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HIC Meets Betty Crocker: The Recipe for Success

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Written by Tammy Mudge Wednesday, 17 February 2010 20:21

I think one of the most common questions I am asked is "What can we do to make our practice better?"  It's always worded that way, and to me, that's the first problem.  "Better?"  Why make it "better" when you can make it great?  So often, practices stifle their potential by their current limitations when they should be setting higher standards and demanding greater results.

What makes a practice great?  Practices who have solid policies and are disciplined enough to carry through with those policies 100% of the time.  The recipe to greatness is having the right policies in place and the right people on board.  The brutal reality is that success is met by teaching your staff to be consistent in their thoughts and in their actions in a well defined, measurable, and repeatable manner 100% of the time and having repercussions in place for when they are not followed.  The repercussions need to be as consistent as the policies themselves.

So, what's the reality for these struggling practices?  They feel overwhelmed all of the time.  Is their practice really busier than most other practices; probably not.  So then, what are the brutal facts?  My guess would be that they don't have a systematic approach to some of the things they do 100 times a day.  Their employees are all doing their own thing their own way.  Job functions overlap and there is no real way to measure success or defect in anyone's actions.

Any problem seems overwhelming when you try to solve it in one big chunk.  It's like making a soufflé.  At first the task seems impossible until you start to break it down into smaller pieces.  In its simplest terms, that's what consulting and project management is all about.  Find the right ingredients, the right measurements, know when to stir the pot and how long to let things simmer, if you're not real careful and don't follow the instructions, the whole thing could flop.

My approach is this:

  1. Remember your number one goal; to provide a service to your patients. 
  2. Identify the bottlenecks in providing that service.
  3. Identify what you can change and what you cannot change.
  4. Develop solutions.
  5. Select and train the staff that these changes will apply to.
  6. Put policies in place.
  7. Re-evaluate.
It is important to teach the staff to work as a team in developing procedures and re-evaluate them in a controlled format.  The entire practice should be a part of your success, however all changes must follow the proper procedure in order to be implemented.  They should also take part in re-evaluating the process.  Re-evaluating is key to any change.  If you don't re-evaluate the changes you never know if anything is working.  It would be like baking a cake and never tasting it yourself or, asking anyone that has tasted it, if it is the best cake they have ever eaten.
 
No one should be limited to tasks currently assigned to them just because that is the job they have always done.  They all have special talents, interests, and skills.  These need to be identified to utilize the best qualities in every employee.  Staff members might “simmer” a little bit as you change things around, but assure them that their concerns will be taken into careful consideration.  Let them know you simply need to start by breaking down the bottlenecks and centralizing the tasks so that you can set consistent policies in place.
Success doesn’t just happen, someone makes it happen.  Success is pro-active.  It happens when you initiate change.  It happens when you truly believe that you are capable of changing more than you are not capable of changing.

My job is to help you realize you can change much more than you think you can.  Push out all mediocrity and replace it with excellence.  Put the right tools in the right hands.  Let your patients know they are in kind, competent hands, that your practice is disciplined with your staff and patients and that everyone is to abide by the rules put in place.

When you have streamlined workflows, solid office policies for staff and patients alike everyone will be happier.  Employees know what’s expected of them and there is less chaos.  They feel some ownership in their position and strive to be their best.  When patients know what’s expected of them it reduces wait time and actually increases revenue.  By being disciplined with your policies you will have less co-pays to collect, patients show up on time, they know there are repercussions to not showing up for appointment, not bringing co-pays.  Providers will be happy because you set policies to minimize their interruptions throughout the day.  Their patients are roomed on time and prepared.

There are many ingredients to the recipe of success, but the rewards are endless.  The recipe is unique to every office, but the ingredients themselves are the same.  It’s a matter of an experienced eye to see when you need tweak things to get the right flavor for your practice.  Once we put it all together, you will be able to slice off that big piece of success you have been craving.
 

 

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