Private Practice Consulting: The 7 Systems of ExecTech to Put You In Control of Your Practice
This article will uncover the secrets of private practice consulting utilizing ExecTech Management Consulting’s seven methods. Our approach can be used by any private practice owner (whether medical or dental) with great success.
The 7 Vital Methods of ExecTech Private Practice Consulting Are:
Private Communication
Responsibility Assignment
Goal Management
Problem-Solving
Management Skills Training
Reducing Counter Forces
The Mini-program System
Let's dive deep into each system:
Method #1) Private Communication
At ExecTech, you have trained listeners who can deal with anything you say. The more you take advantage of this opportunity to openly communicate, the faster you see a change. Your experienced medical practice consultant can take the truth. Your consultant is a great sounding board. You can safely air your views and concerns without fear of criticism or loss of esteem.
For example, one doctor did not tell his consultant that he considered himself a fraud. Finally, after several months, his consultant accurately guessed the problem. Once the doctor admitted this concern, he worked it out and began to make significant improvements. Yet if he had opened up about his self-doubts earlier on, he would have enjoyed the benefits much sooner.
Another client was ashamed to mention to his consultant that he was afraid of his office manager. He avoided all confrontation with her. Once the facts came out, the doctor's relief was enormous. After he learned how to confront the office manager, the practice began a long-term growth period. Communication alone improves conditions. You spell out a complex problem and discover its simplicity. After you vent some emotion, you might realize the mountain truly is a mole hill. Discussing your options until you realize your best route is an enjoyable and productive activity. Sharing your concerns with an interested, but detached professional, relieves stress and puts things in perspective.
Method #2) Responsibility Assignment
The second step to taking command of your practice is learning how to accept full responsibility for every aspect of your practice, good or bad. Taking responsibility for every aspect of your practice—every patient, every employee, every problem—may be difficult at first. Yet the rewards from responsibility acceptance far exceed the stress.
You waste time and energy when you blame someone for your condition. It is much easier to assume responsibility for the bad and turn it to something good. You are not a bad person because you accept responsibility; you are a responsible person.
For example, because your policies regarding staff issues are unclear, you may be harming staff morale. You cannot blame your staff for the morale problem. You can change it by first accepting responsibility for it.
Even when someone wrongly sues you, somewhere along the line you did something to bring on the lawsuit: you failed to communicate properly, you ignored a problem, you agreed to something you knew was fishy, or you did not take precautions to protect yourself.
Finding what you do or fail to do that causes problems is key to dissolving problems. On the other side of the coin, you waste time and energy when you refuse to accept responsibility for your achievements and successes. YOU cause your own luck and good fortune. You are not egotistical, vain or self-centered when you take credit for your successes.
For example, do not be too surprised to see an increased volume of new patients when you solve a long-term disagreement with a staff member. Do not blame dumb luck when your profits increase through a better collection policy. Taking responsibility for what you do right is as important as taking responsibility for what you do wrong.
Your consultant helps you discover what you are doing or not doing that causes your practice to improve or deteriorate. Over time, you will pin down the personal actions that help you, hurt you or do nothing for you.
Method #3) Goal Management
An extremely important part of ExecTech’s private practice management system is the management of goals. Your most important job as a practice owner is to set the goals for your practice. Your most important job as a practice manager is to reach those goals. Once you have a general direction for your career and your practice, you must line up all your goals. The small weekly goals must align with your larger goals. For instance, if you want to retire by age 50 with $5 million in reserves, you would likely have a monthly goal to save a certain amount of money. The short- and long-term goals must align. You could not have a short-term goal like surfing five days per week, and expect to save $3 million.
Your consultant helps you organize your major goals, purposes, plans and programs. In each consulting meeting, you then work out the projects, weekly targets and production quotas that support your major goals.
You are happiest when you are making steady progress toward desirable goals. Through ExecTech consulting, you work out strategies and improve your skills to accomplish your goals. Once you reach your current goals, you must set new goals or you become bored or lazy. The greater the challenge, the greater the reward.
Method #4) Problem-Solving
Before you can solve a problem so it stays solved, you must do two steps. Make sure you have the right problem and then isolate its true cause. Solutions go bad when you try to solve the wrong problem or do not know the cause of the problem.
For example, suppose a few staff members tell you they cannot perform very well because they have no health insurance. So you buy a medical health plan. Nothing improves. A few months of stress later, you attend a seminar where you decide you have too many employees. So you decide to downsize. The practice worsens and your profits drop lower.
Two months later you catch a staff member stealing cash and supplies. You fire him. Then one by one, the other employees tell you that this man constantly criticized you behind your back. He was secretly poisoning the morale of the other staff members. After four months, you found the actual problem: poor morale caused by one staff member. The cause of the problem was your inability to discover the misconduct of this employee earlier on.
Fortunately, the source of most of your practice problems stem from something you do or do not do. This makes practice problems easy to identify and change. As the practice owner, you cause or influence everything that happens in your practice. You have more control than anyone else. You are the center of your practice.
You are the one who chooses the staff members. You decide what your employees and associates should do. You set the standards, policies, attitudes, tone and pace of your practice. You influence every statistic in your practice. When you do certain things, statistics go up. When you do other things or fail to do certain things, statistics go down.
