A WISH FOR
SUCCESS IS A PLAN FOR FAILURE
Presented By Dr. Timothy
S. Hollingshead, DPM
President and Founder of The Hollingshead Group
The
average physician will see one patient every fifteen minutes
throughout the course of a day in clinic. He or she will subscribe
to no less than 7 professional journals. Then there are the
hours spent rounding on patients, returning phone calls, consulting
with colleagues, serving on medical committees and governing
boards, attending local CME conferences, keeping up to date
medical records on all patients, trouble shooting intra-office
problems, and observing obedience to OSHA and HIPPA guidelines.
Oh yes, then he or she eventually gets to go home and spend
time with the family. Right about this time the heads of all
those reading this will be bobbing up and down in a frustrated
acceptance of these “facts” because we find that
we own these challenges. And this is so because we are unaware
of any plausible escape. And I don’t mean an escape
from the work itself, because it is the actual doing of the
medical and surgical work that has drawn us all to this industry.
The escape to which I refer is the escape from all that is
ancillary yet vital to our one on one patient customer relationships.
How often have you heard it said or have said it yourself
that it would be nice just to come to work, collect a paycheck
and not have all of these worries. Recently I visited a very
successful surgeon who seemed to be as busy as anyone could
want, successful in appearance, who pulled me to the side
and begged me to help him find a way out of owning these “facts.”
It is sad to say that this was not an isolated event. I shared
with him some secrets.
SECRET #1. Busy is not
beautiful! This just underscores a point that I make every
day: The medical model for doing 
business
is broken. This broken down old model says that to increase
our profits we must increase our volume. In the old days this
worked perfectly. However, we have such a complicated pay
rate that is unstable and varies from one payer to the next
that sometimes added volume produces a liability and no profit.
The goal should not be to be busy; the goal should be to be
profitable.
SECRET #2. Know your
patient demographics and payer groups. Let’s take the
dry cleaner example. How profitable would we be advertising
and drawing a customer group made up of laborers? Nothing
against laborers they just don’t frequent the dry cleansers
as much as the white collar group. This example may seem a
little simplistic but it serves us well. When was the last
time you analyzed your patient customers from an income basis,
or working vs. retired, or age correlation to procedure codes,
or even evaluate the volume and type of services provided
vs. what you would really like to do or are very good at performing?
These are just a few examples of analysis that could be done.
This information will prove to be invaluable in cutting costs
and streamlining our businesses.
SECRET
#3. Practice the conservation of time. Time is something
that we neither make nor store but use incessantly. If in
the daily execution of our professional duties we are merely
exchanging the time it takes to utilize our skill and knowledge
for money doesn’t it make sense to balance efficiency
with effectiveness? Additionally, how many of us would trade
the busy syndrome for more discretionary time without losing
income? We need to schedule the right patient for the right
amount of time and then we need to be on time. This goes back
to knowing your patients and their needs. Isn’t it funny
how we can start the day on time but have difficulty getting
out on time? Somewhere in the mix of the day we often sacrifice
effectiveness and throw out efficiency with it because of
poor time conservation skills. Not every day will be perfect
but most of them can.
SECRET #4. Make a plan
not a wish. I find it ironic that as an industry we spend
millions upon millions developing new machines and tests to
provide us with improved and more accurate information regarding
the human body so we may develop improved and near flawless
plans of treatment for our patients. Yet, the only plan we
make for our business is to start and hope we can find the
end before it catches up to us. The success of the effectiveness
vs. efficiency balance is in the planning. Just as we mark
the course and set the contingencies for the treatment of
our patients so should we mark the compass and draw the maps
for our business. Plan for how patients will be cared for
in your office, how problems will be addressed, how to get
a patient from point A to point B, how to establish the right
culture, and plan for success. In the process for developing
this plan write it down. Remember that a goal or plan not
written is only a wish.
SECRET #5. Know what
you value. Before we can practice the conservation of time
we must identify our core or key values. This is vital because
we will spend our time on those issues that we think or more
precisely feel to be important. Write these values down and
visit them often. Values are like seeds of character planted
deep within us. Our actions will be aligned with these seeds
as they grow. Identify those that come naturally or as a result
of your life experiences then seek to plant and nurture new
ones. Key or core values would include but not be limited
to honesty, integrity, punctuality, kindness, charity, and
so on.
These principles seem so easy
and simple so much so that we take them for granted. When
a highly trained athlete finds a 
challenge
in performance he or she will always return to the fundamentals
consistent with their respective discipline and practice and
rehearse them until the breakthrough occurs. That is what
these principles represent: the fundamentals. Many years ago,
as a surgical resident it became obvious to me that in order
to become an excellent surgeon I must first be well schooled
in the fundamentals. After mastering the fundamentals the
particulars and peculiarities of each procedure would flow
more easily. Unfortunately, many of us never even learned
the fundamentals to leading a team or running a business.
In order to compete in this highly competitive industry we
must become masters of these and other fundamental principles
of success. As we make appropriate plans and implement them
our improved success will become a reality not merely a hope
or a wish.
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