I have been looking forward to this week’s message since we began three weeks ago. If I had to stake my money on one of the most guaranteed ways to be successful day in and day out in your practice it is this ultimate secret.
We have discussed scripting and creating the visualization of the ideal day for each team member, for your patient flow, for your cash goals and production targets.
We have gone through the importance of role-playing, every team member being on the same page, talking the same, planning the same and working in the same direction to achieve your daily goals.
Now, we step up to the big leagues, to the level of success and preparation that most practices never challenges themselves to do or takes seriously enough to win consistently.
This is the difference between struggling to produce a million dollars and having a two or three million dollar production per doctor.
I can give you examples of people who never thought they would have a million dollar practice but now they collect more than a million dollars just on the doctor’s side. Plus, they do it working fewer days and shorter hours than they ever could imagine possible.
I can show you examples of people who unplugged cold turkey from insurance companies and they have the biggest years of their lives without taking any hit on collections and losing very few patients.
I can show you mega-practices that once had new patient values under $1,000 (industry average is $500, which is pathetic) and now they have busy giant practices but they still produce and create new patient values in excess of $5,000.
I can show you concierge style practices where every new patient who walks through the door averages $10,000 up to $30,000 per case. Now, this doesn’t mean every single patient does that, it means the average (after some big and some nothing), the average goes up.
This is what real professionals go to work on.
You know how they do it?
It’s not easy but it is oh so worth it. They do it by following through after visualization and after role-playing. They take it to the next level we call…
Controlling and Eliminating Variables
BAM! Now, say that again slowing because it is life-changing and it is more profound than you could ever realize.
Let me explain a few things and then next week I will layout the most critical variables to control and/or eliminate.
Examples:
Patients show up late, doesn’t complete homework, no insurance has been verified (if that’s your thing), they are an unqualified patient to be in the schedule for 90-minutes or worse even than all of those things… they don’t show up.
Well, this is a problem. For a few reasons, the least of which is wasted time, more so is wasted opportunity. Or the doctor is rushed and running behind; and now hurting the other patients and above all else diminishing the diagnosis because that always takes time.
These are all variables that can be controlled through processes, systems, discipline and rules of engagement that you don’t break.
Another one…
Run out of time in Hygiene, Treatment Coordinator isn’t available, or no photos have been taken or presented to the doctor.
All of these are definitely ways to lessen your scheduled treatment, put your collections at a disadvantage and otherwise reduce the success of your day. All because of three critical and essential components to success where treated as variables and therefore not controlled. Now you have less to show for your day than the opportunity that was originally there.
Another one a BIG ONE… follow-up.
Some get it, some don’t. Most pending treatment plans or unscheduled patients are left open ended and there is no specific structure or communication. As I always say, more treatment leaves through the door than stays every single day. There is more treatment left in their mouths than makes it into the computer and definitely a fraction of that ever gets accepted, scheduled, completed and collected on.
Why? Too many variables.
There are others; these are some of the biggest ones.
Question is: what are you doing to control, to eliminate, to stack the deck in your favor and to give yourself an advantage to get the success you deserve and the success your patients deserve.
Discuss, then divide and conquer. Then watch your daily results go up up and up!
