How to Have Better Vision for your Practice

Perception is reality, so how do you want the local community to see you? Some providers start their practice and let the chips fall where they may, as long as the phone is ringing and patients are being seen. Making a profit is part of the goal, but it’s not the part patients or your staff can really wrap their head around.

After all, no one calls to make an appointment thinking, I wonder how much money I can put in my doctor’s pocket today. Usually, patients make appointments because they’re feeling ill or must have an annual routine exam. Either way, the physician’s bottom line is not even a thought crossing their mind.

As far as the staff views it, employees go to work to collect a paycheck. While the practice making money may affect how much they get paid, they’re all working toward another payday. They have their own bottom line to think about, so chances are they’re not thinking about anyone else’s.

A vision for your practice should include being the most sought-after practice for your specialty. How your patients perceive you and your offerings is the only way to attain that goal. Patients may be impressed with your level of intelligence and ability to make them better when they’re sick, but that aspect is not something they understand fully because they don’t have the same education level as an MD. They understand instructions, such as “take these pills twice a day for a week and your infection will go away.”

Patients concentrate more on their overall experience at your facility. They want to know how fast they can get in for an appointment. They think about the impression made by the staff on the phone. They remember the ease – or lack – of making the appointment. They think about how much of their day this appointment is going to take. They focus on how long they waited once they arrived – at the check in desk, in the lobby, in the patient room, and at the check-out counter.

Patients wonder: how long is it going to take to get test results? Will the nurse call as soon as the results are in? Patients want to slip in and out of a medical appointment without feeling like they’re just another number.

As a result, their impression of your practice all boils down to how they felt and how their day was affected, from the initial call to the time they walked out your door.

And please have your medical billing in tip top shape. Finances are a touchy subject, especially during such economical hardships. Understanding what a patient owes during a visit requires a knowledgeable person with the customer service finesse to make everyone involved comfortable in their decision about where to spend their hard earned money. Catering to patient needs is a sure way to keep them coming back.

Your vision must extend to your staff. Being a positive example for your staff is a sure way to have a pleasing trickle-down effect. For example, if you roll your eyes when your staff tells you something about a patient that may annoy you, they might roll their eyes when that same patient comes in and does something that annoys them. If you happen to have staff members that lack in the customer service department, there’s no time like the present to have a staff meeting about the importance of appropriate behavior, which includes introductions, phone calls, topics of conversations that patients may overhear, appropriate conversations with patients, and so forth. Your staff is the first point of contact a patient has with your office; you never get a second chance to make a first impression. If after some time and several warnings things do not change with problem members of your staff, you may have to consider replacing them with employees who exude more pleasing personalities.

Environment should affect your vision because a patient might interpret your facility as a direct link representing you! For example, if your waiting area is dirty and doesn’t smell pleasant, your patient may think, Geez, I hope the exam rooms don’t look like this, or is this physician truly clean? No one wants to go to a doctor’s office and worry about whether their immune system is being compromised while waiting for their name to be called. Think about whether the environment you are offering is warm and inviting. Is your facility pleasing to the eye and the body? Are the magazines current and placed neatly around the lobby? Is the show playing on the television set educational and/or non-offensive? Patients don’t want to read magazine articles from last year while watching a mindless reality show.

Creating a vision and putting the proper tools in place to make that vision a reality will increase your bottom line. Supreme service is a skill that may take some time. Taking too much time will hurt you and help your competition.   

Minerva DeJesus and Auriana (Audi) Reyes founded Simple Solution Billing, a medical billing company in Orlando. They have a diverse medical background with more than 20 years of experience helping physicians control their finances while maintaining control of their practice. For more information on acquiring higher reimbursements for services rendered, contact SSB at simplesolutionbilling@yahoo.com.

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