If you did the work last week and you really assessed your team’s focus, how they use (and ultimately value) their time, and the impact they are able to make, then you no doubt found some opportunities to make each and every team member worth more to your practice.
At some point, I don’t know when or even what sport, I remember hearing the term “impact player” and that’s what we want out of your team. We want them all in their own right in their specific position to be an impact player.
This was the real point of last week’s Report by keeping the main thing the main thing in the minds of every team member with every patient engagement and with every minute of their day.
You take it to the next level of impact when they are all added up together and the impact multiplies. You connect each team member to the next one like a basketball team seamlessly passing the ball until it gets to the player who takes the shot.
With every pass the team got closer to a high probability shot to score the points. The best part about what you are doing every day with your game, unlike basketball, is that you know exactly how the play should be executed and the order in which each player touches the ball.
Continuing on that analogy, you might think you are without a defense trying to stop you and you’d be wrong. However, it doesn’t often take the form of other people; it’s the defense you play against yourself… the interruptions, distractions, insurance issues, inefficient equipment, disorganized supplies, disorderly processes, and time-consuming mistakes.
The real problems arise when you are playing against yourself with ineffective scheduling, incomplete communication, lack of clarity on the priorities, diminishing treatment, shortcutting the patient experience, or a breakdown in how treatment is presented, paid for, and produced.
Actually, the list of defense against you is long but it doesn’t have to be and that’s because you can overcome these obstacles to score more points.
Which is exactly what I want to talk to you about today. The profit is in the team knowing how to and then executing on scoring points.
In our case points are dollars of case acceptance and treatment value that delivers the health to the patients – that is why you exist.
Not to run up and down the court seeing patients, cycling through visits, filling up the schedule, or going through the motions. It’s to score points and make every trip down court worth something to a patient every single time.
As promised, we’ll discuss specific leverage points and strategies today. All of which should already be part of your culture and team development; the question is how deliberate are you with actually going to work on the drills, practicing the plays, and ensuring that the results on the court are in alignment with the expectations you have.
So, how can you have a team that is built to run up the score (the profitability in your practice), by increasing their value to you?
You unlock hidden profits in your practice when you grow your people in these five ways…
1st – their actual skills, what they are capable of doing and this includes their efficiency and effectiveness at doing whatever it is they do.
When you grow their competence, expand their skill set, and increase their abilities you make them more valuable. Can everyone handle a higher level of actions and/or ultimately do the same tasks better than they did before?
Then they should know and be taking action on what’s next on the priority list of growth and development.
You don’t want anyone person to have so much on their plate that they aren’t good at any of it or they can’t actually get it all done but you do want to push the limits and see how they can provide a better return on their time and your investment in them.
2nd – their communication, when you upgrade how they interact with others it serves as a rising tide that lifts all boats. This goes for patient interaction at every level and for team interaction with how everyone fits together throughout the patient experience.
This is the single biggest area of tactical improvement necessary in a practice in order to take the same time, same team, same everything and improve profitability by helping more patients. Everything is either decreased or increased in value by verbiage and how things are conveyed to others.
If you want to make your practice more profitable, you can literally change nothing but the way communication is handled and you will find instance improvements in every part of your practice.
While some of this is obvious such as how insurance is discussed or how pre-pay is structured and communicated or how cases are built and treatment plans are created; other parts of it are subtle like questions on the phone or controlling the schedule with patients or asking for referrals.
Everyone will tell you they know what to do. The real question is do they know how to talk about it. They say they are doing everything but is “everything” being said?
3rd – this leads us straight to a combination of the first two with your team’s value and profit increase when their knowledge and education grow so that they can be better utilized. This is the actual understanding of the value and ability to explain (because that means they believe in it more) what you do to, for, and with your patients.
They say knowledge is power and I say applied knowledge is profit. No one can be worth more than what they comprehend.
This covers everything from being able to identify diagnosis to explaining procedures to understanding the health objectives of your clinical philosophy to actually grasping why certain business decisions are made to protocols that are expected to be followed.
I say that educated patients are the best patients (I’m not talking about if they have a Master’s degree). Taking your patients through a proper and complete experience will yield a better understanding of their health and thus increase their willingness to make an investment in themselves.
Most team members remain naïve about key parts of your practice and even of dynamics within their own role. An educated team is the best team, so make sure they understand every relevant aspect.
4th – the next one is a little more conceptual in that every team member becomes more profitable when their actual teamwork improves and they learn how to be proactive in what they do. I would call this the leverage point awareness of the bigger picture and how all the parts and people fit together.
This is what makes the best teams better and it is what keeps average teams average. When the inter-workings of the team and doctor are mediocre, all sorts of problems ensue… everything takes longer, opportunities are missed, stuff (including patients, money, and treatment) fall through the cracks, and mistakes need to be redone. All because people are working as individuals instead of a team driving results and helping each other score points.
If a team member is overly focused on just their task at hand, the bigger picture is lost, teamwork suffers, and opportunities are missed. Think of a ball hog on a basketball court, selfishly dribbling around only concerned with setting themselves up for a shot.
With everyone on the ‘same page,’ you drive consistency in execution and continuity in performance which leads to more profitable results.
5th – and now we move to the linchpin of all leverage points, but this one is slightly different. It can’t be quantified or tracked or put on a checklist or even practiced. The most important aspect of an individual’s value to your team, patients, and practice is their own personal value over themselves.
Growing their confidence and self-worth leads to a rise in their own expectations which results in more proactive initiative and ownership of responsibilities.
Improving someone’s ability is one thing, you have to also improve their willingness to contribute and their belief that they matter. Give them permission to take risks and actually help them move outside of their own personal comfort zone and limiting beliefs.
Every human, you and I included, will never achieve more than they believe they are capable of. Most perform down to their own confidence and comfort level; then make excuses to justify the status quo.
Sometimes this is being stuck in old ways or seeing change as too much work or thinking patients won’t do anything or displacing responsibility from their own results.
The bottom line is if you want to grow the practice, you have to grow the people and if you want to grow the profits, you have to grow their potential.
Inside of each of these five points you will find powerful profit expanders without adding a patient or team member or op or hour or even a dollar to your overhead. They are all about maximizing and making the most of (what should be) your most valuable asset and investment, your people.
Your ability to generate as much profitability as you can from your practice doesn’t come from volume expansion or expense management. Instead it comes from the team that makes it all possible and the best news of all is that people have unlimited potential. You can unlock more of that potential with a deliberate plan for expanding their value by focusing on these 5 traits.
Next week, we’ll jump to patient profitability… stay tuned!
