Tag Archives: practice management

The Importance of Why in Chiropractic Practice Development

Posted on by
Reply

Remember when your child, or a kid you knew, constantly asked you “why?”

“Time to go to bed honey.”  “But why, Mommy?”    “Dad, why is the grass green? ”

This happens for a few years until the child finally learns that it is just so much trouble to keep asking the “why” question.

This happens to us all.  After a while, we all just become inured to the day to day demands and take for granted our eventual roles of working in a world of work that has little other reason than to pay our bills. And we begin to live just for the weekends.

But living for the weekend is not much of a motivation to do good work, to perform our duties with excellence that inspire trust in others, and to be happy with it.

Our jobs should have a reason beyond money or relief from work.  What we do for money should have a higher purpose than money. It should satisfy us and motivate us in and of itself.

After many years of research, Stephen Covey determined that those people and companies that were the most effective followed the habit of: “Begin with the End in Mind.”  In other words, start with a goal in mind.  He emphasized the value of developing and living by a personal mission statement as well as one for your business, and even your family.

Some of the better offices that I have had the privilege of working with would often end their team meetings by reciting their group’s mission statement.

While this helps, it can also become rote so that the real meaning of the mission becomes dull. One way to remedy this is to now and then ask “Why?”  Simply ask each team member to describe, in their own words, why this is, or should be, the mission statement.

We are all looking for greater meaning in our lives – or at least have at one time or another. “What does all that I do account for?” “What do I account for?” “What will be my legacy after I am gone?”

This applies in leadership as the CEO of your chiropractic business.

The primary responsibility of a leader in a purpose-based organization is to build, nurture, and sustain the core purpose of the organization. (“It’s Not What You Sell, It’s What You Stand For.” Roy M. Sence, Jr.)

But leadership is also marketing. You are putting your noble ideas out into the world to give others a clear vision of what is possible and why it is important.  You stand out as different – because you are stating WHY you are making a difference.

A few years ago, I posted a T.E.D. talk on our website (www.pmaworks.com) that focused on how “WHY” was so important in leadership.  (TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design.)  The key differential between the very successful companies and leaders was not what their company provided, or how they provided it. The key difference was that they communicated why they did what they did. (The link to this talk by Simon Sinek is below.)

Much of corporate medicine has devolved into a goalless and soulless technology and bureaucracy.  The relationship between the patient and the MD has become interrupted by critical paths and reimbursement protocols, techs, testing, and terms (codes and abbreviations), and lots of notes.  Yet, the stats for America’s health care relative to other industrialized countries worldwide are poor.

Be nice and genuinely interested in patients and talk about WHY you want to help them AND their family, and do so, and you can’t help but win.

Let prospective patients know WHY you are a chiropractor, why you chose their community, and why you do what you do.  Let them know why you adjust children, seniors, teen athletes, and “Los Pobres.” Communicate this to your existing patients as well. In fact, any promotion you do will work better if you tie in to WHY you are promoting.

For example, take the donation campaign called “Coats for Kids. “  It has all but lost its meaning over the years with every TV and radio station jumping onto some kind of faux goodwill activity.  Promoting what it is about and how it will benefit kids as well as patients will help make it successful.  But to make your promotion much more successful, explain that the reason you are participating in this campaign is that you have worked in homeless shelters and seen shivering and poorly clothed kids. This is “why.”

Attached is an article on “Why We Promote.”  It is a sample letter you can mail to your patients after their first progress exam, or simply have it as a handout. You can also use its theme to end a new patient class.  Feel free to embellish it or change it. (Active clients can get a customizable Word doc here. http://pmamembers.com/?p=874)

Personally, take time to remind yourself about the WHY for what you do.  Study resources that support this “why.”  What is the mission of your office and why is that the mission?   Remind your team about this “why.”  Training new staff on this is particularly important. Go over the “why” for the office, as well as the “why” for their particular role.

So the next time your child, or any child asks you “why?” take your time to answer.  And as they get older, you can start asking them “why?” (Get even!)  But the world unfolds and reduces to its raw and basic truths when you do – and this in turn allows passion and purpose a clearer channel to help you achieve your goals.

