It’s one thing to know that you need staff buy-in, it’s another thing entirely to know how to get it.

When it comes to failed EHR implementations, more often than not, the missing link is getting people on-board with the change.

Here are some steps you need to take to get participation, cooperation and collaboration from staff members at all levels, and increase your chances for a more rapidly successful EHR implementation.

1. Convey The Urgent Need For Change

   Making a major change in your practice is hard enough. Trying to make that change when people don’t recognize the need for it is a recipe for failure.

   Everyone in your practice needs to understand the factors that make the new EHR desirable or even essential – for example: the ability to streamline work and enhance patient care, the opportunity to reduce costs and increase productivity, and the ability to adapt to changes in patient needs, 3rd party demands and new government decisions.

   However, while you may make a great logical case for change, people don’t make decisions based on logic alone. Emotions are a powerful factor. You need to make sure that your staff not only understands the logical reasons for change, but also understands what the consequences will be to them personally if the change isn’t successful.

   When you present the new system as a way for the practice to continue to operate profitably – despite challenges, to continue to provide quality care to your patients, and to continue to provide your valued staff with employment, you’re likely to capture their attention.

2. Keep People Informed

   People don’t really fear change. What triggers fear is uncertainty.

   The worst thing you can do is to keep people in the dark about your plans. This encourages rumors and leads people to start grumbling about their jobs and worrying about their futures.

   When it comes to implementing an EHR in the practice, one of the biggest concerns people have is whether the new technology will take away their jobs.

   In light of today’s economic realities, no one really expects guarantees of job security. However, what they can and should expect are honest answers to tough questions.

   People will want to know:

   • How the change will impact their work and their futures
   • What will be expected of them
   • What new skills they will need to meet these expectations
   • How they will be trained and supported for these new challenges
   • How their performance will be assessed

   The fact is, new technology will make some tasks unnecessary, and some skills irrelevant.

   However it’s important for you to recognize, and to communicate to everyone, that when work gets reorganized, and when certain tasks are no longer necessary, people can be moved to more profitable activities.

   For example, if implementing the new system will allow you to increase your patient load, you may need staff to shift to more patient-centered activities in order to take advantage of these new opportunities.

3. Harness the Power of Collaboration

   Regardless how large your practice is, a new IT system will impact the work of staff members at all levels. To get the maximum value from that system, and to increase the speed of getting to that value, you need discretionary effort and enthusiastic collaboration from everyone in your practice

   First, when it comes to design of the system and the reengineering of the workflow, you must get your staff’s perspective. They are closest to much of the work of the practice and can offer suggestions and ideas that can facilitate implementation and reduce the expenses and the temporary productivity slow-downs that inevitably accompany any new EHR implementation.

   Second, if you want to mobilize people to not only cooperate, but to give their best effort, you need to allow them to participate in developing plans. You may have heard the expression,
   “People who plan the battle, rarely battle the plan.”
   If staff members at all levels are involved with the development of the implementation strategy, they will have a vested interest in its success.

   The way to do that is through a series of interactive workshop-style staff meetings that elicit staff ideas and engage staff members in creating their own future.

4. Show People What’s In It For Them

   The real secret of successful change management is to show people what’s in it for them. You can accomplish this in two ways.

   First, by showing how the change will positively impact people’s work and enhance their job satisfaction.

   Today many practice staffs are exhausted by the ever-increasing workload. Senior staff members often have to put in additional hours to get all of the paperwork done. When patient charts are lost, delayed or incomplete, physicians are frustrated and staff members often bear the brunt of that annoyance. And when patients are kept waiting due to inefficient workflow, poor communication, or missing information, who frequently has to listen to the complaints? The nearest staff-member.

   Different practices, and different departments within a practice, will have different issues that frustrate and annoy people. The point is to identify the specific issues that get in the way of optimum performance and to show how the change will help to alleviate these.

   The second way to show people what’s in it for them is to attach rewards and recognition to specific goals and milestones.

   Offering staff bonuses for increased practice productivity, increased referrals and increased patient satisfaction can be very effective in showing people what’s in it for them and building a real team effort in the process.

