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| Dear Friend,
Running late?
A friend told me about his old boss, a guy who thought he was sending a message of his own importance by showing up late to meetings with his clients.
With one caveat, which I’ll discuss below, showing up on time in business is vital.
For physician group leaders, that means showing up on time to meet, in person or remotely, with hospital administrators, to meet with potential deal partners, to meet with your bankers, and so on. Especially if what you’re showing up to is a negotiation.
And, by the way, every exchange, verbal and non-verbal with someone with whom you do, or will, deal, is a negotiation whether you acknowledge it or not: your “opposite” is receiving a message even if you didn’t intend on conveying it.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that being late signals your importance or your power.
Everyone else thinks that they’re more important than you. So instead of playing to your ego, play to theirs. Let them feel that they are the most important person in the room, the most important person in the negotiation.
I’m not saying that you want to cave to their position in the negotiation. To the contrary, I’m saying that showing up on time is a courtesy that you demonstrate. It removes the negative that’s created by what the other party will see as rudeness. Then you can continue to implement your plan of world domination.
The only caveat is when you are using lateness to signal that you might not want the deal at all. Use that tactic carefully, as the risk is that you will need to deal with the other side in the future, when they may not want you at all.
Oh, my friend and his old boss? That’s how my friend got started in business. He launched his own firm simply by showing up on time to meet with the clients of his old boss.
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| | Tuesday - Pricing the Patient - Success in Motion
Watch the video here, or just keep reading below for a slightly polished transcript:
Let’s talk about pricing. In particular, let's look at pricing the patient or pricing the customer as its most commonly known across many industries.
If you've ever wondered how pricing is done on an airline, all you’ve got to do is go and look on a site that tells you the best date to buy a ticket. Or, you can take a look at how the cabin is divvied up among, in some cases, first class, business class, premium economy, economy and for all I know, seats next to the lavatory way in the back.
The same pricing differentiation goes on in many industries. For example there are mechanics who charge rock bottom prices and there are other repair shops that offer loaner vehicles, clean restrooms, and nice waiting rooms, and which charge accordingly. They’re looking for different customers. The same thing goes on in the furniture industry and in many others.
Recently, I was reading a post on LinkedIn in which somebody was commenting about the fact that electronic health records are a tremendous nuisance because in an OR and in many physicians’ offices, physicians pay more attention to the computer screen than they should.
Reading the article, I began to think about how I, as a consumer, that is, a patient, made many visits to various internal medicine physicians over the years, from when I lived in Montecito to here, now, in Dallas, and how physicians have used electronic health records.
My last internal medicine physician in Santa Barbara would have a conversation with me while he sat with his little laptop balanced on his knees. He'd peck away (one finger right hand and one finger left hand), staring at the keyboard as he attempted to speak with me.
Compare that with my current physician, a concierge doctor to whom I pay thousands of dollars a year just to have him available, who nary has a computer screen in sight. It’s almost like going to a hotel room. Now of course I assume he's entering information into an EHR system somewhere, because I’ve seen his assistant pull up information on a PC. So I know the EHR exists, but it’s not there interrupting my relationship with him – and this is a guy who’ll talk to me for an hour and a half without batting an eye.
My concierge doctor's system doesn’t work in all settings. Certainly in anesthesia, you have little to no choice over the way an EHR is used.
But in many situations, you do have a choice and the choice is dictated by what sort of practice you have and what sort of patients you are aiming for. Are patients willing to pay $3,000 a year for the privilege of having Dr. St. James available, or do they just want to show up at the doc in the box? If it's the latter, it might be a once in a lifetime interaction, in which case being distracted might not cost you anything.
But think about the concept of the service you’re giving, how much attention you’re giving to the patient, as well as how you're gathering the information that you're eventually preserving in an electronic health record.
Maybe you can make far more money by slowing down.
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| | Wednesday - Cancer Doctor Turns Out to Be Carcinogenic - Medical Group Minute
Watch the video here, or just keep reading below for a slightly polished transcript:
I was sitting in an ASC lobby with my wife waiting for her to go in for a second pain injection after the one she received the prior week had failed. My wife commented that the only other patient sitting in the lobby was a woman who had been there with her a week before for a pain injection, too. I commented, perhaps jokingly, perhaps not, that I thought I had discovered their business model.
No, impossible! No physician would do that!
Perhaps you aren't familiar with Dr. William Harwin, who pleaded guilty on August 23, 2023, in connection his with criminal antitrust prosecution in U.S. District Court in Fort Myers, Florida, relating to his suppression of competition by agreeing to allocate chemotherapy treatments for cancer patients to his medical group, Florida Cancer Specialists & Research Institute, and radiation treatments to a competing entity.
In April 2020, Harwin’s group was charged for its role in the same criminal conspiracy and entered into a deferred prosecution agreement under which it admitted to conspiring to allocate chemotherapy and radiation treatments for cancer patients. Under the agreement, the medical group committed to pay a $100 million criminal penalty and to cooperate fully with the Justice Department’s ongoing investigation, which I’d guess is what led to Dr. Harwin’s guilty plea.
I represent physicians in transactions across the country and there are plenty of ways to make a profit and to do the right thing for patients. But don’t fool yourself into thinking that everyone does the right thing and that, just sayin’, someone’s business model might be encouraging repeat visits.
I shouldn’t need to remind you to stay on the right side of the line, but I do need to remind you to be careful with whom you deal because they might not be as careful about where that line is drawn.
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| | | Listen to the podcast here, or just keep reading for the transcript.
I recently read an article about a physician who had sold his practice to a hospital. The physician was quoted as having stated that he had grown disenchanted with running the business end of his own practice, thus his agreement to "have my practice managed by" the hospital.
The viewpoint of that article was that this signals a disconnect between the physician and the hospital: The physician needed more than management; the physician and the hospital needed to be more aligned as to the hospital's goals and objectives to be met.
I agree that there's a disconnect, but I believe that it's on an entirely different level.
The physician speaks as if he's simply signed a management agreement in respect of his practice, when the reality is far different: he no longer has a practice, it is owned by the hospital and he is simply an employee, an employee who has to be "aligned" like a flange.
That is, for as long as he's employed.
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| | Help Us Help You With Helpful Content
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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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