Golden Circle a TED talk by Simon Sinek. http://pmaworks.com/observations/2011/02/10/leadership-in-chiropractic-the-golden-circle/

Sample Letter to pts-Why we promote.

[This article is from the upcoming book:  “The Third Goal:  A New Practice and Business Building Methodology That Is Simpler, Faster, and More Fun than What You Are Doing Now.)  by Edward Petty, due to be published in late 2015. © 2015]

10 Practice Development Strategies for Chiropractors in 2015

Posted on by
2

[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

 

Your Biggest Chiropractic Bill Each Month

Posted on by
Reply

Fotolia_56486655_XS

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

Chiropractic Team Tryouts: Tips on Interviewing Potential New Team Members

Posted on by
Reply
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

Posted on by
Reply

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

Cover_Good_2_Gr8

“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

 

 

Chiropractic Practice Management, Marketing, and Leadership Recorded Training Webinars

Posted on by
Reply

This is a list of our practice development recorded webinars.

Each is a recording of a slide show driven lecture, each filled with an abundance of practice information derived from in the field work – and plenty of slides!

Currently, you have to be active on a PM&A program. By this summer, these will be available on and individual basis for a small fee.

 Chiropractic CEO Webinars

 Creating your Dream Team Summary and VideoA virtual “live” interview with the doctor and staff of a true chiropractic dream team. Find out what they do to achieve high numbers, profit, and fun.

 The Fast Flow Practice CEO  -55 minutes webinar video and summary.
One of the biggest challenges in running and growing your business is the time it takes you away from seeing patients and from your family.  We have solved this with what we call the Fast Flow Practice CEO System.   A new system derived from old principles.
Management by the Numbers: 44 minutes – Summary and Video
Management is a subject that has techniques to help you go from where you are to where you want to be.  Management By the Numbers (MBN)  can be faster and more accurate than other forms of management, and help build staff morale and make it more self directed.

Capacity Constraints : 33 minutes – Summary and Video
Do you work hard but you just don’t get as far as you should? The reason may be that you are running into unseen bottlenecks that are choking off your production and suffocating your growth. This is the subject of Capacity Constraints.

How to Be an Effective Practice CEO  Video
If you are struggling with the ups and downs of a stressful practice, or have finally “settled” into a comfort zone producing much lower than you know you are capable of, this program is for you.

~~

Chiropractic Office Manager Webinars

 Chiropractic Manager Webinar – Roles and Goals  Summary, Video and Study Guide
What Are The Key Roles In Your Office? A hidden barrier in many offices has to do with confusing roles and job duties. Clear these up and see how much smoother patients and paper flow, and happier the team becomes.  Small office or big health business, clarify these 8 roles and the numbers will go up.
 

Chiropractic Manager Webinar – Job and Performance Reviews    Video
Employee reviews are often neglected, or are dreaded by employee and doctor. This webinar covers the basic steps to make them effective and positive for both doctor and employee.  Approx 37 minutes.

Chiropractic Manager Webinar – Motivating Your Staff – Video  Ms. Phyllis Frase shares 5 secrets to keeping yourself and your staff motivated.

 Chiropractic Manager Webinar – Team Meetings   Summary, Video and Study Guide. This is an overview of 8 essential actions to help you improve your meetings and make them faster, more fun, and more effective. Plus, different types of short meetings that your team can grow.

 Chiropractic Manager Webinar –  The Office Manager Job Description  Summary, Video and Study Guide. This class covers 17 essential duties of the office manager. Both the doctor and the office manager should watch and discuss these duties.
 

Chiropractic Manager Webinar-  How to Best to Train Your Staff  Summary, Video and Study Guide This webinar covers eight tips  to improve the performance of your team.  Training plays a big part in team building.
 

Chiropractic Manager Webinar– How to Hire the Right Team Member   Summary, Video and Study Guide.
This webinar  covers eight priniciples for hiring the right team member from knowing when to hire, who to hire and how to hire.
 