   However, it can take a while to get to significant performance increases. Establishing intermediate milestones, “small wins” – like getting a specific system module successfully up and running, or achieving a certain reduction in transcription usage – can go a long way to building momentum and can help to convert any lingering skeptics.

   These kind of rewards and recognition are tangible pay-offs that fuel the fire of motivation.

The July 2009 issue of Money magazine offers a vivid reminder of the power of recognition — thanks to the glowing box of carrots jumping out at you on page 21.

In the magazine’s accompanying article, Get Your People To Work Harder… without pushing them so hard that they quit, Tyler Cowen, professor of economics at George Mason University, explains that while doling out bonuses for superior performance is an effective approach, a tight budget doesn’t mean that you have to resign yourself to sluggish performance.

Low-budget approaches can actually yield even better results when it comes to motivating the performance you want.

Cowen cites a study by Kaisen Consulting showing that employees actually ranked “financial reward” as only 6th in a list of workplace motivators. “Far more important are recognition and a sense of accomplishment. So,” he exhorts, “ladle on the praise for a job well done.”

The fact is, psychological research has proven time and again that offering regular praise and appreciation is a highly effective employee motivation strategy.

That’s why business owners and managers who regularly recognize and praise high-performing employees achieve higher levels of productivity, employee retention, and customer satisfaction than managers who don’t.

That’s also why their businesses tend to wind up with greater bottom-line financial performance as well.

Yet in the day to day rush of a clinical environment, it’s easy to either forget to recognize people or to offer only cursory and non-specific praise.

To get the best results from praise and appreciation, it’s important to be as specific as possible.

People need to know why they are being praised, and what they did to earn the positive attention. When people are clear on why you are recognizing them, they are more likely to repeat the behavior you want.

The following article from Dr. Kevin Freiberg and Dr. Jackie Freiberg, best-selling authors and highly sought-after speakers and consultants, offers 25 terrific “templates” for offering praise and recognition that you can easily adapt for your workplace environment.

As you read the article, note how each statement is aimed at an individual.

General statements such as, “Good job everybody” are nice, but don’t pack the same motivational punch.
 

25 Ways To Recognize People’s Contributions

Before you recognize someone stop and think about it for a minute. What competencies do you value? What attitudes do you look for? What results are you seeking? What were the critical factors in your success? How has this person demonstrated one or more of these things? The brain teasers listed below are intended to get you thinking creatively about recognizing your employees in an authentic and specific way. Remember that the people you report to need recognition too!

1. As I watched you handle that (customer, supplier, shareholder, etc.) today I was impressed by your ability to…
2. You are an extremely valuable member of the team because…
3. As I watched you lead the meeting today I realized how (smart, motivating, competent, fun, etc.) you are because…
4. You bring the kind of attitude and work ethic to our firm that inspires me because…
5. I see you running the (department, division, company, etc.) someday because…
6. I knew you could do it because…
7. You did a remarkable job because…
8. I’m proud of you because…
9. It’s clear that you are a quick study because…
10. Thanks for being “on top of it,” I have a lot of confidence in you because…
11. You have such a unique way of dealing with (people, details, technology, conflict, etc.) because…
12. You bring the right ingredients to this (project, company, team, etc.) because…
13. Thank you for speaking up; it took a lot of courage to…
14. Thank you. It was great to see you take responsibility for…
15. I like the way you were thinking and acting like an owner when you…
16. I admire your imagination and creativity because…
17. It’s exciting to work with you because…
18. I appreciated the way you listened so carefully before you…
19. You mean a lot to this (department, division, company, etc.) because…
20. I trust you because…
21. I like the way you collaborated with…
22. You make the rest of us laugh because…
23. I respect you because…
24. The best thing you did (in that meeting today, on that trip, on that proposal today, etc.) was…
25. You have a special knack for… For example…

 
By Dr. Kevin and Dr. Jackie Freiberg, world-class speakers, thought leaders, and authors of the best seller NUTS!, its sequel GUTS!, and recently BOOM! 7 Choices for Blowing the Doors Off Business-as-Usual. For more resources on improving your individual or business brand, visit our home page at http://www.freibergs.com or http://www.freibergs.com/cooltools/

And while hiring the right people to begin with is a big part of the equation, there’s a lot you can do right now to bring out the best in your people – regardless who they are, and regardless how they have performed in the past.

