and giving of extra-ordinary care and service. Have “Present Time Consciousness.” It is helpful to have a checklist of these procedures to review. Little things can slip aside and go unnoticed and a checklist helps flush everything out for inspection. Work on a procedure or two every month so that you are constantly improving.
3. Special Promotions. These are promotional events that can be internal, external, or both. For example, flowers to women on Mother’s Day, a Kid’s Day, Community Appreciation Day, Anniversary Day, etc. They can be tied in with holidays, community days, parades, donation drives, etc. Most have an offer for a free service, but not all. These are IN ADDITION to the monthly education themes. Schedule these every other month or so. Promote these on the Internet and in newsletters.
4. Community Education Program (Monthly Health Themes) We have found that this program gradually builds momentum and if managed well, brings in more patient referrals, external new patients, and returning patients directly and indirectly. Here are some steps to make it successful.
a. Select monthly themes around a condition or healthful topic. Can include headaches, kid’s health, motherhood, nutrition, cooking class, exercise, golf clinic, etc.
b. Schedule a workshop time or “Awareness Week” (free screening exam last week of the month) at the end of each month.
c. Customize a poster. Samples on our Members site or make up your own.
d. Do a YouTube video on the subject the month before. Post on Facebook, web site, YouTube channel and embed in your email
e. Send out an email notice promoting the event, with a link to the video Health Tip, testimonial, etc.
f. Send a hard copy newsletter with testimonials mailed to some of your patient files now and then (3 months) and all files every 6 months.
g. Posters distributed locally and as statement stuffers.
h. Press releases can be sent to local papers/electronic calendars.
i. Ads are an option.
5. Community Services. These are scheduled each month and include screenings, workshops and external referrals source development (MDs, businesses, DDS, auto body shops, etc.)
6. Keep The Conversation Going: Internet And Newsletter. Update your Internet presence and post new info regularly. Set a goal of how many hours it gets worked on each month, eg. 1 hr a week. You could also use a checklist (we have one on our PM&A Members site). This would include Facebook postings, YouTube, directory sites (Yelp, Healthgrades.com. etc.), and search engines (Google, Bing, etc.). And, of course, your website/blog. Add patient testimonials, photos, and health tips. Keep posting – but keep most of the info local and “newsy,” just short of gossipy. Also, send out electronic and hard copy newsletters with similar newsy content and notices for upcoming promotions, talks.
7. Public Relations and Advertising. Radio ads and print ads promoting specials events can be helpful now and then. Public relations such as press releases and donation drives can add long term good will and should be done a few times a year
3 Month Marketing Planner [Link]
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.
Someone in your office needs to be responsible for the administrative duties that fall outside of the usual functions in a chiropractic office of:
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.
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.
As a chiropractor, there are many reasons why you shouldn’t have practice promotions.
Hundreds. You can come up with 10 right now. Your staff could think of more. So could your family!
Most of them would have something to do with not enough time to do them, or too much of a hassle, or it might cost too much. Then, there is also: not sure if they would work, or what do we do and how do we do it? Maybe you are really too frightened, embarrassed, or burned out to promote.
Now, you could say: “Hey, I already have more patients than I can see.”
Yes, maybe you could. But then you would have to ask yourself: “is everyone in my town getting proper chiropractic and natural health care?” “Is anyone in my neighborhood receiving unnecessary drugs, surgery?”
On the other hand there are only a few reasons you would want to have practice promotions. These would include:
In terms of traffic lights, promotions are GREEN.
In your office, what light is flashing? Yellow, red, or green?
Green means GO! Promotion = pro + motion. The word comes from “forward motion.”
Ultimately, there are three basic reasons for not promoting:
3. Not knowing what or how
2. Lacking the motivation
1. Lacking the organization
In our upcoming webinar, we cover the what and the how and the why to get your promotions going, fill up your office, increase your revenue, and make your services more popular.
Hope to see you there.
Best regards,
Ed
This month, we have 2 webinars designed to help you grow your practice and provide better service to your patients. These are in addition to our world class expert consulting and coaching, our free articles on our web site and those especially for our clients in our PM/A Members Library.
These are short discussions with plenty of slides and examples, along with follow up summaries.
Register now. Keep training!
****To view the calendar and/or register for our other webinars as an active PM/A client or guest, please go here: LINK