Office Manager Webinar – It’s All About the Patient, the Doctor and the MISSION [Summary, Video and Study Guide]
There are procedures to help the patients and procedures that help the doctor help the patient and then there is Everything Else.  Tips on how to deal with Everything Else. (30 minutes)

Office Manager Webinar- Part II – Tips and Tricks to make the office more efficient[Summary, Video]
Part II reveals tips and tricks of what an office manager can actually do in the office on a day to day basis to make things run smoother and  significantly improve the volume and quality of services. (55 minutes)

 Office Manager Webinar- Part I – Fundamentals of Practice Management [Summary, Video]
Part I covers the fundamentals of Practice Management (55 minutes)

 

Chiropractic Marketing Webinars

Innate Marketing  (55 minutes) – Webinar plus Summary.
There are stories that float around every now and then about how some offices can simply “think”  “New Patients” and they come in.
Are these stories an urban legend? A myth, or a fact? Can staff or doctors “concept” new patients in the door. Is this true? If so, how can you do this?  10 steps to help you generate more patient visits through “concepting.”

Chiropractic Special Promotions  (55 minutes) – Webinar plus Summary.
This webinar covers different promotions by month. You will learn 2-4 different practical promotions for each month of the year. More importantly, you will learn how to organize them so that they are time effective and productive.

Patient Retention – Summary and Video
If you understand the underlying basics of patient retention your appointment book should always be full.  Covered in this webinar is: Patient retention should be based on Principles – not gimmicks. Where are we you taking your patients? Why they quit?  The cost of not getting them there.

 Chiropractic Patient Education – Summary and Video (45 min)
We go over 7 basic strategies that cover the entire horizon of patient education and explain why it is so necessary to educate your patients if you want them to be healthier.

 Infomercials. – Summary and Video .
Whatever happened to Infomercials? They’re still around and they still work. And you can do them very inexpensively. You just need to know how. This webinar will give you practical examples and include forms for you to use in producing your own amateur and informational marketing that can help you create more new patients and keep the ones you have.

 Internet Marketing and Social Media. – Summary and Video . This webinar covers some fundamentals regarding social media, Facebook, and general Internet marketing. (35 minutes) (not yet posted)

 The Art of Spinal Screenings. – Summary and Video . Spinal Screenings – The Queen of External Marketing.  Everyone has done at least a few  spinal screenings. You have probably had some success with them. But how much better could you do if you knew the fundamentals of this time tested external marketing activity?  This is a three part series on spinal screenings. This session we will review the most fundamental principles of screenings. Get these, and all else will follow.(45 minutes)

 Scheduling Screenings and other External Events – Summary and Video .  How to Schedule External Events And Create External Referral Sources.  Types of events, Outcomes, Purpose. How to plan the events and get them scheduled.(30 minutes)

Marketing Tips: Earth Day, Spring Promotions, and other Tips – Summary and Video This webinar covers: Powerful internal marketing script, Report of findings referral procedure,  upcoming spring promotions, with special attention to utilizing Earth Day as an opportunity to promote your services.

Short Overview of Chiropractic Marketing Management with Some Marketing Tips – Summary and Video   This is a short version of marketing management and some tips for the upcoming months. What are the three levels of marketing?  What part does communication have in your marketing?  How to engage your patients in your marketing efforts.  Upcoming special promotions. (30 minutes)

Marketing Management, Part I and Part II – This is the longer version of how to manage your marketing, and why.

Chiropractic Marketing Management – Session I – Summary and Video The Why, What and How of Marketing. Getting your Marketing off the Ground. (55 minutes)

Chiropractic Marketing Management – Session II – Summary and Video  Specific Marketing Manager Duties – Your Job Description.  General Overview of the Most Effective Marketing Procedures in Each of the 11 Marketing Categories (55 minutes)

 

The Chiropractor Versus the Chiropractic CEO

Posted on by
Reply

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

Posted on by
Reply

 

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.

