A New Way to Look at Age-Old Problems

Sometimes the biggest problems have the simplest solutions. It's not necessarily about applying more time and resources, it's about thinking in a new way. It's about approaching the problem from a different angle. Sometimes it is simply a matter of asking yourself, "Why do we continue to allow this to be a problem? Why does it have to be this way?"

One of the easiest examples, which I recently wrote about, is Accounts Receivable. In many practices, the A/R is a daily headache, and most doctors carefully watch the balances and start stirring up the team when they feel the A/R is too high. But of course the problem with A/R is not just that patients owe money to the practice, it is that we are uncertain how much effort it will take for us to collect it.

Thinking differently, consider this: If you made sure, at the moment a patient accepts a treatment plan, that a watertight financial arrangement was established with a payment schedule that required very little team follow-up to collect, would you have any A/R concerns?

Going further, think about patient retention. If you made it a firm policy that at the end of each visit, the patient is appointed their next visit and were certain they would return as appointed with minimal effort by the team, would you have any retention concerns?

Now put them together: If you were complete at every patient visit to ensure there was a watertight financial arrangement, a confirmed future appointment and the right patient value so that the team never had to follow-up, think what your practice would be like. No more yellow sticky notes everywhere. Very few collection calls or statements to send. Much less time spent trying to fill the hygiene schedule. You would have much more time to spend on things such as creating greater patient value.

Again, what you focus on, works. This is what you should be concerning yourself with. Not A/R balance or downtime, but the patient behaviors. Are they appointing with value? Are they leaving complete for payment needs? If the practice is held to a high standard in these areas, the A/R and downtime issues take care of themselves and life becomes pretty sweet.

I know this may sound like a fantasy, but I know from experience with many successful practices that it is possible. Sure, there will always be a few patients that have issues – but you should build your practice philosophy around influencing the majority, not catering to the minority that create issues. You should be able to remove the false belief that the way things are today is normal, and permanently eliminate much of the daily busywork.

These ongoing practice issues don't have to be ongoing. You can take a different approach – one that is targeted toward influencing behaviors in the right way so problems don't have a chance to take root and become a source of never-ending concern. It's all in how you choose to see it.