Posts

To lead or not to lead?

Most practice owners have a number of staff (or a hoard) and find themselves in the hot seat as the leader who is expected to know more and be better at everything than their staff.  The irony is that the majority of practice owners have had…
Emotions

How To Get In Trouble With Your Staff

Cute joke to illustrate a key point: A kindergarten pupil told his teacher that he found a cat. She asked him if it was dead or alive. He told her it was dead. She asked him how he knew that. He innocently replied, “Because I pissed in its…

Curiosity Killed the Cat?

  What is “curiosity,” and why is it so dangerous that it killed the cat? And then there was Curious George who was always getting into trouble by being curious (though he always got back out of it too)? Is curiosity, then, a bad…
Life/Work Balance

Life / Work Balancing Act

A seasoned healthcare professional that I recently met said to me, “All this talk about going to the next level does nothing for me. I don’t even know what that means specifically. What I want is just to be happier with my life, work less,…
In control

3 Steps to Increase Efficiency

Have you ever felt like things in your practice (or your life) have gone a little out of control? Have you ever been frustrated trying to run your practice efficiently, yet you find yourself running into procrastination, slow starts, assignments…
Employee Recognition

Employee Recognition Ideas

Never underestimate the care it shows when you thank your staff for a job well job or for going the extra mile on something for the practice. There are many, many ways of showing appreciation, from just a straight, “Thank you for doing a great…

Attitude is Everything!

  Don’t you hate it when you ask someone to do something and they say “No” point blank as the first word out of their mouth? Or they say “I can’t,” or “I won’t,” or “never,” or “impossible”? Negativity is…
Top Priority

The Top 3 Priorities

Once upon a time, the Practice Owner looked at her stats for the last week and gasped in dismay as she discovered a $4,000 drop in Billings from the week before. (Just the fact that she was paying attention to such a thing put her in the “above…
Super Staff

The Pop Can in Reception

There it has sat, for over half a day. The lonely, empty, unloved, discarded pop can left behind on a chair in reception by one of the many visitors to your practice today. While it is not a sin that no one on the staff team disposed of it,…

Keeping Your Chin Up!

Doctor, the reception computer just burst into flames and there’s no back-up. Hey boss, half the day just cancelled or rescheduled their appointments. Sorry, but I’m giving you notice that as of 2 weeks from now, I am retiring. …
Team Work

Success Through Teamwork

In looking for a great quote to head up this week’s help column, we came across so many good quotes from really excellent executives that we decided to just give you a bunch to inspire you and possibly head you in new directions. Look them…
Bullies

How To Handle Bullies, Complainers, Critics and Whiners

One of the staff at your office is demanding you do part of her or his job without pay or credit. What do you say to them? A patient rips your face off when you presented the bill to him? How do you handle it? Your father constantly criticizes…