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| Dear Friend,
Most people make New Year's resolutions about what to do, but what about what not to do?
That's the subject of this Monday's blog post, 2023 New Year’s Un-Resolutions. You can follow the link to read the post online, or just keep reading for the rest of the story.
We all make New Year’s resolutions. “I’ll do this or that!” Then January 5th rolls around and, well, you get the idea.
In keeping with our New Year’s Tradition, here’s the hack. Flip things around: What will you not do, or stop doing, next year?
Here are some suggestions for 2023:
- Stop yearning for a return to the golden past; it wasn’t golden and it’s not coming back. Focus on your future instead.
- Stop putting all of your eggs in the basket called a hospital. Hospitals, as we know them, are an endangered species in a world in which any case that can be performed outside of a hospital will be performed outside of a hospital.
- Stop believing the hospital CEO, ASC administrator, deal partner, or other promoter who says the deal “has been vetted by my lawyer and it’s perfectly legal.” If the deal involves you performing services without fair market value compensation, has you receiving a fee per adjudicated script, has you giving a discount, allows someone else to resell your services, or (and this should be obvious) has you paying them a fee per patient, consider how you’ll look in an orange jumpsuit.
- Stop aiming simply for so-called “best practices,” which, if you think about it, is all about doing what other people do, which then leads to mediocrity.
- Stop reacting to others’ proposals. Become proactive and lead with your own strategy, not simply tactics.
- Stop settling for less. Don’t believe those who tell you that you have to lower your expectations. Set them as high as the stars. If you don’t, you’ll regret it sooner or later.
- Stop making excuses. Take action.
Oh, and one regular resolution: Resolve to have a very happy, healthy, and successful New Year! |
| | Wednesday - Carlitos and the Crisis Of Customer Service - Medical Group Minute
Watch the video here, or just keep reading below for a slightly polished transcript:
There's a lot medical groups can learn from the service aspects of other industries.
Take Carlitos Cafe Y Cantina restaurant on State Street in Santa Barbara, California for instance. The food is great -- great enough to have attracted my business on a very regular basis for years. But then the service became so bad, the servers so uninterested in their jobs, that it's a miracle they're still in business. I certainly won't be back.
When I sat there, embarrassed that the referral source I took to lunch had to ask three times for the spicy salsa that never came, or when I had to get up to go from the outside patio into the restaurant to find the server (who was chatting away with two other employees) to get an iced tea refill, I realized that Carlitos is the perfect poster child for the soft underbelly problem of many medical groups.
Like the great food at Carlitos, many groups provide great medical care. And, like Carlitos, great food or great medical care is not nearly enough to ensure continued success. Without great customer service you'll still go out of business.
For most medical groups the issue of customer service is more complicated than for Carlitos because there are multiple classes of customer: patients, referral sources, and facilities.
But the solution is the same: competent management, clear service expectations, hiring the right employees (and, if you've made a hiring mistake, firing the "wrong" employees), and supervision.
Unfortunately, I've seen many highly skilled and highly trained groups lose their facility contracts, lose their referral sources, and lose their patients because their group members fought with the "customers" or treated them with the expectation that they'll always be back.
The group's leaders are always shocked when, for example, they get the call from the hospital CEO that their contract won't be renewed and that the hospital is looking for other options.
The fact that they're shocked is just another example of the deficiency that resulted in the termination.
Carlitos Cafe Y Cantina had many chances to win back my loyalty. You have many chances to win the loyalty of your customers, too -- many chances each day. What you don't want is for the hospital CEO to come to the conclusion, as did I about Carlitos, that despite the great "product" it's time to cut you loose.
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| | | Listen to the podcast here, or just keep reading for the transcript.
Anita Roddick, the late founder of the highly successful natural cosmetics chain, The Body Shop, which she sold to the cosmetic giant L'Oréal for $1.1 billion, was a tremendously driven entrepreneur and an extreme social and political activist.
Whether you agreed with her political and social views isn’t important.
What is important is the way that Roddick looked at progress. Her focus was on a bigger future with the aim of changing the status quo. Her office even had a sign that read “Welcome to the Department of the Future."
Consistent with that thrust, she worked to get her thousands of employees to come up with ways to improve their work methods and to make work even more (gasp!) fun and enjoyable.
You can take a metaphysical approach and say that we only have today, that there is no past or future, that we should all “be in the moment.” That’s fine if we were talking spiritual development, but we’re not. We’re talking about the success of your business or practice, in which there is a clear past, present, and future.
The past is great. It provides memories. Yet brain scientists tell us that imagined (read that as completely fake) memories seem as real to us as the actual ones. You really don’t want to return to the past, let alone an imagined one.
The present is here. Today. Now. Yet if, in a business sense, your entire focus is on the present, then you’re simply reactive.
It’s only when you have a future in mind that you can tailor your present actions to achieving that future, not someone else’s.
Open a Department of the Future. Give it a big budget. After all, you’re investing in yourself.
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| | | Calibrate Your Compass
Read our exclusive RedPaper to guide you through this evolving situation.
The coronavirus crisis caused a short-term economic crisis for many medical groups. Our RedPaper shows you the way out. Plus, many of the concepts discussed are applicable during both good times and bad.
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| | Help Us Help You With Helpful Content
What tailored content would you most like to see during this
time? How can we focus on solutions to your most pressing strategic concerns?
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| | | | We all hear, and most of us say, that the pace of change in healthcare is quickening. That means that the pace of required decision-making is increasing, too. Unless, that is, you want to take the “default” route. That’s the one is which you let someone else make the decisions that impact you; you’re just along for the ride. Of course, playing a bit part in scripting your own future isn’t the smart route to stardom. But despite your own best intentions, perhaps it’s your medical group’s governance structure that’s holding you back.
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| In fact, it’s very likely that the problem is systemic. The Medical Group Governance Matrix introduces a simple four-quadrant diagnostic tool to help you find out. It then shows you how to use that tool to build your better, more profitable future. Get your free copy Free.
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| | | | Whenever you're ready, here are 4 ways I can help you and your business:
1. Download a copy of The Success Prescription. My book, The Success Prescription provides you with a framework for thinking about your success. Download a copy of The Success Prescription here.
2. Be a guest on “Wisdom. Applied. Podcast.” Although most of my podcasts involve me addressing an important point for your success, I’m always looking for guests who’d like to be interviewed about their personal and professional achievements and the lessons learned. Email me if you’re interested in participating.
3. Book me to speak to your group or organization. I’ve spoken at dozens of medical group, healthcare organization, university-sponsored, and private events on many topics such as The Impending Death of Hospitals, the strategic use of OIG Advisory Opinions, medical group governance, and succeeding at negotiations. For more information about a custom presentation for you, drop us a line.
4. If You’re Not Yet a Client, Engage Me to Represent You. If you’re interested in increasing your profit and managing your risk of loss, email me to connect directly. |
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