Why You Shouldn’t Have Promotions

Posted on by
Reply

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:

  • Help more people
  • Fill up your office
  • Make more money
  • Make your services and those of chiropractic more popular

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

 

3 Goals Management Introduction

Posted on by
Reply

3 Goals Management System

How to Achieve Financial Abundance and Practice Freedom
A unique practice development strategy and process created by Petty, Michel & Associates

An Introduction

Goal Driven
We all have goals.  When we were younger, they might have been brighter than they are now, they might have been clearer, or seemed closer.  Maybe yours still are. Or, maybe, they have become dulled with wear and tear, with disappointments and frustrations.

But we are goal driven creatures and our goals stay with us. The better we can define these goals in concrete terms, the more likely we are to achieve them.

What All Doctors Want — The 3 Goals
Ultimately, all doctors would like to create a practice that allows them to provide the highest quality care to the most people for the most profit.

Most doctors want to do this with professional and personal integrity. Maybe most importantly, they want to be able to do this in such a way that they are not chained to their practice, slaving at their work at the expense of their personal and family lives.

This is a fundamental goal for all doctors, so fundamental that we call it Goal 2.

Even more fundamental, however, is basic survival and solvency. We call this Goal 1.

But nobody works just for money.  Whether it’s saving the planet, helping your grand kids, assisting the poor, or funding your church, we all have higher goals.

Goal 3 are your higher purposes.

All three goals can and should be achieved, and with over 20 years of experience, we have put together a practice development system that allows doctors, and their teams, to achieve all three goals.

The 3 Goals Practice Development System is a step by step approach to help your practice grow naturally to its full potential and stay there.

Goal 1
Goal 1 is survival. In business, this means solvency. Are you making enough profit to pay your bills? To achieve Goal 1, solvency and survival, you have to move fast.  It requires passion, energy, and an aggressively friendly approach to getting your services known and delivered. For the patient, you can think of Acute Care. For a staff position, you can think of 20 – 30% proficient.

Goal 2 and the Practice Development Process
Goal 2 is a fully functional, franchise-able, sale-able, and sustainable business that is very profitable.   For a patient, it is a maximum spinal correction. For a staff position, it is 100% proficient and competent, rain or shine.

After you have achieved Goal 1, you can now start identifying those procedures that worked best. You can write these down on checklists. These checklists will become your Practice Playbook.

With more staff training, you can delegate more procedures to staff. As you continue to grow, you refine your procedures and continue to train your staff so that they become more competent.

Every 2 months, or as needed, you assess your list of successful procedures and add to them, or revise them.  Every week you work on improving them, and train your team on them.  Much like any athletic team, you practice and review your plays and procedures.

We call this process the Practice Development Process. It helps you to continually improve the practice and gradually take the office to Goal 2.

Getting Organized: The Baseball Diamond
To get to Goal 1, organization is not vital. Production, speed, and promotional activity is. However, getting to Goal 2 requires good organization.

Imagine a baseball team that stands around the pitcher’s mound with the pitcher. A batter hits a fly ball to the right field. The whole team goes to chase it. Once they reach it, they realize that no one is on the first or second base to throw the ball to in order to stop the runner. They are all out in right field.

Many offices operate this way. For example, in some offices the front desk does insurance, the insurance department does therapy, the therapist schedules appointments, and the doctor takes time off to buy office supplies.

Moving the office upward to its peak capacity includes all areas of the office improving: first base, third base, centerfield, etc.  If you only have a few of the departments doing well, the other departments will hold down the entire growth.

Goal Three
Our greater goals give us meaning.  These are the accomplishments we want to have said we achieved at the end of our lives. They are based in love, hope, and faith. They are for our heritage, our parents and those upon whom we owe so much; they are for our legacy, our children and their children; they are for our community and the fellowship we share with rich and poor.

Goal three is your “Give Back” goals, to your family, to your community, and to yourself.

All Three
This is your road map up and out of the roller coaster. These three goals form a sequence, but you have to keep all of them in mind as you travel up your road to success.

This is directed to a business owner, but also applies to team members and how they can improve their competency. It applies to patients, and how they travel from acute care, structural care, to wellness.  It actually applies to many activities.

