Last year I wrote an article about new year resolutions for medical practices and their management. Well another year has gone by and I’m still disappointed that most practices out there just don’t get it. The same mistakes keep occurring, strategic planning is basically nonexistent, and most are content with sitting on their hands and living the day to day. If that is the case, then why is everyone complaining about their take home pay? Again, I just don’t get it.
A recent book entitled “When Professionals Have to Lead: A New Model for High Performance” by the Harvard Business School Press mentions that most professional service firms (yes, a medical practice is a professional service firm) often focus on the short term and spend little time and thought on providing direction on where the practice is going and why. This is so typical of medical practices. You need goals and objectives to guide you throughout this next year – without them, you are just a rudderless ship.
So again here are, in installments this week, the new year resolutions repeated; use them to set your own practice goals and objectives for 2011. I don’t want to have to repeat them again next year!
I RESOVE to inspire and motivate my employees Believe it or not, this is an easy one to accomplish. Employees can be inspired and motivated just by doing a few simple things – when they do a good job, tell them they did so. Tell them thank you for a job well done and thank them for their efforts and for being a part of your team. Make the effort to take each employee individually to lunch. Get their feedback on what is good about the practice and what can be improved. Surveys have shown these little things do more for office morale than salary raises do. Remember a very important point: The better performing offices are the ones that do the best at human resources.
I RESOLVE to have a monthly management meeting Even if you are a solo medical practice, this meeting is critical to maintaining and improving the financial performance of the office. At the meeting, review and discuss such things as practice finances, billing and collection performance and comparison to benchmarks, office operations, and human resource issues. These meetings keeps management informed and on the same page. How can an office be successful unless everyone is informed and pulling in the same direction?
Have questions? I’m here to help.
