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I want to share an important breakthrough I had as a consultant. It was actually born out of the headaches and frustrations I faced in doing one-on-one coaching with one of my most difficult doctor clients.
This client was not difficult to work with because he was undermining or sabotaging our process – quite the opposite, he was extremely hungry for success. He was simply overwhelmed and unable to implement many of the changes designed to enhance his profits.
What do similar such “difficult” clients have in common? They have:
- High staff turnover
- A culture of chaos in their practice
- Low patient retention rates
- A reputation with patients for having an unprofessional staff
- High stress levels at work, leading some to want to avoid coming in to the office
- Poor customer service
- Poor cash flow
- An inefficient billing process
- Little to no managerial oversight
- Little to no marketing
- No practice budget or regular review of practice financials
- And the #1 commonality to these “difficult” practices… Everything has to go through the physician, nothing works on “autopilot”
Essentially these practices are like codependent relationships – same problems each day with no new progress. The doctor felt trapped and isolated; the staff feared the emotional overreactions of the doctor and it felt like you stepped in quicksand every time you walked in the door.
How do you help a practice like this?
As I struggled with this problem over many months an insight began to appear: There can be no growth in the practice without greater infrastructure. The processes in the practice had to be either systemized or outsourced. The doctor had to be allowed editorial input as to how the processes would work, but the redesign and the training had to be given to my team or it just would not get done.
As Einstein said, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” You need fresh thinking to build past the existing constraints in your practice. You need a team to come in – like you see on reality television where they clean up a junky cluttered house – and redesign the systems, one at a time, starting with the ones that are the most “broken”.
David Zahaluk, MD is a Dallas-based practice optimization expert and the author of The Ultimate Practice Building Book. His firm, Ultimate Practice Builder, takes physicians to the top 10% of their specialty – in income, time off and quality indicators - within 3 years… guaranteed. Learn more at www.UltimatePracticeBuilder.com.
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Tags: Business, Cash flow, Customer service, Dallas, Management, Patient, Physician, Practice Management
