5 Steps to Make Your Private Practice 1% Better Every Day

Hi docs , welcome to the EntreMD podcast , where it's all about helping amazing physicians just like you embrace entrepreneurship so you can have the freedom to live life and practice medicine on your terms . I'm your host , dr Imna .

One of the things that will revolutionize your business the most is this understanding that little changes over time creates the beautiful , ultra successful businesses that you see . It is not tied to doing one big thing once . It is tied to doing little things , little things over time .

So today I'm going to show you how to make your business 1% better every single day . This means 365% better , or maybe 260% better if that's the number of days you work every single year . If you do that , you'll build a business that is one of the most innovative , most impactful , most profitable businesses . Okay , so let's dig into this Now .

What really inspired this is I released my latest book , the Profitable Private Practice Playbook , which is the game changer . It is a book every private practice owner should have . If you are a private practice owner and you haven't gotten yours yet . This is the time to stop Like right now , go to entrendycom forward slash private practice book .

Get your copy today . If there's a private practice owner you actually love , okay , so this is your friend , this is your colleague , this is your spouse , you get them a copy . Like you pause this , I'll be here when you get back . You pause this right now and go get it .

Okay , now we did a survey to go alongside that and you can find it on the same website and it is a survey to look at , to really assess the profitability of your practice and look at the opportunity , the incredible opportunities that are just staring you in the face , that are there in your private practice .

So let me read some of the data points for you and you'll see why this 1% principle is so powerful . So I asked a few questions . I'm going to read these out to you . So , co-pays are collected prior to the time of service 39% of the people surveyed said never happens in my practice .

Okay , deductibles are collected prior to the time of service 61% of the people said yeah , we don't do that . Outstanding balances are resolved prior to the time of service 17% said we don't do that . Insurances are verified prior to the time of service 22% said we don't do that . Statements are sent out at least monthly for outstanding balances 17% .

We don't do that . Get this , my schedule is at least 80% filled . Most of the time . 48% of the people said no . And this goes on and on and on . And when I look at this , I see nothing but opportunity . I'm like , oh my goodness , the opportunity we have to make private practices more profitable is unbelievable , unbelievable .

Yes , we have to handle the insurance companies and we have to do all of that , but we have so many things we can do in-house , like right now , right now . And when I saw it I was like , oh my goodness , these are little things , these are simple things . Imagine if somebody decided okay , I have all these opportunities .

So somebody look at it like I have all these problems . I do not call them problems , they actually get me excited . They're opportunities . We have all these opportunities . And what if we could just take them ? And every day , we just get 1% better , we get 1% better , we get 1% better .

You may not fix everything in a day , but imagine what you can fix in 90 days , if you're focused , six months , if you're focused , a year if you're focused , three years if you're focused . And so in the book we have Dr Ebony , who is our case study .

She's made up with our case study and at the end of the day she's almost $800,000 , like she recovered in her practice by taking care of these things . So again , am I saying you're going to get $800,000 ? You may get less , you may get more , you may get a whole lot more . And this was for one doctor .

So if you have more than one person seeing people in your practice , you have no idea how much money is sitting down there . Okay , and so if you haven't taken the quiz , go take the quiz too . It's on tramdcom forward slash private practice book . But it made me come up with this concept 1% better .

Now , if you're discouraged by the things happening in your business , whether it's a private practice or not , this is the deal . This is what I tell my clients . Your business is and will always be a construction site . It is and it will always be a construction site . There will always be things to work on . There will always be things to make better .

This is always going to happen . And so when you look at it , you're like something to fix . Just convert it into a project and fix it . Don't make it a thing , it's not a problem , it will always be . It's never going to be done . You're never going to build and say , whew , we're done . That's not the way that works .

Okay , so let me give you this process . What to do is get out of the weeds and define clear objectives for the next 90 days . Okay , so let me say let's assume that there is a person , and this person was not doing any of these things . You're not going to fix all these things . This is where the overwhelm comes from .

Right , oh , I have these 10 things to fix . I don't know where to start from . Blah , blah , blah , blah , blah . Then you get into paralysis and you don't do anything . You just stay frustrated , which doesn't help anybody . You are a savvy physician , entrepreneur . You don't do that , okay . So what are you going to do instead ?

You're going to take clear objectives . So we're going to say , okay , our schedule is not 80% fall most of the time . So we're going to fix that . And we're not collecting any co-pays at the time of service . We're going to fix that .

And since we're there at the co-pay place , we're also not taking care of any outstanding balances before the time of the visit , and so we'll take care of that . Oh , but , dr X , you have these 12 things that are not working . Yes , but over the next 90 days , we are going to work on three things . We're going to fill up our schedule .

We're going to work on three things we're going to fill up our schedule , we're going to start collecting co-pays and we are going to start taking care of outstanding balances . Doing those three things has the potential to bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of a year .

