"With rare exceptions, physicians create a private
medical practice that requires additional help
to make it profitable, highly efficient, well known,
and constantly growing. Something you can't
do alone without accepting a mediocre practice."
For nearly all physicians in private medical practice, your practice business would not exist without the team effort of every employee you hired to work on jobs you either don’t have the time to do yourself or areas which you couldn’t efficiently do yourself and make any income.
By the time you’ve finished medical school, like many graduates, you have that confidence, motivation, and determination to make your pistons pop in an effort to satisfy your synaptic inclination to do everything yourself--primarily because most physicians think that their office employees can't do the jobs as well they can. After all, if you managed to finish medical school
there’s nothing you can’t do—right?
One of the most significant causes of medical practice failure comes from the total mental inability
to understand that the medical practice business is a team effort from start to finish.
Physicians, or any other professional, who make the assumption that their position is to dictate to their office staff exactly what they must do every day, will pave the way to repeated hiring and firing employees and that involves a significant loss of income.
Your dictatorship attitude and activity leaves a huge footprint in the local medical community which will persist indefinitely.
Eventually, that physician will not only find it very difficult to find new employees who are willing to work for “a dictator,” but also will quickly discover that those who are willing to work for them are often desperate individuals who will disrupt the practice.
I received an email from a young office employee who was at the end of her rope trying to decide what to do about what the physical therapist boss was requiring her to do in the business and which she knew nothing about. She had been hired the year prior to do a receptionist job.
Over the past year the physical therapist kept piling on new job functions for her to do, certainly to avoid the cost of hiring another employee. She needed the job so complied as best she could. She described him as very arrogant, purposely intimidating, self braggart, know-it-all, and highly critical of other physical therapists in the area.
The final straw came when the therapist noticed that the medical community was no longer referring patients to him. His response to that was to require this employee to personally go to each physician’s office and find out why the physicians were no longer sending him patients. She was told to do it and was given no instructions how to approach the physicians with such a quest.
After visiting a few doctor’s offices in her unprepared fashion, she was humiliated by the process and discovered what we as physicians already understand—“If the physical therapist has no insight about what he was doing to destroy physician referrals, then providing any response to the young lady’s request served no purpose.”
She quit the job, was much happier in her new office job, and had learned the need to also interview the interviewer in the future. Do you believe the therapist would ever understand why he kept shooting himself in the foot? Usually, they never do.
This real life example of a professional is a clear demonstration of how the lack of knowledge about teamwork in running a business is the cornerstone of success of any business.
The basis for having a medical office business team approach...
Your ultimate goals for your medical practice will not be reached without a team to accomplish each of the medical practice business needs. Do you have an objective beyond making an adequate income and staying in medical practice for a while? If so, your mental desires need to be revealed to all your employees so that they can conform to your goals.
A few goals like providing income to fund your retirement plan, put your youngsters through college, and have the lifestyle commensurate with your status are in the master plans of
most physicians.
You want to build an organization that runs on auto-pilot. The quality of people you hire will ultimately determine how quickly this happens. At the beginning, this team will most likely be you, your receptionist, your back office person, and a bookkeeper. As you grow your practice, leveraging people, time, and the talents of each employee will be a crucial and a necessary component of your success.
The fact that nearly all physicians are totally ignorant about managing a private medical office business requires creative genius you never thought you had. You likely did what I did. You hire medical office employees who have a great deal of medical office experience, then rely on them supplying you with all the various procedures, tactics, and office management processes that other offices used because they worked. You aren't done yet. Learning how to interact with other physicians in your local community is important for many reasons.
The other local physicians are the ones that...
- Refer patients to you, if they trust and like you
- Cover your practice when you are at meetings, on vacation, or ill
- Backup your medical patient treatments and situations by their
willingness to do consultations on your patients - Help you during surgery cases
- Treat your family medical problems
- Support your advice on hospital committee issues
- Speak highly of your quality of care of your patients and your skills
- Invite you and your family to be part of the medical
community affaires - Respect you for your contributions to the community
So how does a new medical doctor melt professionally into the local medical community?