You have to be willing to shift between goals, and if you find yourself suddenly in the poor house, you have to lose your self-important attitude and run like a rookie again until you build your business back up to Goal 1.

Where many doctors fail is that they are not willing to shift, either up, or down, as needed. Having achieved Goal 1, they are two insecure to delegate their duties to staff and procedures, or work on improving themselves. Many doctors, having achieved Goal 1 who should be working on Goal Two, feel the need to keep doing what they did to get to Goal One and so, quickly find them selves back down struggling just to survive.

It is easy to get lost, but now, with the 3 Goals Management System, you have a road map.

We have seen too few doctors achieve financial abundance and practice freedom. Hopefully, with the tools provided in the 3 Goals Management System, more doctors will be able to reach their dreams and help others do the same.

For information on our coaching and management consulting programs. LINK

(3 goals image copyright 2009)

Your Chiropractic Practice Marketing Plan

Posted on by
Reply

How is your marketing plan?

Do you have one?

You really should have a marketing plan for your chiropractic practice, and it should be updated monthly, nudged weekly, and totally reviewed every three months.

This may sound oversimplified, boring, or too too obvious, but in our experience, it is a major key to practice building.

Sure, there are many other factors behind a successful business, but constantly marketing is essential. And, if your practice is not growing, it may be because you are not routinely marketing.

And how do you make sure that you are marketing? Have a plan.

A Marketing Plan Is Simply Marketing Activities Scheduled,
Assigned, Regularly Supervised, And Measured.

The key to effective marketing is simply planning. This is because marketing often just does not get done.  It is not that your marketing did not work. More than likely, it just didn’t happen.

To overcome this, you need to schedule short planning times each week, and longer periods each month.

This is the core of the Marketing Management System as we have developed it.

Your marketing plans should include the following:

•    Recurring Marketing-Oriented Procedures. These include not only your internal marketing procedures, but recurring clinical and administrative procedures as well. They are the usual recurring procedures that go on regularly in your office. Often overlooked and neglected, they are the most important form of marketing. They need to be reviewed and practiced regularly to be keep fresh and important. Because they are so routine, I usually schedule them last.

Very successful offices rely mostly on these types of procedures. When you hear chiropractic doctors say “We don’t do marketing”, it is because they have their marketing as part of their internal procedures and they do these extra-ordinarily well. These could be the way the phones get answered, the report of findings, the new patient lecture, the simple consistency of patient flow procedures, great internal staff and doctor communication, staff training procedures, staff meetings, etc.

•    Special Promotions. Hold special promotions every now and then. These could include a Kid’s Day, a donation drive, mother’s appreciation day, teacher’s appreciation week, etc. I walked into an office a few days ago and in the middle of a very cold, snow packed winter, the doctor and staff were wearing summer clothes, offering smoothies (without the run), with a big sign saying: “Welcome to Chiroville”, no doubt referencing “Margaritaville” and warm ocean lifestyle. What a refreshing and friendly surprise greeted each patient that day!

•    Patient and Community Education Programs. These are usually held in your office. Educate your community through your office and patients by providing special workshops that are chiropractic or health related. Or, you can sponsor a special “Awareness Week”, such as a Headache Awareness Week, offering no charge or discounted condition specific screenings, consultations, and or exams.

•    External Community Services and Networking Events. These can range from spinal screenings, to in office ergonomic workshops, lunchtime “Lunch & Learns” for local businesses, setting up referral sources with business or other professionals, or working in the food pantry twice a month feeding the homeless.

There are other procedures, such as advertising, PPO soliciting and reviewing, yellow pages, web site, but many of these can be put onto a yearly, quarterly, or monthly recurring checklist.

The above are various categories of marketing. But again, the most important part of marketing is doing it, and the key to getting marketing done is to schedule it and assign it and measure it.

For the best reference, review the materials in your Marketing Toolkit which is part of your Marketing Manager System computer software, if you have it.

Here is a sample marketing calendar for a chiropractic office.

NOTE TO CLIENTS AND PMA MEMBERS: You may find a customizable sample calendar on our PMA Member’s web site.

