Physicians Practice - April 2008 - (Page 74)

GREAT PRACTICE MAKEOVER is pretty standard stuff. Poke around the other available reports, too. What information can you pull out to help establish benchmarks? Collecting other stats, such as patient wait times or feedback, will require the involvement of your staff. Mrs. Mallik admits that the practice’s schedule is a slave to Dr. Mallik’s dedication to his patients, as But we’re just gathering data at this point — for now, no judgment. The next step is to set speciﬁc goals, using your stated mission and values to interpret those benchmarks. This part is actually sort of fun. What do you want to do? Decrease your billing errors by, say, 20 percent? Get your A/R down by half? Increase time-ofservice copay collection to 90+ percent? OTHER REWARDS TALK, TOO Cash rewards are great, and certainly they help ramp up an employee’s interest in the practice performing well. But Paul McCartney nailed the limits of such thinking when he sang, back in 1964, “money can’t buy me love.” So what else can you do? Plenty: Feed them — How about an extended catered lunch party if you make your quarterly goals? If mornings would work better, make it a brunch. Bestow gifts — Consider handing out “I’m fortunate and blessed to have these good employees. But how do I keep them and motivate them and make them feel that their teamwork is valuable?” GRATEFULLY CONCERNED Baishali Mallik, office manager nominal goodie bags as a thank you to your staff. Fill them with candy, low-cost trinkets, gift cards, etc., and distribute them at a quarterly party or some other appropriate event. Promote teamwork through clothing — he will spend the time he thinks is necessary for each case — sometimes at the expense of the practice’s schedule. “If he’s supposed to see 18 patients [in a day], we are blessed,” says Mrs. Mallik. “If it’s 21, we are doomed.” READ MORE ABOUT IT! Learn more about staff morale and promoting good office relations by reading “Give Peace a Chance,” found on our Web site. Type the title into the Search Articles box. • Get some great advice on setting up a bonus program from one of our expert columnists for our PEARLS e-newsletter. Click on the “past issues” link at the lower right corner of our home page, and then select the “Repurpose the Ghost of Holidays Past” link. • For many articles on employee motivation and morale, check out www.employer-employee.com. After you decide your focus (don’t try to take on too much at once), then establish the rewards. To make sure the goal/bonus resonates with her administrative staff, Mrs. Mallik could choose to focus on ramping up patient copays, as those folks are largely responsible for collecting them. Reducing claims denials, of course, should become the biller’s bailiwick. And so on. Tell your staff that achieving a speciﬁc goal will produce a speciﬁc monetary bonus. Make the bonus multitiered. For example, reward each percentage increase/decrease with a corresponding dollar amount (i.e., a 10 percent increase in copay collection warrants $10, a 20 percent decrease in claims denials yields $20). Pay out these bonuses quarterly, which is far enough out to allow for real improvement and close enough that your staff will stay motivated. The nice part here is if you’ve accomplished your goal, you’ll have the needed revenue to pay out the reward. Mrs. Mallik already has a good suggestion here: Supply the staff with lab coats that are customembroidered with a pertinent slogan, such as “Diabetes Lifecare.” Great idea, with a cautionary note: Some experts assert that administrative staff should project a more businesslike image to promote professionalism within the ofﬁce. A possible compromise is to have the clinical staff wear lab coats and the admin staff wear polos (in styles cut properly for the wearer’s gender) — both embroidered with the same slogan. (Although it’s not a particular issue for the Malliks, this suggestion may not do if you’re one of the many practices fighting a front/back culture war.) Develop a branded look — This proven marketing principle can also be used to encourage a more cohesive, dedicated staff. You don’t have to spend a lot of money, either. Simply voting on a “brand” color (e.g., “Physicians Practice Orange”) and carrying it throughout the practice will offer a springboard for many events and decisions. Consider painting some of the walls, wearing scrubs or the above-mentioned polos in “your” color, or declaring the ﬁrst Monday of each month Teal Day. Challenge your staff to come up with fun ways to celebrate and promote your brand. WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM 74 | PHYSICIANS PRACTICE | APRIL 2008 http://www.employer-employee.com http://WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Physicians Practice - April 2008

Physicians Practice - April 2008 Contents The Bigger Picture: Medicare Decision Time Letters Physicians Practice Pearls: Outsource Your Pain Noteworthy Cover Story: Trial Lawyers Tell All Management: When It’s Time to Change Ask the Experts Technology: Do You Know Where Your Data Is? The Tech Doctor: Are Your Discarded PCs Really Clean? Billing & Collections: Playing Hardball The Administrator's Desk: Recruiting for Patient Satisfaction Start It Up: Finance - Mastering the Numbers Game Coding The Great Practice Makeover: Taking Care of Business Associates Classifieds Advertiser Index

Physicians Practice - April 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.