¶ Elevating podiatry care through patient systems and efficiency
Hey guys down here, welcome to Podiatry Practice Mastery, where we help you get to the $1,000,000 mark and beyond. I'm going to record this is a recording for a Monday. Now this Monday I had a doctor's appointment with my dad and I think I told you he's been kind of dealing with some some dementia, so I brought him to the neurologist.
¶ Improving patient communication and wait-time experience
So it's always weird when you go to see another doctor in their office. And so we got in, it was a, they have E clinical work. So it was a kind of a nice system of, of logging in. I could make the appointment. He recently switched insurances. You have to put the insurance card there and then they have these nice little signs up there that said in the waiting room and in the room where I was
waiting. If you've been waiting more than 15 minutes, you know, please let us know, 'cause I think that must be something that's common. So we got there and we were seeing like 45 minutes later. And so it's, it's different being on the other side of the waiting and we're just kind of sitting there waiting. It was over 15 minutes, but I didn't want to bug them. So I waited for half hour and
then waited for 45 minutes. And eventually I went and told some and then then the doctor kind of popped in. So I think it, it's, it's good sometimes to almost secret shop or go to other doctor's offices to see what it's like. So it wasn't a good feeling waiting there.
¶ Using flag systems to streamline clinic workflow
At least having someone in say, hey, the doctor's on the way or he's aware that you're, you're there. That's something that we try to do. I try to just pop my head and say, hey, you're going to be next. This is a little kind of a, a nuance that I do. So if I'm running behind, we have a flag system. So if there's one flag out with my name, it's that's the next patient. Then there's two, then there's three. And so that's how we have this flag system to know which room
to go into. So sometimes if I know I'm going to be a little bit longer with a longer procedure, I'll go to the number 2 or #3 that's waiting there and I'll say, hey, you know, just just so you know you're going to be next, I'm going to get you in there. I'm just going to take care of this other patient. I think patients like that and it's just something, I think it's a good thing to do. So then it was 1/2 day, right? So I've, I've some of my, my
production is going down. But like, this is what you have to do. This is the right thing to do in life. And you know, I'll still make it to the $1,000,000 mark. I'm pretty sure with these extra days off. So we just can't have my wife do
¶ Shockwave therapy for chronic plantar fascia and EPAT cases
all of these visits. So kind of a heavy E pat day. So this was #7 for E pat. So this is a patient that had six originally, six week follow up, she's still having a little bit of pain, a little bit of thickness to the fascia with a little bit of a fusion. And on the ultrasound, I did another ultrasound, I did another shockwave and I'm going to see her back in six weeks and she's going to get a prescription for PT. So she's going to go to PT and
then I'm going to see her back. So I did not do the PT originally. I'm not doing as much PT anymore, but in this case, she is going to do that and then I'm going to be seeing her back. She already has orthotics, she has everything else. So I'm just letting you know the number because I don't always go to seven. Very rarely I do, but this one I did. Next patient was a 55 year old guy. This guy's got a sesmoid fracture. He got #3 out of 6 for this fracture.
¶ Managing sesamoid fractures with structured care plans
And so he'll be back next week. So a couple more left. Next was a patient that had a tailor's bunion, had pain. Most of my time was spent on shoe recommendations for this for this person. OK, so shoe recommendations, anatomic shoes, things like that. Next patient was a 85 year old female.
¶ Shoe recommendations and treatment strategies for bunions
This is a hard one. She has a lot of bad midfoot arthritis, bone marrow edema. And so for her, I did shockwave #4 out of four to this area of arthritis, not so much to bring the cartilage back, but to help with the bone marrow edema. And she's also being fit at hanger for a some type of like a miso type of AFO because I could not do it due to her insurance.
¶ Treating midfoot arthritis with shockwave and custom AFOs
So she's going to be getting that brace soon to help that. She's not interested in a midfoot fusion, but she's going to give me this AFO. So I'm going to see her six weeks after she gets her AFO. She should get her AFO next week. Next was patient #3 out of 6 for plantar fascial pain and so she'll be back next week.
Next was a Matrix follow up. Actually it was a a matrix and I'm going to do a follow up in three weeks and I'm and I'm specifying here now with our new medical record, I can use my 10 minute slots. I don't think I was using my like these shorter double book slots very well.
¶ Optimizing scheduling using shorter follow-up slots
So I'm going to I've started to teach my staff like these little 10 minute matrix follow-ups, nail fungus follow-ups. These ones can tend to be quicker. So I'm trying to add add a few more extra patients in those. Next patient was a fungal nail follow up where I they got the fungal nail kit that I do and then the next patient was a 82 year old that came in for nail fungus with A and I did a nail sample. This page came in 'cause we did
¶ Boosting fungal nail care with treatment kits and patient education
an article recently in a local newspaper called the Community Advocate and it had my beautiful face on there and everything. And so I've had multiple patients come in from that. What a lot of patients come in after being on like Formula 7 from another doctor and they're not getting better.
¶ Leveraging local media features to attract podiatry patients
And, and the one thing that I kind of asked them is like, have you had a nail sample first? I always tend to, I think you can look a little bit better than the one that they've seen before only by doing a nail sample. And also just being honest with them. I don't think that the topicals work all that well. And so I tell them that I'm not, I don't, I don't do that many topicals. Maybe other people do.
¶ Addressing patient concerns about topical vs oral treatments
And if you love them, if they work great, please let me know and what, what you're doing, But I don't find it works great. I, I tend to most people if they don't want to do the oral medication, they just have them to live with it. And then this patient's going to come back in three weeks for this nail sample. But I really explained to them you might not have to have treatment.
She's like, she was all worried that, you know, it potentially could have a systemic effect on her, like it would go into her bloodstream or something like that. And I said, no, that's not going to be the case. And then finally, and the the last was a non op fracture care.
¶ Detecting and managing overlooked stress fractures
This was one that I didn't see two weeks ago on the X-ray from 2 weeks ago. And I did see it today. So I, I actually did the fracture care today, even though they were seen a couple weeks ago. I saw the metatarsal head stress fracture for this patient. And then I want to share one other joke here with, you know, we're kind of dealing with in life.
¶ Balancing life, practice, and family while growing podiatry care
We found a new little candy store. It's called Parker's candy store here locally. And I brought my kids there to, to go there 'cause they, they've been asking me forever to go there. And they have these really weird hours. They're like only open from like, I don't know, like 10 in the morning till like 2:00 in the afternoon. And we went in there and this was just an amazing candy store. It's like the old fashioned candy store, like like 500 types
of candy. I'm wondering how these, how many of these candies get expired? And we were looking around, they had like now and later is the Charleston Chew. And my kid, my boy got a, a huge Tootsie roll. This was like a three, three, $3.50 Tootsie roll. So he brings the thing home and, and I said, you gotta, you gotta hide this stuff from grandpa cause grandpa, he likes sweets and he's got good eyes.
Like he doesn't, his memory isn't there, but he can see anything he has like he has hawk like eyes. And so my boy, he was, he was, he hid it under his like little Lego table. And I'm like, is that, is that the best place to hide? So he gets home and my, my dad has opened up his, his, his Tootsie roll and like ate a piece of it. He was just devastated, devastated. And because like, they're afraid that grandpa's going to steal all their sweets now.
And but what happened is that then grandpa said, well, yeah, that's right. I'll buy you 2. So he might buy some. Hey, that's not that bad. I'll start giving it to grandpa and then I he'll buy me two more. So we have to go back to the candy store to get a couple more. Anyway, that is the day and I hope you guys enjoy this. Have a great one.