What the Moon Has to Do With You Success

Posted on by
Reply

The moon is back to normal again.

Just a few hours ago, though, standing in the middle of a snow-covered playground near Lake Michigan, in the night sky at about 3 degrees above zero, it looked like a smudge. A grey brown spot that was almost black, like someone had tried to erase it with an old eraser, but part of its image still remained.

For a few hours, the earth blocked out the sunlight to the moon, at least from our perspective. These unimaginably huge spheres of matter, nearly perfectly in balance, were gracefully moving like billiard balls in a ballet.  Compared to this, all else really seems insignificant.

Before street lamps, car lights, TVs and late night computers, the night sky entertained us. Everyone could recognize the constellations, and an interplanetary event such as an eclipse was a very big deal. All our ancestors were stargazers – the night sky gave them the comfort of familiar signs, as well as wonder and awe. And mystery.

Besides the city lights to distract us, we have our daily duties and deadlines that rivet our attention to the near. Your patients, your notes, your computer, staff members, phones; most things are just a yard stick away.  Like a ping-pong game, your focus has to be complete, quick, and close, or, you lose.

When your attention drifts, patients think you don’t care, staff thinks you take them for granted or are displeased, and insurance companies can’t read your notes.   Success in practice requires keen attentiveness.

You can’t survive asleep at the wheel, dreaming or daydreaming. To be a winner you have to be alert and actively attentive to your job each minute you are at the office.

And if that is all you do, you soon will burn out.

Studies have shown that you have to, now and then, disengage. Take a break. Learn Japanese. Play with your kids. Help the poor.  Pray. In their best selling book, The Power of Full Engagement, the authors offer studies and examples on why it is important to become involved in disrelated activities to balance our hectic if productive lives.

All this goes back to the moon and the sky.  I don’t think we look up enough. The sky, the stars, and the whole natural God given world are about us, mysterious and awe inspiring.

In business, we have to focus on the short term and build for the middle term. But it is the far away that calls us, if we can stop to listen.  What makes you curious, fills you with awe, love, and seems a mystery? What does your future whisper back to you, as if you could hear your eulogy years from now? What are your greater purposes?

Balancing these three is the key to a successful practice, business, and life.  Your first goal is to play each day fast, full out, like a basket ball game you have to win. Your second goal is to gradually build a strong organization with the right teammates and the best plays that have proven to work for you. But your third goal, and there may be many, are why you work at all.

If your business has plateaued and stopped growing, it is because one or more of these goals is not being worked on correctly.

We have developed a general pathway and framework for doctors to move upward so that they can correctly work on and achieve all three goals. It doesn’t matter what technique you use, therapies, providers, or offices.

We are excited and pleased about the development of this new approach to practice management and marketing and how it impacts our consulting and the results our clients can see, as well as our own business and personal lives.

We will be publishing and just talking more about these three goals, but we encourage you to come to our seminars.   You can learn more about them by clicking here. 3-Goals Seminars

And, in the meantime, as my old pal, Jack Horkhiemer the stargazer always says:  “Keep Looking Up.”

photos from Microsoft and NASA

The Four-Handed Chiropractic Office

Posted on by
Reply

We once knew of a dentist that was able to see hundreds of patients each week. Just himself.

How?

He had four hands. Actually, he had about 40 hands.

Four-handed dentistry became popular in the 1960’s and is a procedure that utilizes a dental assistant at the chair side of the patient with the dentist.

The two extra hands of the assistant allows the doctor to do the essential work on more patients. It is actually more than just adding two more hands. It includes all aspects of cooperation and coordination, allowing for maximum production through improved efficiency.

But his success was due to not just having extra “chairsides.” He had everything delegated, had separate departments in his office systematized, and had manuals for each department from which he constantly trained his staff. And, he had a fast and efficient management system to keep it all going. This permitted him to work with patients and develop the personal rapport that helped to keep them coming back to complete their treatment programs and refer their family and friends.

All of this leads to a key concept: capacity. Capacity is the ability and “room” to produce. Four-handed dentistry increases the capacity for the dentist to serve more people.

