The slowness of the holiday season provided an opportunity for deeper review of processes with most of our clients. We would start with the weakest results in financial and production areas then analyze the processes involved in generating those numbers. For example, if lab expense as a percentage of revenue ran high, we looked at the individual expense components and then tried to ensure that the practice was being properly paid for lab work done and that no unnecessary work was being done.
Invariably, those analyses regularly led to the all-important categories of receivables and marketing. When we asked the staff about those categories and the recommended process, the response was always something along the lines of “oh, we are doing that already.” That’s certainly an answer that could be provided, but let’s take a deeper look. Here’s one example.
On the “I did it” for advertising, we had asked that the office create social media content regularly. They did do that, but the images were low quality, and patients were frequently not smiling (we’re selling great smiles here so people have to see the product). Plus, they failed to meet the requested frequency of once per week. The office would be on top of things for a few weeks, then stop generating content. Then, they’d rush to get a few low-grade images out. Lather, rinse, repeat. Technically, there were things happening, but nothing that contributed to a successful practice.
On the receivables side, the office could point me to calls made to delinquent patients, but there were no notes made in the system for others to act on and they didn’t contact active patients before upcoming appointments to arrange for payment. Those patients showed up, the staff were afraid to ask for money in person and nothing got done. Finally, without any real effort, I was able to identify delinquent patients with no action taken on them. Again, the office did do receivable-related things, but not enough for a complete and effective system.
Summing up, reviewing any system cannot be completed with a simple “I’m right on top of that” (Rose for the Don’t Tell Mom…. crowd). An owner needs to ensure that all parts of a system are being consistently implemented to ensure that any problems are related to things other than the system in place rather than the system itself.
If you don’t have the time or inclination to do deep dives and detail work on the systems in your practice, we’ll happily get going on that for you at no charge. Just e-mail us at marshmallow@adbmgmt.com and we’ll get right on top of that.