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Dear Friend,
Have you considered the impact of contingency fee thinking on your business?
No, not contingency fees in the sense of a personal injury or a med mal lawyer. And no, not contingency fees in the sense of the type of contingent and blended fee deals that I do on transactions with clients from time to time. But about you working on a contingency fee basis... at least in terms of how you think.
How would you run your business if every patient or referral source or facility relationship paid off for you on a contingency basis only?
No fees per unit. No fees per visit. No monthly stipend support. No, well, anything, except for payment at the end, conditioned upon a successful outcome, whatever “success” means in the particular context.
If that were indeed the case, how would you organize things differently? How would you structure your practice, your facility, your group, your governance, your contracts?
This puts you in an incredibly different mindset, a very powerful mindset.
It seems simple. It seems like it is a game, but think about it, because the reality is that you are on that contingency basis. Referral sources could leave you and facilities can terminate your contract. Patients could walk for someone across the hall or across town.
So think about it: How would you reorder your business, your practice, and your relationships, if the only way that you got paid was based on a successful outcome?
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| | Tuesday - Success in Motion Video: Tesla, Elon Musk, And Medical Groups: Turning Lemons Into Lemonade
Watch Tuesday's video here, or just keep reading below for a slightly polished transcript: |
| I saw a story today that Tesla’s stock is tanking, as are sales.
So what does Elon Musk do?
Well, he pulls the usual: he announces that he’s going to be talking about the future of Tesla. He also announces that his other company that is working on a brain-to-computer interface is close to making that science fiction into science reality.
So there we go, we have Elon Musk using a strategy that I described close to ten years ago on the blog as The Situation Transformer.
In any relationship between physicians and physician groups, between physicians and other physicians, or between physicians and facilities, there are things that go wrong. Problems that happen. Sometimes they’re planned, things you did on purpose and then they blow up. Sometimes they’re simply mistakes.
As I recall, the example I used ten years ago was a vial of drugs that wasn’t properly disposed of by a CRNA.
Most groups respond to these events tactically. They struggle over whether to accept responsibility. They might ignore it and hope it goes away. They might blame it on someone else.
But when you view these problems strategically, many problems can be flipped to become, indeed, an actual opportunity.
This requires taking the situation that is, from one viewpoint, a problem, and flipping it around via very fast filtering through your business's overall strategy, followed by the quick deployment of a conforming tactic back to the source, or back to a relevant third party. In essence, it's turning lemons into lemonade.
So when a problem occurs in your practice or business operations, quickly think to what advantage you can turn the situation. But to do that requires that you first have the ability to view the problem and then the advantage through the lens of your overall business strategy, which, of course, means that you must have an overall strategy to begin with.
And it also means that you must have the tactical ability, the business system ability, to quickly respond.
So take this lesson from me - the lesson of The Situation Transformer.
Or take it from Elon Musk when he takes a bad thing and quickly turns it around. Musk transforms the attention from the problem (sinking sales) into an opportunity to tout something else, something that is going to improve his business in a very different way.
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| | | Wednesday - Medical Group Minute Video: Why A Strong Customer Relationship Might Be Your Undoing
Watch the video here, or just keep reading below for a slightly polished transcript:
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| No matter how good it looks, no matter how profitable it is, you can’t be dependent upon any customer for a significant part of your business. This is the case no matter what that customer is: one hospital, one referral source, one customer of any kind.
What’s a significant part? Well, it all depends on your business, but certainly 15 to 25% begins to push the limit.
The customer terminates the relationship. The customer actually loves you (your uncle is its CEO) and would never terminate the relationship — but the customer goes broke.
What appears to be a stable system is the often the least stable. What appears to be safe is often the most risky.
No, bigger is not always better and it’s certainly not always more profitable. Spreading risk among multiple channels of business, as difficult as you might imagine it to be, provides more stability, reserves more options, and provides more opportunity for long term success.
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| | Thursday - Podcast: Building Value Within Your Medical Group |
| Listen to the podcast here, or just keep reading for the transcript
If you were going to sell your house, you’d make sure that it’s put into decent or even prime shape before listing it, right?
After all, you want to sell it for top dollar to the right buyer, one who is likely to close on the deal.
Yet many medical group leaders and shareholders don’t understand that this concept directly transfers over to the potential sale of their medical group as well.
Building value within your group drives increased interest in, and a higher valuation of, your practice.
But even if you don’t want to sell or can’t sell (a much larger issue), the value built serves to anchor your hospital, referrer and patient ties. That drives the longevity of your business and preserves an opportunity of choices in the future.
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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 here.
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| | | Come listen to Mark speak in sunny Las Vegas at the Advanced Institute for Anesthesia Billing and Practice Management Conference. Celebrating its 20th year, the AIABPM conference is the recognized leader in preparing physician and nurse leaders, practice managers, coders and attorneys to secure the future of anesthesia practices https://aiabpm.com/ |
| | | | 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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