Here's a typical office procedure too many get trapped in:
After you finish adjusting your patient, the patient gets off the table, puts their wallet, change, knife, gets their purse,(all their stuff!), etc, back into their pockets, looks in the mirror, checks their hair to make sure hair and face look presentable, gather themselves and leave the room with you accompanying them up to the front desk so that you can tell them and your CA when you want to see them again. You then call for the next patient, waiting for them to put down the magazine (probably not Chiropractic or vitalistic in its scope), gather their belongings they've set down (again the purse, cellphone, etc), wait for them to meet you and you walk them down the hall into the adjusting room, where they again empty their pockets....all over again and again, multiple times per day.
If you estimate the time that process takes between patients to be a VERY conservative two minutes (which it NEVER is!), imagine the amount of wasted time and money it costs you to do that.
Let's say you see 10 patient visits per hour at $50 per visit. $500 per hour you are making, a very nice living. Let's say now that a typical day has you seeing patients like this for 6 hours...a $3,000 day.
Wait a sec though....what could it be??
Remember, you're conservatively spending two minutes between every patient walking them up and down the hall, where really nothing goes on for any specific intent or purpose. That equals 2 hours of wasted time per day. Extrapolate that to money terms and you are missing out on potential revenues of $1000 per day. Further extended, let's say you're working 250 days per year. That equals $250,000 per year of lost revenue. Even more, extend it over the course of your typical 40 year practice career and you just lost $10,000,000.
Doing something as inefficient as walking up and down the hallway.
Time to check your systems for efficiencies...or lack thereof.
Getting rid of low-hanging fruit like this can make a huge difference for your practice and can mean the difference between a retirement of your dreams...or not.
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I think I heard this recently. Could be!
ReplyDeleteYes you probably did!! Thought we might share it with the rest of the profession too!!
ReplyDeleteI say in that 2 minutes you are making that patient feel special. After all your adjustment takes less than 2 minutes. You wouldn't want them to think you are running a patient mill. If we do not spend a little time with them, that is how we will make them feel. Like a number. Those 2 minutes are the price you pay for that patient choosing you. I know that most of us feel like that adjustment is priceless but so is making them feel important.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Dr. Flannery was encouraging less quality time with your patients, rather eliminating the unnecessary "time wasters" such as collecting keys, etc. I agree that you do not want your patients to feel that they are in a mill, but when you are truly connecting with your patients, the time you spend with them wont be perceived as rushed. I think he is emphasizing the importance of taking a close look at your office systems and procedures to see where time can be used more efficiently, and recognizing that "2 min" has a lot of value over time.
ReplyDeleteThe highest volume practice I worked in had a CA take the patients up and down the hallway, the doctor only went from room to room. Patients were already in the room with their shirts off, etc. How do you reach that volume?
ReplyDelete