The reason why many offices stop growing is that, simply, they run out of room. It could be that there is not enough physical space or not enough effective staff. It could be poor patient, staff, and paperwork systems that clog up the flow so badly that even a can of Drano or a visit by the Rotor-router man couldn’t fix.

And, sometimes, even our mental capacity can get “filled-up.”

A well-organized office allows you to leverage your abilities and create more production. It also opens up the room to produce.

Imagine trying to play a football game on a 10 yard by 10 yard field. This is what many of us are trying to do, yet we just don’t know it. If you are having a hard time growing your office, you may have unseen capacity constraints holding you back.

A four-handed chiropractic office would be an office where there were many “hands” efficiently doing all the work, allowing the doctor(s) to focus only on those key actions necessary to treat patients and run the office.

Give this some thought and we will SOON show you some specific examples and what to do about capacity restraints in your office. Stay tuned…

P.S. If you know any doctors or marketers who would enjoy this article, just send them an email with this link: http://www.pmaworks.com/main/Four-Handed_Chiropractic_Office.shtml
P.P.S. E-mail addresses are never shared.

You are free to use the material from these articles in whole or in part on your web site or eZine (email newsletter) as long as you include the attribution below and also let me know where the article will appear.

“This article is by Ed Petty of Petty, Michel & Associates. Petty, Michel & Associates web site is a comprehensive resource on practice development for chiropractors. For free marketing resources and valuable development tools visit http://www.pmaworks.com”

Chiropractic Practice Bottlenecks: How to Increase Capacity by Removing Hidden Barriers

Posted on by
Reply

The theory of capacity management, as developed by Eli Goldratt and explained in his books, including the best selling The Goal, discusses the theory of constraints as applied to a manufacturing environment.

The same principle applies to chiropractor’s business. According to Goldratt, “Capacity is the available time for production.” A bottleneck is: “what happens if capacity is less than demand placed on resource.”

Bottlenecks can be hide anywhere in an office.  For example:

  1.     Peak Periods. Between the 4-6 pm slot, where there is extra traffic, extra staff or increased capacity is not provided.
  2.     Paperwork. Old forms that are redundant.
  3.     Poor scheduling of patients: (not cluster booked, not booking for NP paperwork)
  4.     Doctors waiting for therapy patients. (No CT or therapy after adjustment)
  5.     Front Desk doing insurance and scheduling at each visit (no MAP and PIA)
  6.     Not enough exam rooms
  7.     Clutter in front desk/insurance area
  8.     Quitting time. After a long day, all staff and doctors are looking forward to leaving and really don’t want extra patients to call or come in. Patients are inadvertently discouraged to come in extra, bring in friends or family , or call in during the last hour.
  9.     Backlogs. Undone reports from the two summers ago, partially completed projects, cluttered desks or office space, all discourage more an increase in production. You only have so much mental capacity, and if it gets frittered away on projects that are not completed, you will have “too many irons in the fire” to add any more. Finish what you started, and make room for more.
  10.     “Difficult people“. Some staff, or patients, will seem to drain you of your energy, or consume too much of your time trying to keep them happy.

Warning: Too much capacity can also be a barrier.

A) Personnel. A staff that has to make up work can retard production. Happy staff are productive staff, and the opposite is also true. Unhappy staff will not make for happy patients. This will also suck up the doctors time to try to remedy his “staff problems.”

B) Space. Too large of a space can disconnect the staff from each other and the patients and minimize the synergy.

 

Exercise – Getting Rid of Capacity Restraints and Bottlenecks.

Make a list of any bottlenecks in your office. Start by considering the flow of patients, of paper, and anything that slows it down or gets in its way. Consider patients waiting, paperwork waiting, any times of the day or days during the week where there is a slow down or back log. You can organize it into four categories:

Physical space
Personnel
Procedures
Difficult people
Incomplete projects

Once you have listed these, give yourself 30 days to fix all these capacity restraints.

NOTE: Bottlenecks can sometimes be difficult to locate, and even more difficult to remove.  Need help: Give us a call. (414) 332-4511