A great example of the power of management to motivate employees comes from Toyota.

In the early 1980’s, Toyota and General Motors partnered in a first-ever collaboration between the Japanese company and a major US automaker.

For Toyota it was a golden opportunity to establish operations in the US and to benefit from GMs vast
distribution network.

For GM it was a last-ditch effort to save a failing plant.

You see, the deal that GM offered Toyota was to take over the management of their Fremont California factory – the worst performing plant in the company. A plant with overhead costs 30% higher than GMs other plants, 20% worker absenteeism, frequent strikes, poor customer service ratings, and dismal sales.

Not only that, to close the deal Toyota had to agree to reemploy the same union employees who had performed so poorly for GM.

Yet despite these obstacles, Toyota agreed. And within 2 years the plant’s production had grown to twice the average of other GM factories, costs had decreased to 50% of average, worker absenteeism had fallen to 2%, and customer satisfaction ratings – and car sales – had increased significantly.

How did Toyota managers do it?

Not with a new factory or equipment. The old plant had remained virtually unchanged.
And not with new workers – 85% of the staff were rehires from the old factory.

Toyota managers accomplished the seemingly impossible with a highly effective management strategy.

They motivated these formerly disgruntled and unproductive employees by making them feel that their work was significant. They empowered employees to solve problems and make decisions. And they got employees at every level to actively participate in improving the factory’s operations.

You can use these same proven principles to motivate your staff to a higher level of performance.

Read more about Toyota’s strategy in this article (pdf) Motivating Sustained High Performance: Psychological Lessons From Toyota

You can learn the specifics of implementing these employee motivation strategies in your clinical practice in our new audio-seminar: A Profitable Practice Is Everyone’s Business: How to Maximize Staff Performance and Productivity For Increased Bottom-Line Results

You need to be able to deliver care more efficiently and cost-effectively.

You need to be able to attract and satisfy your patient customers.

You need to be able to move quickly to make the most of change as it comes at you – to adapt to new electronic recordkeeping and reporting systems, new billing and payment structures, new care delivery strategies, and new regulatory requirements.

You need to maximize every strength, asset, and resource your practice has.

To do that, you need the genuine commitment and teamwork of everyone on your staff.

The Power of An Engaged and Committed Staff

Study after study has proven that an engaged and committed workforce is directly related to increased productivity and a stronger bottom line in any business.

Organizations with a highly engaged and committed workforce:

• are 50% more likely to have above average customer loyalty
• are 38% more likely to have above average productivity
• produce 36% higher returns to owners than organizations with
  only average employee commitment

And in healthcare specifically, increased staff engagement is directly associated with

• Significantly lower absenteeism
• Significantly lower staff turnover
• Significantly fewer malpractice claims
• Higher than average earnings per patient

Sources: Gallup Organization, Contented Cows Give Better Milk, by Bill Catlett & Richard Hadden, Built to Last, by Jim Collins & Jerry Porras, WorkUSA 2000 Survey

In A Profitable Practice Is Everyone’s Business, you’ll discover proven strategies for getting maximum commitment and contribution from staff members at every level.

You’ll learn how to easily inspire and motivate your staff to go the extra mile in reducing overhead, increasing patient satisfaction, and maximizing the productivity and profitability of your practice.

Click the play button below to listen to a sample track from the audio-seminar:

Click here for more information on how to maximize the performance and productivity of your medical practice staff.

Now if you’re thinking “what’s the difference – aren’t a business plan and a strategy the same?” you’re not alone. Most people confuse the two – but having a business plan for your practice does not mean that you have an effective practice strategy.

Business Plan

Business plans are most often drawn up for financial reasons – planning for a new practice start-up, financing a major acquisition like new technology or real estate, or expanding the practice. Since they are often used to inform lenders, partners, and vendors about your practice’s plans for financial performance and growth, they tend to focus on income, cash flow, and balance sheet projections. Once they fulfill their function, they are often put on the shelf and rarely consulted.

While having a good business plan may get you the capital and terms you want, an externally focused business plan does little to ensure the future success of your practice.

The best business plans, however, aren’t just used to provide information about your practice to outsiders, they are also used internally to provide direction to your entire organization. For this kind of plan, you need a well thought out practice strategy.

