Let's ROCK & ROLL Into 2008
WOW! Are you ready for the February Users Group Meeting?
It is going to ROCK! Terry and I are absolutely pumped up
about doing the keynote and two breakout sessions at the
February meeting! Our agenda includes how to Shape Up Your
Practice, the Secret about Elite Practices, and how to use
Breakdowns in your practice to create a world-class team.
Lets make 2008 The Year! For most of us the economic signals
during 2007 were confusing for determining the impact on
sustainability and growth in our practice. According to
doctors we have surveyed, the industry on average has
experienced "flat or negative" growth in many areas of the
country. This makes practice growth the No. 1 challenge
facing many practices in 2008. Clearly, this situation
creates an opportunity for a Breakdown which every practice
needs to address with their people!
Kick off 2008 with every member of your team proactively
working to increase the patient pipeline and improve
conversion rates. You can successfully insulate your
practice against this trend of flat growth by building
better processes and creating greater team ownership for
relationship-marketing. Improve your practice "Tool Box," so
you and your team can continuously rediscover the solutions
that work best for your market conditions.
What is the Secret? Is it really more difficult to have a
"high-relationship" focused practice? Can your practice have
built-in "actions for growth" by improving internal
processes and relationship-building opportunities? What is
more painful, to openly address the breakdowns in your
practice, or to stay in the emotional tension, knowing it
isn't working? How will your community of patients benefit
by your practice team's streamlined, effortless execution?
Energize Your Practice DNA
The answers exist in the potentially strongest area of
your practice — Your Valued Partners™! Your team has the
greatest leverage to elevate your practice, keep it growing,
and make it a fun place to work. The more intentional your
actions become, the greater the probability for success. It
is through those actions that new patients are attracted and
referred to your practice, creating the desire for treatment
and producing higher conversion rates. The "Dynamic Need to
Act" (DNA) in your practice makes the difference! Your
practice DNA is the beliefs, assumptions, and actions your
Team is willing to take in resolving any issue.
Do you know your "Practice DNA"? Are you and/or your team
constantly rediscovering solutions or are you
waiting for
someone else to take action, solve a problem, or resolve
relationship breakdowns? What makes an Elite Practice
significantly different from other practices is a DNA
structure of discipline and desire for
constant
self-improvement! It is a belief system that anyone has the
power to change the course of any issue or challenge in the
practice. It is the willingness to constantly look for minor
breakdowns before they become major barriers to achieving
the goals of the practice. These "minor
adjustments" — Dynamic Actions — are so much easier to
implement by simply making a request for something to be
improved or enhanced.
A Dynamic Action can be a minor "tweaking" of a process,
a small addition to a script, or a simple shift in an
interaction. It is an internally-driven Need to Act Now
instead of waiting, or worse, creating a story about why
someone else is not doing what they are supposed to do. All
of these attitudes, beliefs and assumptions, individually
and collectively, make a significant difference in your
growth capability. They also directly impact the levels of
stress in the practice and increase the time demands upon
the doctor to fix things.
Okay, Dave! How does this DNA impact the sustainability
and growth of my practice? The DNA structure of an Elite
Practice activates Valued Partners, professionally-oriented
knowledge workers, who in turn convert their relationships
into practice growth, internally and externally. Your VPs
need to understand how to directly impact the productivity
and growth of your practice. It takes committed discipline
and laser-focused attention, not once a year at your
practice retreat, but daily, weekly, and monthly. It becomes
a way of working!
Growth & New Patient Process
For example, in the New Patient Process, it would be ideal
if the Treatment Coordinator had all the information needed
to process, examine, and convert the new patient. By having
all the necessary information, including the patient's needs
and likelihood to start treatment, the TC could reduce time
and effort as well as increase closing rates. The ripple
effect significantly reduces the TC's stress, reduces the
doctor's consult/exam time, and allows more patients to be
seen.
So, how can you understand your current DNA for getting
information, create this ideal process, and modify your
structure to make it produce the right results? For the NP
Process, the Breakdown is in getting the right information
at the right time for it to be useful and meaningful, which
increases closing rates and reduces doctor time. We want to
create a "positive cascading effect" that quickly builds the
patient's confidence in you and in the desire to start
treatment.
To keep it simple (for this article), it requires
identifying the information that needs to be gathered at
every point in the process and what needs to be said to the
patient to promote the practice before they arrive for NP
Exam. Get the whole team involved so you get different
perspectives to the problem, as well as better solutions.
This will also give you greater insight into your team's
Dynamic Need to Act and how to create the ideal process.
Get Your DNA To Rock! Here's How!
Step 1: Decide that you want to grow your practice!
