Ever feel overwhelmed by the minutiae of running an efficient practice?
Do you sometimes feel that things are running along out of control and you have no time to actually fix the problem?
Or you have no idea what is causing your production levels to be good one week and bad the next?
Do you have a sinking feeling that vital actions may be being forgotten but you don’t have time to check into it?
Most healthcare professionals have a tremendous eye for technical perfection in the delivery of their technical services and that is sure a good thing and the way it should be.
However, the administrative side of the practice is usually not experiencing the same level of perfection and therefore the practice is less efficient than it could be and not reaching its full potential.
There are two specific things one can do about this:
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Management Time
An immediate solution is to work out an exact 2-3 hours per week for executive time and make it inviolable. This time can be used for: looking at the stats for the week and seeing what needs to be done to improve things, handling paper work and reports, doing staff evaluations, writing up protocols and policy for the practice, meeting with suppliers, planning some future for the practice, etc.
When you don’t have executive time, things can slide out of control and it takes the pleasure out of being a practitioner. More production will occur in your practice if you consolidate the management details into a specific time rather than splattering all through your days in between patients.
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Management Skills
Most practitioners have zero management training and have only gone to the school of trial and error and the school of hard knocks. Learning on the job how to manage things is not necessarily going to give an ideal result.
In order to handle things, many have contacted various consultants to come in and “fix” things with the staff etc. and have often experienced some good results. However, there is a flaw in this solution: The practice is still being run by an untrained executive and it can fall apart again, and you still don’t feel as in control of the practice growth and day-to-day management as you may want to.
The thing is that you are very trained in your technical skills but likely have had no real management training. Even MBA programs do not teach you the day-to-day skills that you need for effectively running an efficient practice.
Don’t kill me for mentioning this … but along with our one-on-one customized consulting for the owner, we DO have executive training for you as well to put you in control of the operation of your own practice. You learn how to read your various statistical graphs and know what actions to take to improve the quality of service to your patients, how to increase productivity and efficiency, how to be a good leader, how to delegate and get compliance, how to train staff and how to correct them, how to pull the team together, how to create an effective bonus system, how to make plans that actually get done, how to get patients or clients to accept the ideal care they deserve to have, how to control your finances for increased profitability, and much, much more.
Gaining control of your own practice growth and functioning is very empowering.