- Join and participate in local medical societies, medical meetings, and social events. If you are introverted or a loner you will find that all of the top 9 listed benefits will be compromised
to some degree. - If you are married or have a close partner, they should be accompanying you in as many social and medical events as appropriate or possible.
- When invited to small or large gatherings of the medical community, it is wise to attend as many as you can. If you can't, then contact the organizer and state a reason for not attending. Doctors who are invited and then never show up at these events are considered antisocial. You don't get invited again.
- At gatherings, do a lot of listening and less talking. By now in your life and career you surly know the rules of polite society.
- As a new physician, it is wise to make an appointment to meet one on one with the other physicians that would be the most likely to refer you new patients or patient consultations.
If you are on staff at hospitals you will be expected to attend the various meetings you are appointed to or joined as often as possible. Medical staff meetings are where you meet the doctors you may not need to interact with healthcare wise but socially are good to
enjoy their company.
How teams facilitate your medical practice...
You will find that time will become more scarce and therefore much more valuable. Relying on your team to free up your time to see patients, practice medicine, and increase your income, is just
the first step.
Certain people will bring in their own expertise and talents to your business which are unique to your business and that need to be implemented into the team effort and goals, like putting a puzzle together. Giving these employees an opportunity to “strut their stuff” empowers their self-esteem, confidence, and creativity. These are things you rarely find outside of team efforts.
Teams provide coordinated functions which makes the business run smoothly and efficiently. When one member performs a function, all the members of the team know what it is and how they can fit it into their own tasks. Each benefits from the work and ideas of the other team members. Do you think a quarterback could ever throw a completed pass unless he had good linemen to protect him—or a hat trick in hockey—or a triple play in baseball?
What’s your role in this medical office business team?
Early in your role will be quite different than a few years later in your medical practice. In the beginning you probably will be doing most everything yourself—unless you have lots of moolah to hire a bunch of employees to start with.
As your business and team grows you will be handing off the less important business jobs to various team members and working yourself up the corporate ladder to CEO of your business empire.
Recognize that you are an entrepreneur? By definition, you are a person who creates a business or organization and is responsible for the management and growth of the business at significant risk to yourself and commitment to your employees.
Traveling to the higher ground has its price in time commitment and problem management. And that, young doctor, may amount to more than you bargained for. However, if you have decided that it’s worth the effort to insure your medical practice success, then you will succeed.
You are in charge of everything to start with. Extra time must be spent teaching each member of your office team what they are responsible for, how to do it your way, and then follow them along to see that they are able to handle the job efficiently. When an office staffer can’t, you have to give them the knowledge how to improve, or replace them.
You must have a commitment to yourself that you are willing to terminate their employment regardless of their pleasant attributes, their willingness to work hard, and their friendship with
other staff members.
If they can’t think quick, learn quickly, and show efficiency and creativity in their work, you have to replace them. No physician likes terminating a staff member that they like—but it has to be done. Your business requires efficiency, not just a pleasant personality.
It’s always beneficial to support your thoughts and beliefs about the positive results of coaching your office team. Ask your doctor associates in practice if they would be willing to give you their advice about how they create efficiency in their practice. What have they done to be able to see 50 patients a day in the office, while you're barely able see 30 patients?
You know the rule--the more patients you see the more money you make. Often, you’ll find that they have office meetings to discuss what improvements are needed or send office staff to educational meetings and seminars.
Isn’t it obvious to you that a well oiled office machine will return more rewards than the disjointed, intermittent and non-productive attempts to spend time only on reacting to significant medical practice management business problems and their solutions rather than focusing on preventing those in the first place using a team that’s coordinated and pulling in the same direction? A team effort in any business always results in ten times the productivity and business income.
----Professional Probe----
"Who says a little person can't
run a very large business and truck?"
"When we look at what seems to be an impossible job to do, we have to know in our hearts that anything can be done successfully, if we have the right talent, machinery available, and the right person on our team with the ability to handle the job smoothly, effectively, safely, and profitably."
Articles © 2013-2022/CGG INVESTMENTS LLC. All rights reserved. #5 /3-15-22