Step 2: Set Rockin' 2008 goals. How about these?
 Achieving these goals should produce growth and
sustainability! Right?
New Patient
Process — 2008 Goals
1. Increase patient case acceptance by __%
2. Streamline your New Patient Process
3. Reduce Doctor-TC stress
4. Amplify your relationship marketing
Step 3: Get your Valued Partners™ (all of them) together for
1 - 2 hours quarterly.
Step 4: Do the "Service Impact Process — 5x5 Enhancement."
a. Break your New Patient Process into Process Steps or
Patient Touch Points. (See example at right.)
b. Take one Process Step at a time (at first)
c. Set your "intention" and "laser-focus" your attention on
two questions:
• What five actions are done exceptionally well? (Five
Positive DNAs)
• What five things can I improve to achieve our 2008 goals?
(Five DNA Enhancements)
Step 5: Now, stand back and look at all the "improvements"
you have identified. What connects or creates a positive
cascading effect? Look for the Dynamic Needs to Act created
for each of you from this process.
Step 6: Activate your Monday Morning Actions (MMAs). Take
Action Now!
This DNA and Breakdown Process always stimulates great team
discussion, if facilitated effectively. It can be used to
address the issues or problems in every area of the
practice. The Process gives you great insight into how your
practice team sees their role and accountability in your
practice. Remember, the Practice DNA is what you and your
team believe! What are your beliefs about relationship
building and relationship marketing? What data should or can
be mined throughout your NP process? How can you script each
step to promote the practice? What is your "story" about why
patients start or don't start? Whatever it is, your DNA
(Dynamic Need to Act) drives what is possible for growth and
sustainability in your practice!
Real Life Solutions
Here are real examples of what this simple exercise can
discover. Within one of our client practices, there was a
Treatment Coordinator. We will call her Bobby Jean. She was
new to the practice but truly embodied our DNA concept. She
had an enthusiasm for "positive action" combined with a
belief that there isn't anything "we," the Valued Partners,
can't resolve in the practice. Well, shortly after coming to
work, she mobilized the whole practice team to solve a
significant and recurring breakdown in the patient flow: the
doctor's availability to be in a NP exam and in the
operatory at the same time! Can you relate?
According to team members, the breakdown is clearly the
doctor... right? Well, the real breakdown is in the
"blending" of the new patient process and the clinical
schedule which always gets "out of sync." It is like
gravity... it just has a natural sensitivity to getting out of
balance. It is an unavoidable "Doctor Trap." The team always
gets upset because the doctor messes up the schedule (You
can make up the reason). The doctor is stressed by
"living-in-the-tension" between meeting self-driven,
high-standards of performance and satisfying the multiple
demands of team and patients. Bobby Jean's DNA just wouldn't
let it stay a major, recurring issue, so she moved the team
to resolution!
Another example of a Rediscovery was made by a client during
their Annual Retreat where we did our Service Impact (5x5)
Process on their New Patient Process. The client wanted to
increase patient case acceptance. We discovered two DNA
breakdowns in separate steps of their process. The team's
beliefs were reducing case acceptance, disrupting the
patient flow, and causing unnecessary stress in the office.
The first breakdown was in the initial call —
What information will increase conversion rates? The person
taking the initial call did not get the proper information
to streamline the NP Process. She didn't ask the patient the
needed questions because "they will think that I am being
too pushy or prying"! This belief (DNA) had a profound
"ripple effect" when the patient arrived. The missing
pre-qualifying information disrupted the NP Exam process
through loss of time (TC and Doctor) and decreased the
chance for conversion.
Can you say "Stress" on the TC?
The second breakdown was in the "pulling" of the doctor
between the clinical schedule and the NP Exam/Consult
schedule. You can't get the doctor in or out on time... Right!
Everyone has experienced that Breakdown? Through the 5x5
Process we applied a system that enhanced the
TC-Doctor-Clinic effectiveness and relationships with
patients. The result was improved closing rates, a reduction
in time away from the clinical area, happier patients, and
less team stress.
Note: The DNA and Breakdown Processes create solutions from
clerical to clinical, relationships to treatment results,
marketing to managing referrals. The process we have
discovered is critical to achieving desired practice
outcomes and team harmony.
2008 The Year to Act
Your practice DNA can make your practice ROCK & ROLL in
2008! We would love to hear about your breakdowns, so come
see us at the February meeting. Set your goals for 2008!
This is the perfect time to discover how close you are to
having significant productivity. It has been our experience
that a 5–10% improvement can translate to an additional
revenue stream of $50,000 to $100,000. All you have to do is
make 2008 the year of "tweaking" your processes for
significant results!
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