For instance, your bad mood one morning may start a chain reaction of events that results in lost patients. A ten-second suggestion you give an employee may increase cash collections. A few minutes of patient education may generate three new patients.
Identifying what you do that builds or damages your practice is a mystery ExecTech helps you to solve. Through ExecTech dental or medical practice consulting, you will discover which of your actions are positive, insignificant or destructive.
Method #5) Management Skills Training
Practice owners who think they already know it all are living dead-end lives. Practice owners who regularly learn new skills become wise, rich and powerful.
An important part of your consulting is to learn new practice-management skills and put those skills to use. ExecTech has isolated 35 skills, most of which are necessary for complete mastery of a practice, and are in the Practice Mastery Test that follows this article. You might like to take the test to see how you currently score. Give a copy of the test to your consultant for your file. Take the test again in a few months to measure your progress.
Your consultant is an experienced one-on-one management trainer. As well as covering the theory of a practice-management skill, your consultant practices or role-plays the skill with you. For example, how you discipline an employee can upset you or the employee and not improve the situation. If you role-play an employment discipline meeting a few times in advance, the results are significantly better.
Training through ExecTech consulting is an on-going process based on your needs and goals.
Method #6) Reducing Counter Forces
Our private practice management includes reducing counter forces. What does that mean exactly? Well, if your goals are large enough, naturally, you will run into some opposition. For instance, staff members sometimes do not want to do their work. Insurance companies do not always want to pay you. Lawyers, other doctors, state associations, family members, managed-care companies, government agencies and patients may oppose you more often than they support you.
When there is no opposition or distraction, you sail to your objectives without strain. The time and energy you put into improving your practice and providing quality care pays off in full. Unfortunately, all success-minded people run into opposition. You do not get back all that you put out. This is why your statistics go up and down. You push your stats up, others deflate your energy and push your stats down.
The more successful you are, the more opposition you face. When people fear success, they actually fear the hostility or resentment that success often brings. The solution is to increase your ability to dissolve counter intentions.
An IRS audit, insurance fraud investigation or lawsuits are obvious opposing forces. They can ruin your motivation. However, the most destructive forces you face are covert: The critical patient, the backstabbing employee, the revengeful colleague, the malicious family member.
Some of your own ideas and actions can also oppose your goals. For example, negative thinking, fears, thoughtless reactions and anger can prompt you to prevent your own success.
As part of ExecTech consulting and coaching, you sort out which barrier to attack, confront, set aside or ignore. You learn how to reduce the negative affects others might have on you. You and your consultant strategize the best way to deal with each counter force. So tell your consultant about anything that you believe is getting in your road.
How you deal with barriers or distractions can mean the difference between a stagnant practice and one that is expanding. Reducing the counter forces and eliminating their influence on you opens many new doors.
Method # 7) The Mini-program System
ExecTech’s unique private practice consulting system includes the mini-program method. This boils all consulting activities into one, doable plan. You and your consultant agree on the best action steps for you to take to reach specific objectives. For the mini-program system to work, you must have the willingness, skill and confidence necessary to do each step. If you have any doubts about a mini-program step or your ability to complete it, do not agree to do the step.
With the finalized mini-program in hand, you then “put on the blinders” and do the mini-program steps. Providing you do each step, you will improve your practice and reach your goals. Complete each step of your mini-program by the target dates assigned for each step. Day-to-day problems can cut into your priorities and distract you from your direction. So you stay ahead of the game when you complete mini-program steps on time. Fast completion of your mini-programs is the key to your increased practice management power.
If you cannot complete a mini-program step, contact your consultant as soon as possible. He or she may help you resolve the barrier by telephone. If not, we must schedule a meeting as soon as possible to ensure the barrier does not stop your progress.
Mini-programs are effective because they take a huge goal or task and break it down into bite-size chunks. As you complete each mini-program step, you take control of a small element of your practice. Several small improvements become one major improvement. The gains accumulate, you take command, you reach your goals.
Conclusion
Let’s recap!
Communicating with your consultant makes you feel understood, relieves stress and opens the door to change.
Taking responsibility puts you in better control of your destiny.
Setting and aligning your goals gives you focus and direction.
Isolating the reasons for your practice problems removes mystery and improves conditions.
Learning new practice-management skills gives you more confidence and a feeling of power.
Removing opposing forces relieves stress and releases your true potential.
Completing mini-program steps gives you a sense of accomplishment and a more profitable practice.
ExecTech consulting is not just a body of knowledge that you learn and move on; it is an on-going support process.
Although our program is month to month, many ExecTech clients continue for years as they find a constant relationship with ExecTech beneficial to their ongoing growth. You have the freedom to use ExecTech services as long as you wish to accelerate your progress and success on a long-term basis.
There is no limit to what you can accomplish with ExecTech's consulting/coaching process. There will always be new goals, new challenges, new solutions and new levels of accomplishment.
Whether you're looking for a medical practice consultant, a dental practice management consultant or a consultant to help with your family practice management, the seven systems ExecTech uses are your secret recipe to success.
To get started with ExecTech, book a free 30 min phone meeting.