Strategic Plan

A practice strategy isn’t primarily for outsiders, it’s for you, your partners and everyone on your team.

It directs both the internal operations of your practice as well as any external marketing and promotion activities you do. And most importantly, it helps you make the right decisions about staff hiring and training, new services to offer, and investments of both time and money.

An effective practice strategy starts with goals – where you want your practice to be in 5, 10 or 20 years. This includes the demographic group of patients you will serve, the size of your practice, and the type of care you will deliver.

To develop an effective practice strategy, you not only need to identify your goal, but you must thoroughly evaluate the current state of your practice. This includes your practice’s strengths and weaknesses as well as the opportunities around you and any threats you face.

When it comes to evaluating strengths, most practice owners take too narrow a view. They tend to focus either on their own specialty training and the credentials of the staff physicians in the practice, or on the equipment or technology the practice has.

A better evaluation comes from taking a broader view. This includes looking at the strengths and capabilities of all staff members, at less obvious resources such as relationships with nearby businesses and organizations, and even at established patient relationships.

The most thorough evaluations include interviews with key staff at all levels. An added benefit of these interviews is that they can reveal previously unrecognized opportunities for your practice.

You also need to evaluate your practices weaknesses and any threats you might face in the foreseeable future. The right strategic plan will overcome or compensate for any weaknesses in your practice by matching strengths to opportunities. It will also help you protect against threats before they sneak up and take you by surprise.

What a Strategic Plan Will Do For You

The goal of the strategic planning process is to come up with the right business model and image for your practice. In other words, how will your practice deliver care and how will you be positioned in the eyes of patients and referral sources?

Once you have the right strategic plan for your practice you are in a much better position to determine the best tactics, or specific actions to take, to achieve your practice goals. You’ll also be better able to build a more effective team, train staff members, design the right policies and procedures, and implement the right marketing and practice promotion tactics.

Most importantly you’ll be able to reduce costs. You won’t invest time and money in activities that aren’t likely to yield the results you want. You’ll be able to operate more efficiently and put systems in place to manage and monitor results, rather than having to manage individuals, revisit decisions, and frequently operate in crisis mode.

With the right strategic plan, you can build a practice as large or small as you want, while maintaining efficiency and high productivity at all staff levels. Your patients benefit from the efficiency, you and your staff benefit from the increased productivity. And isn’t that what operating an exceptional and profitable practice is all about?

No matter what your specialty is, where you practice, whether you have a solo practice, or a large group, the step-by-step system you’ll discover in the the audio seminar How to Position Your Clinical Practice For Outstanding Success will help you craft a winning strategy for your practice.

Finally, an audio-seminar that allows you to unlock the hidden potential of your practice with an easy-to-follow, step-by-step system.

In today’s healthcare economy, whether you operate a specialty practice, or you’re in primary care, you can’t assume that simply providing quality healthcare and keeping up with coding and regulatory requirements are enough to sustain a successful practice.

The fact is, like any business, your practice, regardless whether it’s solo or a large group, will never achieve its maximum potential if you and your team simply work longer and harder. Today, you need the right practice-building strategy to take you from where you are, to where you want to go.

In this audio seminar program you will learn a step-by-step system for creating a clear “brand” for your practice. This “brand” will allow you to more easily attract the precise group of patients you want – the ones your practice can serve the best.

You’ll also discover a system for developing a winning business strategy for your practice, one that maximizes your practice’s existing resources and strengths, gives your practice a significant competitive advantage, uncovers opportunities your practice is well-positioned to benefit from, and positions your practice for maximum bottom-line performance.

Click here for more information on How To Position Your Clinical Practice For Outstanding Success

While we can offer plenty of specific suggestions, the fact is, when a practice is underperforming, regardless how many practitioners are on staff, it’s rarely due to just one factor.

If your practice isn’t generating the profits you want, if it’s not growing in the direction you want it to go, it’s pointless to jump in and try to “fix things” until you know what’s holding it back.

After all, even if we give you a guaranteed method for bringing in loads of profitable new patients, if your practice doesn’t have efficient systems, a high performing staff, and effective retention, referral and revenue maximization strategies, the benefits will be very short-lived indeed!