You can practice what I like to call I don't even know if I call it that or if I heard that from Brian Tracy but what I call creative procrastination . Okay , it's not like oh , you know , I'm not disciplined , so I'm just procrastinating . This is more like I chose to procrastinate . Okay , so I have 12 problems to fix .

I am taking these three and we're going to tackle them over the next 90 days . So that's the first thing . That's the first thing . The second thing is then create a simple plan . Okay , create a simple plan that could look like for filling up your schedule . Maybe Dr X has been in private practice for the last 13 years .

If Dr X has been in private practice for the last 13 years and schedule is not full 80% of the time , I guarantee you there are thousands , thousands of patients on part of his panel that are overdue for appointments , and so the simple plan may be plan number one .

We are going to recall everybody in our practice who is overdue for an appointment and tell them Dr X noticed that you are overdue for an appointment and we would like to get you in to take care of this immediately . So does Wednesday at two or Friday at 9am work for you . Simple call , simple strategy , right , and it could be automated .

There's so many ways to do it , but the bottom line is we're going to do that . Strategy number two is that Dr X is going to , over the next 90 days , attempt to build a referral relationship with three doctors who would happily refer to him . See how it's a simple plan . We're not doing 2000 things , we're not buying 700 million things .

Simple plan Will those two plans deliver ? They will deliver , they will deliver , okay , so that's so , that's , you know , for the schedule , we can do that . The copay , we just it's more , you know , we're just like okay , so now we collect all copays . So when they come in . You know , dr X is excited to see you today

and all of that stuff . Your co-pay is $20 . How would you like to pay for that check or visa ? The option of not paying is just not there , right ? So we start doing that Outstanding balance , you may decide . It's a simple thing . When we do the reminder call , we'll say , oh , ms Jane , we noticed that you have an outstanding balance of $120 .

Let's take care of that right now so we don't have to wait on that . When you come in for your appointment , how would you like to pay that Visa or MasterCard ? So those are three simple things . So create a simple plan . So three objectives , not 1 million , and one to three . It may be simpler than that , right ?

So one to three objectives over the next 90 days . Build a simple plan . Number three recruit your team . Don't try to do it alone . Bring your team in , say , okay , we have these opportunities that we need to work on in the practice . These are three objectives . You can even ask them how do you think we should approach it ?

Take the ideas , fine tune the ideas and say , okay , get your team on board , get their buy-in right , because you're going to do this with your team . I don't recommend that you do it on your own . When you have a team , you have people to bear the weight of the responsibility of your practice or your business . Okay , so don't do it alone .

So recruit your team . And then number four , which is this is where the rubber meets the road is build a reporting and accountability system , because it is the things that get rewarded , inspected , that get done Okay , they get rewarded , they get repeated , they get inspected , they get done Okay . If you don't inspect it , it's not going to get done .

So what does that mean ? What that means is if you say , okay , so one of our strategies is we're going to hit the recaller , then you build a system for reporting . So then they can say Monday I made 30 calls . Tuesday I made 50 calls , wednesday I made two calls , and you can go like so what's right ? Like so , you want to have a reporting system .

Now I'll give you an example . Right , we do in the EntreMD Business School , we do a lot of monthly challenges , right , whether that is a video a day , or whether that is , you know , an ask a day , or like so many kinds of things we've done , and it is not unusual .

This happens all the time because we have a accountability post where people go in and say , okay , this is what I did for this day , and things like that . It is not unusual that people say , oh , I realized I didn't do what I was going to do , so when I did it real quick and then came and gave the report , right .

So reporting actually drives behavior right . When they know they have to turn in this report every day to say this is how many people I called , then they'll call because they need to do the report right . So it drives behavior . And the next thing that drives behavior is then the accountability .

So , on these objectives , you're meeting every week with your team and this can be remember , it's not 2000 objectives , it's three objectives , it's one to three objectives . So you can meet every week and this meeting can take anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes . It doesn't have to be a year long meeting , right .

And then so you come in and you're like okay , so this is this objective , this is the team member in charge of this objective , give us your report . And they're like this , this , this , okay , are you having , where are you having a challenge ? Where do we need to support you ? All of that stuff , boom , good , any tweaks we need to make for this week ?

No , okay , and then you go on to the next one , right ? So you want to have the accountability , because this is the deal If they make those calls , you will get appointments . Chances are you will get a lot of people on your schedule . We have a client who he's like okay , I have holes in my schedule , I'm going to do the recaller . It was so beautiful .

He had a virtual assistant team . He had them make calls and initially they go yeah , we made the calls . We made the calls and I think like four of them all together were making 30 calls . And he's like yeah , that's not how this is going to work . How did he know that ? Reporting and accountability , right .

And so we found out he's like nope , you can actually make a lot more calls than that and all of these things . And so they started slamming it like really making a ton of calls and all that Same people , same number of hours and all of that . And they started scheduling on average 30 calls a day .

