Most practices have 6 – 18 one-ounce gold bars hidden in the practice somewhere. The question is how to find them. They are not usually really obvious or noticeable but they are there nonetheless.
Are they at Reception? Yes they are! Are they in the treatment room? Yes they are! Are they in your “Marketing Department?” Yes they are! Are they in your private office? Yes they are!
How can you find them?
CAUTIONARY NOTE: We are being playful in this article in talking about “gold bars” and income. Our management training and consulting services are all about providing ideal care to every patient and as near to perfect service as possible. But yes, you do need income in order to pay the staff, the bonuses, the practice bills, and to live on for yourself as the owner of a business. So we thought we would put some humour into this article on how to improve the practice and therefore the income. Enjoy.
Here’s the secret:
A one-ounce gold bar is worth approximately $1,628 Cdn currently. So 6 gold bars would be worth $9,768 and 18 bars would be $29,304. And interestingly, every practice we work with increases their income by $10,000 to $30,000 per month (and we have worked one-on-one with more than 1,500 practices over the last 28 years).
When all aspects of the practice are running effectively and efficiently so as to deliver the highest quality care and service to the patients, the money automatically follows. So all you have to do is look for the inefficiencies in your practice and improve them.
Front Desk
Your staff does their best to handle shoppers on the phone to come into the practice but usually lose 2 – 5 of them per week. They are not sales trained and it requires extremely good sales skills to handle some shoppers. Given that the average patient or client might spend about $2,500 (or more) in your practice over their period of time with you, that means you lose $5,000 or more right there (3 or more gold bars).
Recall or reminder systems are rarely running totally efficiently with no loss of people in the cracks. Fine-tuning this area could easily result in $5,000 per month increase (about 3 gold bars).
You as the Treatment Presenter
Given that you have likely had little or no training on sales, it is an educated guess that you lose about $5,000 (3 gold bars) or more per week in potential service. Again, you can do something about this. Patients depend on you to be awesome at sales in order to help them get the treatment they deserve to have.
The Marketing Department
If you just said to yourself, “What marketing department?” then you just revealed another place where the gold bars are lurking. Through an excellent, written, organized marketing plan that gets carried out, you can attract a lot of new patients. Not just waiting for patient or client referrals through word of mouth. Effective marketing could net you at least 3 more gold bars.
Your Private Office
If you are not trained as an executive and if you are not managing your team weekly by statistics which measure the quality and quantity of the service delivered in all aspects of your practice, you again lose about $5,000 to $10,000 (3 to 6 gold bars) per month of potential income with which to pay all your expenses with.
A predictable monthly bonus system for the team is an effective way of thanking people for the extra effort to give the patients or clients the ultimate in ideal care. This can increase the income of the practice by $5,000 to $10,000 per month (3 to 6 gold bars).
The Gold Standard
There are many more places where gold bars may be hiding such as your scheduling system, your staff training and staff meetings and other systems and structural aspects.
Bring your practice up to the gold standard of an ideal practice that is delivering high quality care efficiently and you will find those gold bars.
