Do You Know Your Practice Management Metrics
Too Many Variables How can Dr. Ben effectively put his information and ideas into his chiropractic practice? Ben closed his office door gently and pulled his chair up to the desk. He pulled his wife’s crayon-made chart from his pocket and smoothed it out on the desktop. Carmen knew a lot about business, he thought. He had to admit that he found that part of his job challenging, but he was also confident that he’d be able to take control of this aspect of the practice now that he had some direction. With medical information, he could look at a few pieces of data and see what was going on — or what else he needed to know to find the answers to his questions. If he needed additional information, he knew where to look for it. And generally speaking, the patients’ charts had the data he needed in the places where he expected it to be. His own experience with that data made it instantly meaningful. It didn’t seem to work that way with practice management. So Carmen had grabbed one of their son’s crayons and drawn him a chart. Ben chuckled. Ben copied the chart into a spreadsheet and hit “print.” He heard “Dr. Ben?” at his door and just had time to put away the original chart before Pam entered. “Dr. Ben, we have another last-minute cancellation.” Pam handed Ben the patient folder. “She’s done this before, hasn’t she?” he asked, checking the file. “She does it pretty regularly,” Pam admitted. “She always says something about work, but I wonder whether maybe she just finds herself short before the appointment comes up, and makes excuses so she won’t have to pay.” “Do we have other patients who work at the same place she does? Do we have the same kinds of problems with them?” “That’s a good question. I’ll check on that. I hate to have to charge her if it’s work-related and she can’t help it.” “If we take that position, though,” Ben pointed out, “we’d never charge anybody for cancelling, even though we have a sign out there explaining the policy. Everybody probably has a reason they think is important.” “I know, but if the cancellations are caused by financial problems, then charging…” Pam continued, but Ben had stopped listening. “This is paralysis by analysis,” he interrupted. “What?” “I mean, we’re looking at so many possibilities and so many hypotheticals that we’re never going to be able to make a firm decision. If cancellations are enough of a problem to us that we have a policy, we ought to follow that policy. She could go to her boss and explain that she’ll lose that $35 fee if she cancels, and then it would be in the boss’s court. Or if it’s financial, she could level with us and we could work out a payment plan for her. All those things about her life are just muddying up the waters for us.” Pam nodded. “You’re right.” “Or if our data shows that cancellations don’t really make any difference to the bottom line, then we could get rid of that policy. But let’s narrow this in to the most basic information we need for the decisions, instead of broadening it out to include all the possibilities we can imagine.” Pam left looking satisfied, but Ben remained in the office, lost in thought. It sounded good when he said that, but the truth was, he didn’t know what no-shows cost him and whether they needed to be firm or not. He didn’t even know how often this particular patient had made a last-minute cancellation or not shown up for an appointment, and Pam simply had a feeling about it, not hard facts. This was definitely a case in which having fast access to the KPIs would improve decision-making at his chiropractic practice. In fact, if he or Pam could spend a little time sorting these things out, they would probably make it up by having fewer conversations agonizing over decisions of that kind and second-guessing their earlier decisions. Ben looked at his spreadsheet. Why couldn’t someone from the office staff pencil in the current figures every week and calculate a running total? Then when questions arose, they could take a quick look at the spreadsheet and find exactly the information they needed. Pam wouldn’t like it, he was sure, but it seemed like just the right solution. How can Dr. Ben effectively put his information and ideas into his chiropractic practice? Disclaimer: For HIPAA compliance, all characters appearing in this post are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons or actual events is purely coincidental.
