Are you ready to take a voyage to unrivaled practice success? Lori W. Allen’s Sailing the Seven C’s to Successful Practice Management directs you through all the ports in your journey, guiding you to operational excellence. As you sail through Calibration, Communication, Credibility, Consistency, Collaboration, Customer Service, and Creation, your vision for the future of your practice becomes clear and you will have the tools you need to achieve greatness.

This book is for YOU:
You are the owner of an existing practice.
You are an associate physician wanting to open your own practice.
You are an administrative or a clinical staff member at a practice.
Become an expert in business leadership, business management, chiropractic marketing, customer experience, customer retention, employee engagement, and health care and operations management.

When you Sail the Seven C’s to Successful Practice Management, you have the tools to turn your medical practice into a premiere business of the 21st century. Whether you have been in practice for years, or you’re starting your success from scratch, the strategy guide provided here will take your goals and successes to the next level.

Like Lori, You’ll Be Kicking Ass, with Class!

Team Building
Teamwork is essential for practice success, however, teamwork requires hard work, team building, and dedication to common goals in order for the team and the practice to thrive. Office staff is often a varied group with different personalities, backgrounds, levels of education, strengths, weaknesses, and problem solving skills. It can be difficult to get everyone to focus their energy in the same direction and work together rather than against each other. The effort you put in to team building now will pay dividends in the end.

In team building it is important to celebrate the differences of the group, and appreciate the value that each individual brings to the table. When you get all these people focused together, you will accomplish more in less time, while increasing the efficiency of the office.

Achievements of a Successful Team

• Improved Communication – Each member of the group contributes to the conversation, gives
  input, and helps make decisions
• Meet and Exceed Practice Goals
• Strengthened Relationships with Staff, Patients, the Community
• Reduced Unhealthy Conflicts – Create an atmosphere where conflict is seen as an opportunity to
  strengthen the team and the practice, rather than break it down.
• Improved Problem Solving Skills
• Understanding of Each Individual’s Contribution – The flow and success of the practice depends on
  the understand of individual roles and how they fit together to
• A Motivating and Enjoyable Environment for both Patients and Staff
• Improved Patient Retention and Compliance
• Improved New Patient Visits
• Overall Practice Growth

The Key to Increasing and Maintaining Volume is Proper Scheduling.

Proper scheduling and prescheduling are the key components to a successful practice. Each practice should have a scheduling guideline for each doctor and provider. The success comes in training the staff to adhere to these guidelines and adhere to the protocol and procedures.

There needs to be a script for treatment plan patients that is separate and different from the script you use for management patients. However, all patients should have a future appointment. Treatment plan patients should always be scheduled a minimum of 2 to 4 weeks in advance, preferably for the duration of their treatment plan. Maintenance patients should be scheduled for 3 to 12 months out.

In order to ensure the success of proper scheduling, a reminder postcard or email should be sent to all maintenance patients, and confirmation calls or texts are essential for all patients. The statistics for scheduled and prescheduled patients must be tracked and analyzed to maintain volume, reach practice goals, and instill staff accountability.

These scheduled appointments will provide a convenient time and routine for the patient, thus increasing retention, volume and improving patient outcomes, as well as the efficiency and flow of the office.

The true key to this success is having all staff, including doctors and administrative staff, speaking the same language and educating the patient on value and benefit of care.

Follow this Checklist to Increase Your Volume Today:

• Establish a scheduling guideline for each doctor and provider
• Use proactive scripting to guide and lead the patient in scheduling, not allowing the patient to control the schedule
• Use a Maintenance Postcard to remind maintenance patients of their upcoming appointments
• Provide confirmation calls and/or texts to all patients
• Keep, track, and analyze scheduling statistics

What do you do when a patient misses an appointment? Do you simply continue on with your day and hope the patient will call to reschedule when they have time? Or, do you have a system in place to reach out to and reschedule that patient?
Implementing a recall program gives you this system and opportunity, and helps to prevent patients from falling out of care.
A recall program is the process of regular follow up and rescheduling of missed appointments. Missed appointments mean less practice volume and lower patient retention, which can affect your bottom line. You should attempt to reschedule 75% within the same week in order to keep patients healthy and happy, and your visits maximized.

A successful recall program begins as soon as a patient is 15 minutes late for an appointment. Your ultimate goal is to reach the patient, remind them of their appointment, have them come into the office, or reschedule a make-up appointment during the same week.

Missed appointments are a fact of life, but if you implement the correct processes, patients are back and on their way to becoming a happy, healthy, referring patients!

This is a proven program for greater retention in your practice. Get started today!

• Implement a recall log to act as a communication hub for your recall program.
• Use proactive scripting for calls to the patient and for common reasons the patient may miss the appointment, for instance, the patient is sick, on vacation, or busy with work.
• Use a customized recall letter highlighting the benefit of the patient’s treatment plan.
• Implement a follow-up system for patients who are unable to reschedule an immediate appointment.

In an ideal world we are able to make every patient happy and satisfied every day, but unfortunately, this is not always the case. When you encounter an upset patient, it is extremely important that you acknowledge that person and his/her concerns in a positive way. I like the acronym L.E.A.P.S to teach my clients and their staff how to react in this situation: Listen, Empathize, Apologize, Positive, and Solve.

