It only takes one day to make a big difference.
Well, tomorrow, we make a big difference in our country. Perhaps the most decisive and divisive election ever to be held in the history of our country. The outcome of the votes will certainly have a dramatic effect on the future.
As I pointed out last week, your patients ‘vote’ for or against you every single day by accepting their treatment and referring other patients to you.
If you are struggling any given day or week or month, you are not getting many votes. If you are succeeding, growing and achieving your goals then patients are voting for you.
Plain and simple. Blame whatever you want. You’re campaigning for trust, relationships and investments from your patients. You gotta own up to that.
The good news is: it only takes one day to make a dramatic change in your results.
Last week, I had the most amazing meeting with a dynamic practice who has a giant vision. Even with smaller size practice, they are putting up huge numbers and they are about to double.
In the past, they have been at the mercy of discount advertising and seeing patients who are more of a one-tooth emergency mindset. In order to thrive, they were working harder, adding more team members and needing longer hours.
While they have always had a relationship based approach to patients, they are moving back to comprehensive, full mouth treatment planning and requiring a commitment from patients to take responsibility for their own health.
We made three specific decisions and immediate adjustments. The results of which have been amazing just within the past 3-5 days.
1st – We made sure all treatment was presented and through transparency tied to what is the best for the patients’ long term health; conservative yet preventative by being honest with them.
This treatment is presented in the treatment room by the respective client team member, hygienist or assistant. Then they are handed off to the treatment coordinator depending on the size, value and nature of the treatment.
That’s powerful and most often not executed correctly. In fact, seldom done at all because treatment is slipped out of the treatment room, up to the front desk where the patient exits without explanation and is just asked to schedule the subsequent visit.
Why does it work? Because not only does the patient take it more seriously when the team member takes the time to show individual attention and concern over it, but the patients receive answers to clinical questions and proof of the problem before moving into the discussion about the investment.
2nd – We have assigned and dedicated one person per shift to be the New Patient Concierge. This is one of the most basic and yet instrumental strategies I teach and integrate into practices. It gives you direct accountability and management over the new patient business. And I do mean a business… a separate stand-alone business inside of your practice. The results are amazing because each new patient can be tracked and followed up on accordingly with a designated person.
It’s going to be dramatic.
3rd – The final thing and we’ll cover more of this next week… we have set tangible, actionable and task related priorities for each and every team member to be certain there are no gaps or holes in the patient experience, the flow of treatment or money.
These have been solidified in writing, tied to daily goals and measured with specific statistics.
After just three days, we have seen daily treatment more than double; not factoring in anything other than the amount of scheduled treatment which is the most important growth indicator.
Next week, I’ll share with you the changes we made to the tag team approach with the doctor-to-team member back and forth in order to help build large cases and get patients more involved in their treatment plans and problem-solution diagnosis.
I’m certain you will love this, so stay tuned.
For today, think about this: what are the top one, two or three things you could do individually and/or as a team that will make the biggest breakthroughs as soon as tomorrow.
Could you also double your daily results by following these three very smart adjustments? Absolutely. If you choose to, you can. If you commit to it, you will.
Remember, while our election is tomorrow for our president, your patients’ election for you is every single day, visit by visit. How you are doing is a direct result of how they vote. It tells you everything. So do whatever you can to help them make the right and best decision for their health by having more effective and consistent team work throughout their experience and your daily patient relationship processes.
Get to work and make today the big difference.
