Gotcha! Of course, you can’t eliminate all the mistakes. There will always be mistakes… from all sides. Patients, Team and (yes, please remind them), the Doctors!!!
However, you should not be making the same mistakes twice. Once you see a mistake happening and occurring you must do something to prevent it with checks and balances backed by personal accountability.
Now, here’s the thing, mistakes can be prevented and at least should be minimized. They can be if you follow three simple yet critical steps…
1st – Positional Ownership and Clarity of Responsibilities
I talk about this all of the time but it has to go beyond just words. Inside of your practice every person must know what they are responsible for and what makes them successful with every patient engagement.
Who orders, cleans, turns rooms, checks insurance, etc.
When this is made public and specific, then you know exactly where mistakes are coming from. People can’t escape them, they have to own them. Which is what any team and real professionals would want. That means they will work harder to make sure they don’t mess things up in any way.
You also have to break this down even further into patient by patient visit expectations (how many pictures to take, who introduces who, how information is presented to the doctor and so on and so forth). Without a clear expectation and guidelines there will be mistakes.
2nd – Preparation
This is my favorite because it is the single most controllable way to ensure amazing and effective execution. Most people just go through their days like they don’t matter, as if they are just practicing (instead of the real game, which they are). Every day is the real thing and no one (absolutely no one), would begin “the real game” without being prepared for it.
This means obvious things like chart reviews, room set up, trays prepared in advance and cleaning up the office for the day among many other things.
It also means every day ends with closure before the next day begins. Each team member should know and be accountable for whatever preparation they need to make for themselves and the team for tomorrow.
3rd – Reflect and Review
You have to give yourself a check up and see how you did. This should be done at the end of every day (at the very least). Many don’t do it, some only do it monthly and some just pretend to do it without really looking at things.
Example: how much treatment was closed that was presented today, how much treatment was diagnosed, how much insurance was successful, how many showed up and how many didn’t, how many new patient calls and how many scheduled, how on-time were we today?
All of these things require reflection and review to make adjustments and to work towards perfection for your days.
The bottom line is mistakes will happen. They shouldn’t happen by negligence or lack of any of these three things. If they are, then sloppiness and laziness is the culprit.
Work hard to minimize mistakes and to hold each other accountable. Everyone should want to win and do better. And by the way, inside of all the mistakes made are record months, more patients getting healthier, bigger team bonuses and less stressful days.
This week, check up on yourself and your team to assess these 3 concepts and apply them to everything you are doing. Then let each person make a list of what can be improved upon, whether they happen daily or weekly or monthly.
There is no room for error, to be the best you have to do what it takes to make it happen. So, get to work!