Listen
Allow the patient to vent and listen attentively to what they are saying. Do not interrupt them or begin to speak until they have had their say.
Empathize
Acknowledge the patient’s feelings. Make sure that your tone of voice is in sync with your words.
Apologize
Even if the problem is not caused by your or directly related to you, you can say “I am really sorry that this happened,” and mean it.
Positive
Always state what you CAN do for the patient rather than telling them what you CAN’T do.
Solve
Generate and suggest solutions that you can solutions that you can both agree on and/or ask what you can do to help. If the patient makes a reasonable suggestion, do it! If not, find a compromise.

Finally, you should always go the extra step and follow up on the solution. Contact the patient again to make certain that the issue has been handles in a manner that is satisfactory to them, and ensure that they are pleased with the outcome. Remember to ask if there is anything else that you can do for them. Taking the time to ask this question often results in increased business and a more committed patient.

The most successful practices recognize that the key to their success is in understanding and responding to their patients. Conducting a patient survey is a unique and special event in patient care where you can really engage with the patient, help to ensure the best possible treatment outcomes and actually grow your practice in the process! The key to harnessing this opportunity is through a properly crafted, and more importantly, properly executed patient survey.  The survey should have three main areas of focus: Quality Control, Lead Generation, and Testimonials.

The survey should be conducted face-to-face, between the 6^th and 10^th visits.  It should not be done any earlier or later. Never give the survey to the patient to fill out on their own, or with a self-addressed stamped envelope to send in whenever they’d like. You do not want to negate the importance of this communication with the patient. Personally, walk through the actual survey question by question.

There are so many benefits and opportunities in the patient survey, including:

• Creating an open dialogue with the patient and letting them know that you are listening.
• Gaining the ability and knowledge to identify and quickly correct issues with the patient process.
• Recognizing new opportunities to improve effectiveness and efficiency.
• Helping to build and strengthen the patient relationship, earning more word-of-mouth referrals.
• Collecting valuable lead and referral information to add to your database.
• Acquiring written and video testimonials.

Quality Control

During the quality control portion of the survey, be sure to ask the patient to rate all aspects of the practice, from the front desk staff’s promptness and courtesy, to the chiropractic physician and all other providers. After each question always ask the patient if there are any areas in which they could see improvement.

Lead Generation

I always say, ‘The best way to get new patients is from your existing ones.’ Never miss an opportunity to ask for a referral and this is a perfect one! As always, keep it about the patient and how much you appreciate them choosing your practice.   Ask if the patient would recommend the practice to others, and if they answer “yes,” ask them for the name, address, email address and telephone number for that person. If they can’t think of anyone off hand, give them a preferred patient card to pass along.

Tell the patient about your community and corporate wellness program, and ask if they know of any community groups, businesses or corporations who could benefit.  Gather all that valuable information (name, address, contact person, email and phone number) and be sure to act upon it as quickly as you can.

Surveys can improve your patient engagement, highlight areas of the practice that may need attention, and possibly add new patients.  It is not just checking boxes any more.

Testimonials

Testimonials are a very powerful tool. Potential patients love to see the successes of others and hope to see those same successes for themselves. Simply ask: “Would you be willing to give a testimonial on the success you’ve had?” Written testimonials are great, but video testimonials are even better! If you offer medical weight loss or aesthetics programs, ask if the patient would be willing to give a pictorial testimonial (before and after pictures).  Displaying testimonials in your office, on social media and on your website are amazing ways to help your practice grow!

The most inexpensive, reliable way to increase your new patients is to get referrals from your current patients.  It starts by just asking!  Many of your patients would happily refer friends and family members to your practice if the suggestion were made. The basis of a patient referral program is the organization of a conscious effort asking and encouraging patients to refer others.

Remember – the newness of the program and your excitement level will make the difference between an excellent referral program and an average one.

The important thing when asking for referrals is to use wording that is not only tactful but also natural to you. This should be an organic process.  If you are comfortable saying it, then you will appear genuine and will get better results in return.  If you commit a script to memory that does not match your personality, your patients will sense when you switch into autopilot and begin mechanically talking. This can create an uncomfortable situation that can easily be avoided by being your genuine self!

Look for opportunities to engage your patients and ask for referrals.  These opportunities happen every day, for instance, at the front desk during scheduling handoff, during the re-exam when a patient says thank you for helping them on the path to wellness, and when you are reviewing progress with the patient.  Always make the patient feel special, for example you would say: “I would love to have more patients like you!”

Create and follow an organic, natural and conversational script and identify opportunities to ask for referrals.  And, always, a thank you note should be sent to anyone who refers a possible new patient.

Get started today!

1. Make sure that everybody on the team has a growth and expansion mindset.
2. Ask for the referral!
3. Have something tangible to pass on to the patient – Preferred Patient Card.
4. Have the referral program tastefully displayed throughout your office; letting patients know that you are accepting new patients.
5. Always thank your patients for the referrals.

Once you learn the job, you’re all set, right?  Absolutely NOT!  If I were to boil down the ultimate key to success to it’s most basic and vital element, it would be training, consistent and constant training.

It can seem a bit overwhelming to consistently train staff, and it can be tempting to take experience/time for granted. But, even the most seasoned employee benefits from regular training.  The best way to ensure that training becomes integrated into the regular activities of your practice is during weekly staff meetings.  I am a staunch advocate of well-planned and scheduled mandatory weekly staff meetings with training time focused as the bulk of the agenda. Training during these meetings can take many forms.  The Lori W Allen PPS on-line University supplies you with a valuable, interactive tool that allows you to train your staff effortlessly.  Once you have the PPS on-line University, your training game is strong. Just pick your topic and engage with your staff as you team up with Lori W. Allen to guide and lead your team to success!

What happens if you train your staff and they leave?

Even worse, what happens if you DON’T train them and they STAY??