So he went from a schedule that was not full to a schedule that was booked two to three weeks out because they hit the recall . And so I want you to understand how this is playing out . Reporting , accountability this is usually where objectives get lost .

So we have the objective , we built the plan , all of that stuff , we've recruited the team , but there's no follow through . There's no follow through , so everything falls apart . So that's number four , number five . Number five , number five , is this this is the thing that makes you go from one level to the next , to the next , to the next to the next .

Number five is celebrate . When you hit that 90 day mark and you're like , oh my goodness , look what we did . Celebrate it , celebrate it , celebrate it , celebrate it , and then rinse and repeat , celebrate , like , oh my goodness , this is amazing . We wanted our schedule to be 80% full .

Most of the time Now , out of the 18 , out of 20 days , we were fully booked and all of that stuff . And you're celebrating and you're doing all of that , and we're just going to keep the actions that we did to create that . These are now the actions , this is the way we show up , this is what we do at this practice and all of that .

And now , for the next 90 days , these are the objectives that we're going to tackle , right ? So celebrate , rinse and repeat , celebrate , rinse and repeat , celebrate , rinse and repeat . This concept is so simple . There is nothing I've talked about that is complicated . It is so simple .

But if you will do it , what will happen is every 90 days , your practice will be better . Every 90 days . Your practice will make a leap Every 90 days . What is even better is that when challenging times come , you can weather it . Your team is agile , they're flexible , they understand how to respond to circumstances . They don't roll over , they don't play dead .

I mean , it's so amazing . It is simple , it is profound . It will change your practice completely . Okay , so how can I make my business 1% better every single day ? You do that by engaging this process . You may not be able to make your practice 360% better in a day , but 1% better every working day of the year brings you to 260% better every year .

That is a phenomenal business . Phenomenal business , okay . So what do I want you to do ? I want you to take this and decide this is what we do every 90 days in my business , private practice or not . This is what we do every 90 days .

We have this improvement program that we've put in place , where , every 90 days , we pick objectives , we build a plan around it . We recruit the team , we report and hold accountable . We celebrate Okay . So create your first 90 day block and go to work . Go do the things . Let me know I picked it .

Oh , my goodness , dr Una , everything is about to change in my business . Okay , and I'm super excited for you . Okay , if you are also like my goodness , like I , have the potential to create dramatic shifts in my business . You know , sometimes people will tell me I really want to be in the entrepreneur business .

I really want to work with you , work with you on a different level , but I don't know if there'll be an ROI . I want you to listen to this podcast episode . There's already going to be a massive ROI on this episode . I want you to think about it already . Then what happens if you're in the EntreeMD business school ?

Then what happens if this is what you do day in , day out ? Then what happens when I mean , you give your team the gift of accountability ? But when you have accountability , what happens when you are able to take your whole business ?

Because we live 90 days at a time in the Entremet Business School , you take your whole business and your life and make quantum leaps every 90 days . That's what happens in the business school .

I literally , oh my goodness Okay , let me see if I can do this in real time , because this is something that happened that absolutely blew my mind , and I expect these kinds of things , but I'm still blown away when they happen . This is a doc who joined the Entremdi Business School .

It's been less than 60 days and please understand that I'm not promising you this doctor's results . I'm just trying to show you what is possible . Okay , so she said , let me read it . It's like Dr Una exclamation marks everywhere .

She's like I started my journey in the business school when , with lots of question marks , we are still under 90 days and , truthfully , she's under 60 days , we're still under 90 days . My goal that I made during the Entremde Live in Atlanta was low like 5K in 90 days , right Starting . Now . She's like guess what ? I'm at $25,471 in less than 60 days .

She's like I can't wait to see where I'll be at the 90-day mark . It's mind-boggling what can happen when you start engaging the process , the processes , the strategies that are designed to take you to the top .

Okay , so if you've been thinking about it , I want to challenge you to kind of replace your fear with vision , or replace your fear with what could be , or replace your fear with all of that and go do your next step , which is to make a call . It is a simple next step and in the Entremdi business school , we are not motivated to pressure you into coming .

There are people who've come and have said , maybe wait , and this is when it will be appropriate for you to join , and Makita , who is the boss of all of those things , she does the same thing as well . So , really , you just want to go schedule a call .

Entremdicom forward , slash , call , and if it is your best next step , we'll help you come to that decision . If it's not like , we'll just walk you through it , answer your questions , help you determine how this will create an ROI for you and then you can come join us . It is such a magical place , such a magical place .

So entremedycom forward , slash call , schedule that call . My team will be happy to meet with you and in the meantime , I want you to go , take action on this and start creating massive results . I want you to identify as a savvy physician , entrepreneur . Show up that way . You have a strategy to show up that way and go crush it .

Okay , see you on the next episode of the Entree MBA Podcast .