Get a Baseline Diagnosis First

We’ve seen many practice owners eagerly invest tens of thousands of dollars, sometimes hundreds of thousands, in new computer systems, imaging equipment, even expensive marketing campaigns, all “guaranteed” to boost their practice revenues. Yet their results fell far short of their expectations.

Even if the new equipment or the marketing campaign performed as promised, the practice wasn’t able to realize significant gains.

Why?

When it comes to increasing the performance and profitability of a medical practice, there’s no such thing as a “silver bullet.” Multiple factors, from the way the practice is positioned in the marketplace, to the systems in place for maintaining contact with patients, must all work together to fuel profitable growth.

Everything matters.

Some of the areas where problems frequently go undiagnosed are:

• Practice Image: Before you do anything to bring in new patients or increase revenues with new offerings, you have to consider the image your practice has in your marketplace. For example, we’ve seen expensive marketing campaigns fall flat, when they promoted high-end aesthetic services in a setting known for family care. You can always take steps to change your practice’s image, but that needs to be part of a comprehensive strategy.
• Staff Performance and Productivity: We’ve also seen expensive marketing campaigns unintentionally sabotaged by poorly trained staff, unable to effectively convert inquiry calls to appointments. Similarly, big-ticket items like EMR and scheduling systems can turn into financial disasters if staff members don’t enthusiastically support their use.
• Patient Satisfaction & Referrals: If your patients don’t feel valued and treated well, it doesn’t matter how good your clinical services are, you’re going to lose them as patients and as referral sources. The best marketing and advertising in the world will do nothing to build the long-term success of your practice if you lose patients almost as quickly as you bring them in. Yet, surprisingly, few medical practice owners do more than take a few rudimentary steps to determine the satisfaction levels of their patients.
• Maximizing Patient Value: The most successful medical practice owners know that it’s much easier and more cost-effective to provide more to their existing patients than it is to go out and get new ones. But most practice-owners fail to uncover the profit-generating opportunities in their practices — opportunities that support and build the image they want the pratice to have.

Give Your Practice a Comprehensive Assessment

Before you take specific steps to improve your practice performance and profitability, invest in a comprehensive practice evaluation. If you have a solo practice, at a minimum have an objective observer – a successful colleague, or someone with business expertise — help you analyze where problems might exist.

Click here for a self-diagnostic assessment you can use to evaluate many of the hidden variables that impact your practice finances.

If you spring into action first, or try to take advantage of promising new opportunities, you may very well end up investing a great deal of money, and a great deal of time, yet end up no closer to the results you want.

If you find yourself scrambling for patients to fill your practice, or, on the other hand, participating with multiple plans just to keep your practice afloat, you probably don’t have a powerful Patient Value Proposition (PVP).

As our health care economy moves more and more toward a consumer directed model, a PVP is critical for attracting the right kind of patients to your practice –-
patients who want what your practice offers, value your expertise, and are willing to pay a fair price for your services.

A well-crafted PVP tells patients why they should select your practice over all of the other choices
available to them.

So What is an Effective PVP?

A PVP is to your medical practice what a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is to a successful business. It effectively differentiates your medical “business” in the minds of your prospective “customers.”

Many of today’s most successful businesses have used a USP to fuel spectacular growth.

Domino’s Pizza, for example, achieved exceptional success in the highly competitive fast-food industry with a unique selling proposition of:

“Fresh hot pizza in 30 minutes or less…guaranteed!”

Federal Express was able to capture significant market share in an industry already dominated by UPS and the US Postal Service, with their unique selling proposition:

“When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.”

When if comes to your medical practice, a PVP isn’t simply a phrase that will appear in your brochures or a slogan that you use in promoting your practice, although those are definitely uses for it.

Most importantly, it’s a central idea around which you focus all of your practice-building and promotion. It’s a critical tool that helps you and your office staff focus on what your practice is all about. And it’s a rally point that can galvanize your staff and give them purpose and direction.

A good PVP accomplishes 3 things:

1. Patient: It focuses on the patient, not on you, your background, your certifications, etc.
2. Value: It communicates a clear benefit for the patient – either a problem you solve
   or a desire you fulfill
3. Proposition: creates interest or desire in the precise group of patients you want to attract.

