The Basics of Business for Healthcare Professionals
Keeping to the theme of providing healthcare professionals with basic business principles here are three fundamental things you need to do well if you are running your own practice or if you are thinking of starting one. These are my thoughts on what helps to create a strong, thriving practice. It must be noted that I was introduced to this framework by lecturer Prof. Chris Adendorff with some of my own ideas pertaining to healthcare practices and bolstered by some strategic principles from strategist, Mr. Dorrington Giyose.
33% of your success is getting the work
Your patients need to know about you and what you can offer them. This means your marketing and referrer funnel needs to be effective to capture the attention of your prospective clients and healthcare professionals that refer to you. This is not easy as our professions are very referral dependent and your patient experience many times starts while being treated by another professional. There are many ways to ensure an effective acquisition funnel – but most of these start with your relationship with other healthcare professionals. Once this is in place you need to step up your marketing to ensure greater exposure for first-line patients and better credibility for professionals referring to you. There are many different ways to market your practice and what will make or break your marketing campaign is whether you hold the attention of your potential client long enough for them to choose you. The best way is to start with the picture you want your patient to have in their minds when they decide to see you for the first time. Then you need to work backwards on how you will achieve this result. This is the basic point of marketing – to get the client to choose you or your service over a similar service. You need to be strategic in how you position yourself in the minds of your potential patients and other healthcare professionals. Let your vision for your practice guide you. Remember there are ethical rules stipulated by the HPCSA that state what you’re allowed to do when advertising your services and any marketing you do needs to adhere to these rules. But there is enormous freedom in what you can ethically do. Do your own thing that fits your vision for your practice.
The next 33% is delivering what you promised
There are few things that market your practice as well as word of mouth. This can be negative or positive. Delivering on the service and patient experience you promised is the first step in gaining your patient’s trust. Doing that consistently each and every time is what converts that patient to a lifetime client and a source of positive word of mouth. Also remember the better your marketing the quicker you will be exposed for poor service quality. If service quality is poor your customer retention will suffer. Making sure your patients have the best possible experience is vital to your success. In this earlier article I wrote about delivering quality in a healthcare service – it might be a good idea to give it a read. This also means investing in the necessary equipment and training to provide the best experience. Ensure that all actions from the moment the patient is referred to you until they step out of your rooms are analysed and set up in advance to ensure they get the service that you intend.
The last 33% is your ability to get paid for the work you have done
Due to the nature of the healthcare professions we very rarely get paid immediately for our work. For smaller practices it is imperative to have solid systems in place to ensure effective administration from the moment the client makes an appointment. You need to keep track of all the consent forms, paperwork and billing materials that are used for every patient. You then need to make sure they are billed as soon as possible. Many small practices suffer because the admin systems are not up to par and they lose out on income because they simply do not bill effectively. Larger practices lose out when billing slips through the cracks or when paperwork is not in order – if this piles up without appropriate systems it can severely impact the cash flow of the practice. When medical aids reject your claims it becomes the responsibility of the patient to settle the account – and with some patients this is harder than with others. Having good administration systems in place to ensure you have the most up to date contact information available is vital when you have to start contacting patients for payments. Using a professional for this when starting out is a good idea but for larger practices it may be worthwhile in-sourcing this function.
It is very difficult to be good at all three these components. Many healthcare professionals are great at delivering a quality service but struggle to keep their administrative operations in good order. Others might be great at forging relationships and marketing their practice but are mediocre when it comes to crafting a superior service. Making sure you have a team that can fill the gaps where you struggle is a good way to build your practice on a solid foundation.
Do you have any team members that fill in gaps in your skills? Or do you have any other ideas about any of these areas? Let me know in the comments.