Chiropractic Software Practice Analysis
Why Do a Dream Practice Analysis (DPA)? Can Dr. Ben help his partners see why he wants to do a DPA when they only see why not? Ben shut his office door quietly behind him and gave a deep sigh. He had a meeting coming up with his partners. He was hoping they’d join him in going through a Dream Practice Analysis. His wife had suggested that he prepare a PowerPoint presentation with the objections he had been hearing in the casual discussions they’d had so far. “That way,” Carmen had said, “you’ll be prepared. You won’t get defensive or go off track or decide to go along with the majority even though you know they’re wrong. You’ll be giving your ideas a fair chance.” Ben wasn’t sure he showed up as well as he’d have liked in Carmen’s imaginary picture of the meeting, and he wasn’t sure how his partners would react if he showed up with a slide presentation, but he figured it was worth trying. So he had put together his slides and now it was time for a final run-through before the meeting. “We don’t need to waste time on dreaming. We’re an established practice,” said the first one. Ben ran through his thoughts on that: how easy it was to get mired in the day to day details and to lose sight of the big picture and how important it was to reset goals sometimes. He found himself speaking eloquently — under his breath, of course — about the value of having an objective outsider helping them to see where they were and how they could step up to the next place they wanted to be. Deciding to try a Dream Practice Analysis wasn’t a criticism of their current practice, he realized, and he wasn’t sure that he had ever made that point in their discussions. The next slide said, “Reducing costs is the key to ROI.” His talks with Carmen had really helped him understand this one. He knew his partners couldn’t see how spending money on software could provide a good return on investment, because they didn’t see it as an investment. They thought of it as overhead, and figured that increasing overhead couldn’t be a good thing. Carmen, with her business school background, could see how the right practice management software could increase revenue and reduce costs, so the investment in the software would pay off. Ben also realized that the practice might need a expert to help them figure out the potential ROI. That brought him up to his next slide: “We don’t want to share sensitive information.” Of course, being careful with information was second nature for any medical practice, but it was clear to Ben that they really didn’t know what to do with their numbers. They had tried to figure out the potential ROI for themselves, but they hadn’t been successful. In fact, if he was honest with himself, he thought they had mostly been confused. Ben decided not to share that observation with his partners. Instead, he figured he’d emphasize the value of having expert insight and help the group determine some parameters that would help them feel comfortable sharing the information that needed to be shared. Finally, Ben turned to a slide that just said, “Opportunity.” He knew that the kind of insights the practice could get from the Dream Practice Analysis with experts who had worked with plenty of other practices would be worth paying for — and they weren’t having to pay. This was an opportunity to get some valuable consultation that would give them important knowledge, no matter what decision they made. Ben saved his presentation to a thumb drive and headed for the conference room. He felt lighter than he had in a while. Can Dr. Ben help his partners see why he wants to do a DPA when they only see why not? Disclaimer: For HIPAA compliance, all characters appearing in this post are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons or actual events is purely coincidental.
Chiropractic Software Dream Practice Analysis
Dreaming of a Healthy Practice Dr. Ben goes shopping for a picture of efficiency What’s the ROI of a Dream Practice Analysis (DPA)? “Do you think about the ROI of your spending in the grocery store?” Ben was teasing his wife, but he was also still trying to decide how to approach the issue of ROI in his practice. He wanted to get his partners on board with the idea of completing a Dream Practice Analysis, but he was facing some resistance. “I guess in a way I do,” Carmen answered thoughtfully. “I consider fresh produce an investment in our family’s health and well-being, even if it costs more than chips. But groceries are usually an expense, not an investment. We have to buy food. That’s not the same as — what were you thinking about? Software?” “Practice management software. We’ve been asked to take part in a Dream Practice Analysis. The object is to figure out how what kind of return on investment we’d get from practice management software.” “Now, that’s a perfect example for ROI,” said Carmen, reaching for a jar of mustard. “Whatever the software can do, you could probably do yourselves with paper and pencil if you had the time and the skill. But automating some of those tasks can pay off big time by reducing current costs and helping you identify areas of opportunity. Software can be a very important investment and the ROI can be significant.” “I guess that’s the key to the problem,” said Ben. He quickly compared the nutrition labels of two loaves of bread before tossing one into the basket. “It’s like these labels. You can’t tell which loaf has more fiber just by looking — taking the time to check the labels makes a difference. The partners feel like we can just look at the cost of the software and say yes or no. But I think the DPA might give us more accurate information.” “Obviously,” Carmen agreed. “You know I looked at franchise opportunities before I decided to open my own pizzeria. A lot of them pointed to their management software as a big part of the value they provided for the franchise fees. The right software can replace a lot of worker hours, reduce errors that cost money, and keep your practice running smoothly. If you don’t have a handle on your finances, though, you can end up making bad investments.” “I guess that’s why they’re worrying about. It’s not like we haven’t tried different software solutions. Some have been great and some have not.” “If you make random choices about the investments you make in your company, you can expect random results,” Carmen said flatly. “I don’t mean to be harsh, but I can’t see why your partners can’t grasp that. You should never make an investment without running the numbers. If you have someone who will help you sort it out, it’s just common sense to let them help.” What’s the ROI of a DPA? Disclaimer: For HIPAA compliance, all characters appearing in this post are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons or actual events is purely coincidental.