Do you ever feel lost some days? Like, why are you here, doing what you’re doing, on a treadmill of show up for work, do work, go home from work (and perhaps take some home with you)? Don’t know which is the right way to take your practice next? Or, you know that it’s not going in the right direction that you envisioned but not sure what to do about it?
There was a cute commercial (a long time ago) that showed a tourist asking a gas station attendant in the country how to get to a certain destination. He responded by scratching his head, looking in different directions, starting to explain different ways … and then finally told the tourist, “You can’t get there from here.”
A lot of practice owners experience that same frustrating feeling of not sure how to get their practice from where it is to where they want to go in the long run. What to do about it is the question of the day.
There are a number of solutions:
- Close the doors and retire. (Joke! Don’t you dare!)
- As the practice owner, you need to sit down with yourself and maybe include your spouse or partner, and work out in writing what exactly and precisely your Ideal Practice would be like:
- what would be your ideal location (own or lease),
- what staffing would you really like (number of and kind),
- what kind of patients/clients you would love to treat,
- what marketing you have always wanted to do,
- what scheduling would work best for you so you don’t get stressed,
- what inefficiencies would you get rid of,
- what bonus system to use for the staff,
- what would be your ideal hours of practice,
- what income do you want to take home at the end of the month,
- what kind of fun projects could you and your staff get involved in for social responsibility.
Then make a plan and prioritize which sequence these things should be dealt with for optimum quality service to your patients.
- Another recent idea was the practice owner (or office manager) going to shadow for a day the office manager or owner in a really awesome practice that is not near enough to be a competitor. Sometimes just seeing how another practice and team work in a top end practice can show up where the problems are in your own practice and how it would be if fully handled. Write these down and make a plan.
- Read a lot of practice management articles (see our website where there are tons and tons) and work out how to implement.
- Hire a really excellent, very experienced practice management company (may we recommend ourselves?) to help you work out all of the above, sequencing all the changes out over a year and then coaching you week by week to get each item done until you have achieved the ability to work and live the life you’ve always dreamed of.
Any questions or suggestions? Please write and ask us.
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