OCTOBER NEWSLETTER - TIME

Having completed this I realised there is quite a focus on time in this month’s edition. I hope that you can make the time to read it!

My aim has been to complete this newsletter in the week or so after the end of the previous month. Clearly, I have not achieved that particular goal this month! It has definitely been one of those months where time has been of a premium. I am always reminded of the fact that there is always time available, it is just how we use it. Even in this busy month so far, we have decided to consider moving, so put our house on the market. There was not really the time for this, but by some miracle of the space-time continuum, I found the time. ?

I am very interested on the area of productivity and how to improve it. There are tonnes of resources out there on how to be more productive. One of my favourites is ‘Getting Things Done’ by David Allen. Using this approach, although the volume of work can sometimes mean things can be delayed, I am confident?that rarely are things that I need to get done missed or forgotten.?

Part of the work that we do with businesses is to help maximise their personal and business efficiency. This can be through removing unnecessary steps (as I worked through with a new client this week) or streamlining processes. It is not always about growth and getting more new patients (as eye catching as those headlines can be). Achieving better work-life balance, less stress and ultimately making things easier can be just as valuable for many business owners.??

On with this month’s newsletter… ?

Market Update?

This is a good time of year for a review, not just of September, but as we do with our clients, it is time to review the quarter. For some it is Q1 of the next financial year and for others Q3. Irrespective it is vital to look at where the numbers are relative to the last quarter, the same period last year and the targets that you have set.?

Overall, it seems that September is fairly flat on August if anything across the board a few percent increase MoM. New patient/Initial Consultations are up nearly 10% so the signs are positive for a strong October.?

Looking at the quarter, many of our clients are 10-15% up on the same period last year. It is also strong compared to the previous quarter driven by a strong July and above average August. ? ?

Doing the right work!

This example is based here in the UK, but the principle applies to the world over. A clinic of mine was contacted by a 3rd party provider looking to expand their service to deliver on contracts that they have one with large organisations. The fee offered to become part of this network was between ￡30 and ￡40 including writing reports. This represents a 30-50% discount on their self-pay rate. Across the board, we must consider not just the volume of treatments delivered, but also the margin we get from each service, to ensure our time is best used.?

In my opinion this “race to the bottom” driven by insurance companies and third-party providers, is significantly damaging to the profession and private practice as a whole. It is simply not possible to provide the quality of service that the clinics we work with (and most of the private practice industry) offer to their self-pay clients. We must push back against this wherever possible. ??

Client Follow-Up

At Physio Business Growth we use the term “Leaky Bucket” a lot. In other words, focussing on ensuring that when a client enters an episode of care, we look after that client through to complete resolution, and where possible beyond

Of course, life gets in the way of this through work, family, sickness and people miss/cancel appointments or don’t book as they “have to check their diary”. This leaves us with many people per week that need to be followed up, if we want to avoid them dropping off their planned course of treatment. The question is how??

The biggest mistake I see is leaving it too long. Printing out a report and giving it to your team at the end of the month is too late. People have accepted the level they are at, got out of the routine or gone elsewhere. Our view is that if we have not re-engaged someone within 14 days of their missed/last appointment then we have limited chance of getting them back. Without getting too specific here are a couple of principles to consider:?

• Use a combination of different communication methods e.g. email, phone, text.?
• Automate initially then move to personal communication. ?
• The clinician should have some involvement as they have the relationship with the client.

KPI tracking?

Numbers are immensely important in being able to track the performance of your team and the performance of your business. For 75% of my clients this is a significant challenge. That is due in reasons such as time, understanding and technology.?

The challenge has often been knowing which report to take from your practice management software. Having to export multiple reports to get all the information you need. Then having to enter that report for last month into some form of excel sheet, to be able to compare to a previous period.?

What is important is not gathering this information but being able to USE it. As John the founder of PBG always says we “measure to move”. Well, if we cannot quickly interpret data then we will never fully use it. An example of this is I have many clients who when we start working with them religiously track things like retention rate/PVA or utilisation on a weekly basis. But if you asked what the average over 6/12 weeks they would not know.?

For the last couple of years, we have worked with a software company called Dataplayer?www.dataplayer.io?that makes this process significantly easier. Dataplayer is a data visualisation software. In other words, it takes the data and makes it look pretty, easy to compare and easy to understand. It works by connecting directly with your practice management software (assuming they allow connecting to external programmes with an API key. If they don’t, then get rid!). From there you have live data inside Dataplayer with no need to download any reports. Not only that, but you can also see all the numbers you need, across any period, at the click of a button. This is what it looks like inside.

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Profit

I may have mentioned this before and will likely mention it again because it is REALLY important. Another of John’s regular sayings is “Revenue is vanity and profit is sanity”.?

The point I want to make here is that when talking to business owners we often have the same conversation about where they want the profitability of the business to be. The reality is they rarely know. Ultimately, we should be setting our goals based on where we want the profit of the business to be and linked to that what we want to be able to draw from the business to be able to support our family and our lifestyle.?

Remember a salary is what you should be paying yourself to a level that it would cost you to replace yourself if you sold your business tomorrow. Your profit is the reward that you get for all the hard work, risk and stress that you put into running a business. You should not be ashamed or afraid to seek and then achieve a level of profit.?

I have said before that the target here should be 20-30%. It is not for us to say whether you should aspire to a business that makes 50k of profit or 500k but you absolutely should have a target that you aim for!?

That’s it for this month. If you liked this content, please comment, like or email back. If you hated it feel free to tell me also. Most importantly if there are things you would like to see in this Newsletter moving forwards, drop me an email or message me on Messenger/LinkedIn/WhatsApp/email.?

Next month I’ll include, selling your business and protocols amongst other things that pop into my head from interactions with clients and colleagues.?

Finally, as I have mentioned, I love a good quote and given the strong theme this month of time I thought this worked.?

"The key is in not spending time, but in investing it." - Stephen R.Covey

Have a great month!?

Michael

M: 07940507969

E:?[email protected]