A Powerful Patient Value Proposition Sets Your Practice Apart

We know for a fact that astonishingly few physicians have memorable and meaningful PVPs.

How do we know this?

We know it, because when we pose the question,

“Why should I, your prospective patient,
choose your practice,
over all of the other choices available to me?”

we typically get some mundane and uninspiring answer involving credentials, board certification, or even the technical equipment in the office.

What we almost never get is a compelling, benefit-laden statement that speaks directly to what their ideal patient wants and needs most.

This is a major problem.

In today’s market-driven health care economy, building a practice without an effective PVP is like building a house without a solid foundation. The whole thing can come crashing down in a moment, depending on outside circumstances.

After all, if you don’t give them a powerful “reason why,” how can you expect the best quality, most selective, and most rewarding patient population to choose your practice?

So why don’t more physicians develop compelling PVPs?

• They rush into more “tangible” marketing activities — like designing logos, developing brochures, and selecting yellow page ads. They don’t recognizing that without having a PVP first, these efforts are simply a waste of money.
• They mistakenly believe that to have a compelling PVP means that they will have to change their practices.
• They don’t know how. They don’t have a system for evaluating what their ideal patient population wants, for analyzing the competition in their market, and for formulating a powerful value statement – one that clearly communicates the benefits the practice provides.

But the fact is, no matter what your specialty, you can develop at least one powerful PVP that magnetically attracts the right patients for your practice.

So how do you develop a PVP for your practice?

Developing a truly compelling, powerful PVP that brings you a steadier stream of ideal patients, better cash flow, and a healthier bottom-line involves a careful analysis of multiple factors.

But in a nutshell, it starts with these 3 steps…

3 Steps to a PVP That Positions Your Practice
As the Perfect Choice for Your Ideal Patients

1. Identify what your practice offers and the specific benefits you deliver to your patients.
2. Evaluate what your ideal patient population really wants & needs (sometimes this involves looking beyond the obvious to their underlying emotional needs).
3. Analyze the competition in your market (other doctors & non-physician health care providers). You may not offer significantly different patient outcomes, but you must distinguish your practice in some meaningful way.

In today’s health care market, you can’t afford to leave the future of your practice to chance.

By effectively promoting your practice, you can let potential patients know how you can help them solve their problems and meet their needs. You’ll not only attract more of the right patients to your practice, you’ll make life easier for prospective patients by giving them the information they need to make the right health care choice.

And it all starts with an effective PVP.

But rather than taking specific steps to reverse the pattern of declining income, many of us waste energy lamenting low reimbursements and steadily increasing overhead.

In doing this, we deprive ourselves of many fantastic opportunities to build thriving medical practices while at the same time providing greater service to our patients.

Why do we do this to ourselves?

Because most of us don’t even consider alternatives.

Business Basics: 3 Ways to Increase Practice Income

Before you can begin to see the multitude of possibilities that exist for increasing your practice’s bottom-line, you need to be aware of an important business principle.

There are basically three ways to generate more income in any practice:

1. Increase the number of patients you serve
2. Provide more services to your current patients
3. Provide services more frequently to those patients

Most physicians only think in terms of #1: Acquiring more new patients.

But as successful non-physician business owners will tell you, acquiring new customers is the most expensive and, often, most difficult way to strengthen your bottom line.

Plus, yours may be one of the many practices that is already overflowing. If so, you’re likely spending all day seeing patients, and a good portion of your “free time” catching up on paperwork.

And we’ll bet you that your patients aren’t thrilled with this situation either. No one likes being rushed through the office or treated like a number.

If it’s more patients you need, there are many highly effective, professional and ethical ways to rapidly boost your patient volume. But once you have those patients, it’s critical that you maximize the value you get from your patient acquisition efforts.

We call this “maximizing patient value.”

Are You Putting Artificial Limits on Your Practice?

Most doctors remain limited by their narrow definitions of their practices. They don’t see how they can increase their practice revenues without devoting more hours to patient care.

But just think for a minute.

What if you could expand your practice’s revenue by simply looking to see how you can bring greater value, greater health benefits, or greater convenience to your patients?

