Halibut in Macks Sport Shop, Kodiak, Alaska (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The number one reason why patients leave a practice is apathy. The provider and their staff seem cold, judgmental, slow to respond to legitimate needs, uncommitted and uncaring. It’s not just bad customer service, it’s also bad practice. You get most of your diagnostic information from history unless you are a radiologist or a pathologist. Listen better. Get more involved. It’ll make your job easier.

Make a decision right away about what you are going to do to bring your practice to a significantly higher level of engagement wiht your patients. Then decide the resources you will commit in terms of time, energy and money. It won’t be easy or even necessarily free, but it will be worth it. Send me your success stories so I can share them with the world.

David Zahaluk, MD is a revenue enhancement specialist for doctors and the author of “The Ultimate Practice Building Book.”

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Cinco de Mayo 2011 (Photo credit: Obtuse Photo)

Happy Cinco de Mayo from all the gringos at Ultimate Practice Builder.

David Zahaluk, MD is a revenue enhancement specialist for doctors and the author of “The Ultimate Practice Building Book.”

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There are probably many other business opportunities – other than your core practice - that are right under your nose but you don’t see them. Courtesy of Jay Abraham – and if you don’t know Jay you should – here is a classic example:

A man in Los Angeles has a high end custom pool building business. His average price to put in  a pool is about $40,000. He generates leads to sell pools and he closes about 10% of the leads. While that is not a particularly good sales closing ratio, it pays the bills. His cost per lead is about $5 and his cost per sale is about $50. But still he ends up with hundreds of dead lads at the end of the year.

So Jay tells him to team up with another guy who builds high end fences. His average fence price is about $14,000. The pool contractor now personally introduces the fencing contractor to everyone he ever built a pool for. He is reimbursed 10% of all the new business the fencing contractor writes from this activity. He offers an upgrade package that includes a nicer fence to all of his past clients and again gains a share of the fencing contractor’s revenue. Finally he sells all of his unconverted leads to the fencing contractor at more than $5 a pop so he lowers his lead costs. And on top of that, every time the fencing contractor builds a fence for someone he introduces the pool contractor and his services for a similar revenue share. Talk about optimizing the use of those leads.

Your business might be more tightly regulated than the building professions, but think about that example for a minute. What similar situation exists in your field that you haven’t yet captured? Send in your ideas so I can share them with the world.

David Zahaluk, MD is a revenue enhancement specialist for doctors and the author of “The Ultimate Practice Building Book.”

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If you are a regular reader of this blog, you must have some questions about how to build your specific practice. Please send them in and I will attempt to answer them one at a time in this forum. Your question may trigger someone else to great things in their practice.

David Zahaluk, MD is a revenue enhancement specialist for doctors and the author of “The Ultimate Practice Building Book.”

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If you don’t take control of your practice, the joke’s on you. Only you won’t get it.

David Zahaluk, MD is a revenue enhancement specialist for doctors and the author of “The Ultimate Practice Building Book.”

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You are in the way of your practice growth. Face it, if your practice is 3 years old or more, it’s not going to change unless someone (probably from the outside) brings in new people or new processes or both.

Try this exercise. Figure out your practice profit from 2011. Now multiply by ten. What would you have to do to acheive that? Here are a few suggestions:

• Hire more providers in your specialty
• Hire more providers in a different specialty that complements yours
• Answer your phone more effectively
• Code better
• Bill and collect better
• Acquire another practice
• Start a new location
• Bring new ancillary services into your practice
• Start a cash pay practice option with affordable monthly payments
• Reactivate inactive patients
• Get current patients to refer
• Get other doctors to refer to you
• Get current patients to follow up better

Once you choose a strategy to get your revenue up, someone has to be responsible for the implementation – it has to be their primary job, no excuses. You probably are the provider, the marketing director and the executive in charge of practice development. If you needed your heart valve replaced, would you go to see the cardiovascular surgeon who is also an ObGyn and a rheumatologist? Put the best people in the key seats in your organization.

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Happy St. Patty‘s from all of us at UPB!

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that makes you a unique and special choice in the healthcare marketplace?  You may not be the obvious choice for everyone, and if you are your logic is flawed. But who are you and what segment of the market are you best designed to serve? Here is an exercise to clarify this point:

1. Why should I choose you over all other providers and non-medical alternatives, including the choice to do nothing?

2. Ask your patients why they choose you over their other alternative providers. Better yet hire someone else to ask them, face-to-face.

3. Ask your patients for  testimonials and read them carefully to understand what part of your service they value the most. 

4. Interview people in your market who are not your patients. Ask them why they have chosen their current provider. Then ask  what they would most like to change about that provider’s practice, and would they switch if they could get it somewhere else.

David Zahaluk, MD is a revenue enhancement specialist for doctors and the author of “The Ultimate Practice Building Book.”

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The biggest marketing challenge for most doctors is a lack of regular contact with their market. It’s just too easy to sit behind that comfy big desk and act all smart and in control, and too hard to break out of your comfort zone. Try having more personal contact with your market. Do some speaking. Call on referral sources. Visit large employers in your market to get them to send patients to you. How hard are you willing to try to reach the level of success you want? 

All the other things that don’t require your direct particpation are good too, don’t get me wrong. Don’t stop your newsletters, twitter feed, radio commercials and Google ad words. Just see if more of you gets everythign else to work a little better.

David Zahaluk, MD is a revenue enhancement specialist for doctors and the author of “The Ultimate Practice Building Book.”

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Is the abbreviation for Valentine’s Day supposed to be VD? Lots of love to all!

David Zahaluk, MD is a revenue enhancement specialist for doctors and the author of “The Ultimate Practice Building Book.”

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