While you may find it hard to believe, you can increase your practice revenues substantially – and in a very short time — without the addition of any new patients into your practice.

Maximize Your Value To Maximize Your Return

As we said earlier, a major expense in operating your practice is attracting new patients. Plus there’s a limit to how many patients you can serve at one time.

So once your patients are in place, it’s important to be of service to them in as many ways as you possibly can. When you aim to contribute as much value as possible to your patients, you will, in return, get back greater value — in the form of a healthier bottom-line.

Look at any successful business, in practically any industry, and you’ll find the principle of “maximizing customer value” at work.

For example:

• Starbucks not only offers customers its signature coffee drinks, but beans, food, CDs and coffeemakers.
• Whole Foods Market offers catering services and flowers in addition to groceries and nutritional products.
• Staples not only sells the office supplies it’s known for, but custom printing, software and office furniture as well.

Other professionals do this too.

Many dentists have found that their patients appreciate the convenience and benefit of additional services such as – whitening, sleep apnea treatment, custom-fitted night guards, athletic mouth guards, etc. Plus offering more to each patient allows these successful dentists to operate highly profitable practices with fewer patients.

Because each patient represents greater bottom-line value to the practice, these dentists can now spend more time with individual patients and provide better quality of care.

It’s not too hard to apply this principle to your own practice.

There are a multitude of ancillary services and even products you could potentially offer to increase the fiscal health of your practice while benefiting the physical health of your patients. The key is to find the ones that fit into your practice strategy and enhance your therapeutic recommendations.

The Ethical Professional Approach

Physicians who are the most successful at incorporating this principle of “maximizing patient value” come at it from a deep desire to really help their patients. They have an external focus on how they can serve their patients better and not an internal focus on what they can get out of it.

Your patients, who have already demonstrated that they want what you offer, can benefit significantly from additional services and products to help them achieve their health goals.

The added convenience of getting multiple needs met in one reliable and professional location is often an appealing benefit in itself.

To determine what to provide, you only need to ask yourself “What services or products would enhance what I already provide to my patients.”

You want your patients to respect you as truly caring and dedicated, rather than as simply trying to sell things. When you come at it from this angle, you demonstrate your commitment to your patients best interests — and you naturally strengthen the relationship.

With new competitors flooding the health care industry, shrinking reimbursements, and the rapid growth of consumer-directed health plans, your ability to attract and retain the patients you want just may be the single greatest determining factor in the success of your practice.

Today effective, ethical and professional marketing is fundamental to the success of any medical practice. And many of today’s physicians opt to spend a big chunk of their marketing budget on advertising.

Unfortunately most physicians throw these advertising dollars down the drain every single day. Why?They continue to rely on the standard advertising approaches used for decades and still recommended by many ad reps and marketing consultants.

You know what we mean… ads that list your name, your credentials, the services and treatments you offer, perhaps an eye-catching logo, and so on.

But in today’s business environment, where advertising clutter has muted the effectiveness of most marketing messages, you don’t fill your practice with ideal patients by using these standard image-based advertising approaches.

Regardless what the focus of your practice is, you want:

• Patients who select your practice based on a high regard for you. not on your willingness to accept whatever their insurance will pay.
• Patients who will respect your expertise and follow-through with treatment plans.
• Patients who fit with the strategy of your practice.

So instead of standard “image-advertising,” you need a new kind of precision marketing, what we call Patient Attraction Marketing.

First, you need to identify the specific group of patients you want to attract.

Second, you need to craft a powerful Patient Value Propostion (PVP) that positions your practice as an ideal solution for this market segment, and attracts them like a magnet.

Third incorporate your PVP into all of your advertising and marketing materials. .

Finally, include an informational “Patient Attraction Magnet” to track response.

Is this kind of marketing more expensive?

To the contrary.

Instead of pouring thousands of dollars into advertising that doesn’t work, you’ll find that this type of targeted, patient-attraction marketing can offer a 10-15x return on investment, sometimes even more.

Not only that… with effective Patient Attraction Marketing there is little waste. That’s because there’s a tracking mechanism in every promotional effort.

You’ll be able to measure the results of everything you do. And if an ad doesn’t produce results within 72 hours you pull that ad and put your money where it will have a greater impact.