Thursday, October 8, 2009

QUALITY CONTROL

A key administrative division in our company is the Quality Control Division. In actual fact, our company operates on an organizational system that divides up any business into 7 different Divisions. A previous blog article has gone through, in a summary form, what each of those divisions are. In future articles I will detail each of those areas more closely and how they apply and can be used in any health care practice. In any case, as stated above, one of those divisions is the Quality Control Division. Any business, whether a health care office, a restaurant, a car dealership, IBM, etc. must have a Quality Control area of the company that inspects the products that are coming out and determine whether the products meet the quality standard expected and, if not, see that both the product and the product producer are properly corrected. This is a routine activity in our company.

I recently asked one of our quality control staff to summarize a recent client completion and thought I'd pass along this summary report to give any reader any idea of what we do with our clients. I hope you enjoy it.

SUMMARY REPORT ON A RECENT CLIENT COMPLETION
Prior to coming to us, this client was aware of problem areas but he wasn’t confident that he had recognized the actual source of the trouble. The solutions he tried to implement were not resulting in the changes he wanted. He was overloaded with administrative duties, scheduling was inefficient and he was not monitoring his expenses closely which was creating financial problems.

After carefully examining and evaluating information about the practice, his consultant created a step-by-step plan tailored for him. One of the first areas addressed was his recall program. The consultant recognized that there was a “gold mine” that had not been tapped due to inefficiency and staff problems. A recall program was established which yielded results right away.

The second problem that was confronted was the doctor’s lack of case presentation skills. With more patients beginning to come in, it became vital for him to develop skills that would allow him to deliver all the treatment they needed. The consultant had the doctor do a specialized training program which teaches effective treatment plan presentation After working with the consultant for three months the practice’s gross income rose from an average of $50,000 per month to an average of $80,000 per month, with no increase in the amount of time worked.

While these situations were being handled, the doctor had his office manager take part in management training at Silkin. Since the doctor had been overloaded with administrative duties when he originally came to us, the increase in business would have created more work without a trained Office Manager. With training, the Office Manager was able to take over the day-today management of the practice. She implemented job descriptions for each position, got office policies in use, managed staff and ensured the scheduling was done correctly and efficiently. This reduced stress in the practice and greatly facilitated the doctor.

All of this client’s staff members have participated in Silkin training seminars and now perform as a cohesive, efficient team. The statistics of the practice remain in a higher range and the growth pattern has continued. He now spends less time in the practice and enjoys working without the stress he once had.

Based upon quality control interviews with the client and his staff we verified that he is a very, very happy client for the following reasons:
    a) his office is now well organized and efficient;

    b) he has a well trained Office Manager in place that handles the day to day administrative duties;

    c) he is working significantly less hours;

    d) has much less stress; and e) his personal income has greatly increased.


We welcome any comments. You can do so by clicking on the "comments" link below.

Larry Silver
President, Silkin Management Group

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Wednesday, July 8, 2009

MORE KEY MARKETING ACTIONS

Silkin Management Group has helped accomplish significant growth for thousands of practices using marketing procedures that really work based upon results. As a follow up to our June 26 blog, here is another list of key marketing actions for a health care practice.

Our tailor made marketing programs include some of the basic techniques mentioned in these tips, but also include the "how to's" of each tip with template examples of most ideas presented. Our consultants develop surveys and questionnaires that health care practitioners all over the country have used to drive more new patients into their practices – and keep them coming back. As the number of patients increase, Silkin continues to provide management and organizational consulting that supports stable growth. This is accomplished by offering specialized administrative training for doctors and their staffs, job descriptions, office policies, organizational charts and much, much more.

Key Marketing Actions:


1. Research your market.
2. Create surveys for existing patients/clients.
3. Create surveys for potential new patients/clients.
4. Conduct surveys with both publics.
5. Tabulate survey results.
6. Categorize internal versus external marketing efforts.
7. Create a promotional calendar.
8. Reactivate past clients.
9. Prospect for new clients.
10. Create a referral campaign.
11. Begin new resident contact campaign.
12. Create/refine letters and promotional items for the practice (welcome letter, thank you letter, educational material, financial information, reactivation letter, etc.)
13. Address the appearance of the practice.
14. Upgrade practice signage.
15. Hold an open house for the practice.
16. Utilize web-based marketing and contact management.
17. Upgrade logo on business cards, letterhead, web site, etc.
18. Use newsletters for existing patients, referral resources and potential new patients/clients.
19. Create a practice brochure to educate, outline expectations and improve patient/client interaction.

I invite you to share any thoughts through our Discussion Forum at the Silkin Facebook Page BY CLICKING HERE.

Larry Silver
President, Silkin

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Friday, June 26, 2009

Marketing tips

Collect and tabulate information such as age, occupation, gender, income and location from your current patient records to get a profile of your typical patients. Then tailor your promotion and public relation events to target this majority group

Conduct a Referral Survey to find out if your patients are referring. Discover why they do or do not feel comfortable referring others to your practice. The information you get will help you generate more referrals and give you more control over your internal marketing.

A Quality Control Survey of patients gives you feedback regarding whether or not you’re meeting their expectations and what, if anything, you can do to improve your service to them. Patients appreciate being asked if they are happy with the level of care and service they’re receiving and will be happy that you care enough to ask.

Design a series of questions you can ask of potential patients to find out what they need and want – find out such things as what services they are interested in receiving, what they value most in a health care provider and what has disappointed them in previous practices. Enclose this survey in your new resident letters and use the information you get back to help you write and design ads, brochures and other promotional items.

When surveying by mail, encourage response by enclosing a postage-paid return envelope or reply card. If needed, mailing lists can be purchased to target specific groups you want to attract.

Use phone surveys to get back in touch with inactive patients. Ask them questions designed to find out what you and your staff can do to reactivate them. They will appreciate the personal contact and you’ll have an opportunity to interest them in returning to your practice for services.

Set aside time to work with your staff on getting referrals from patients. The best way to get referrals is simply to ASK FOR THEM. Your staff will be more comfortable in making this a part of their daily routine if they get a chance to practice during staff training sessions.

Silkin Management Group has helped thousands of practices grow using marketing procedures that really work. How do we know they work? They get results! Our tailor made marketing programs include some of the basic techniques mentioned in these tips, but reach far beyond what we’ve been able to include here. Our consultants develop surveys and questionnaires that health care practitioners all over the country have used to drive more new patients into their practices – and keep them coming back. As the number of patients increase, Silkin continues to provide management and organizational consulting that supports stable growth. This is accomplished by offering specialized administrative training for doctors and their staffs, job descriptions, office policies, organizational charts and much, much more.

I invite you to share any thoughts through our Discussion Forum at the Silkin Facebook Page BY CLICKING HERE.

Larry Silver
President, Silkin

Silkin Management Group Home Page
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Wednesday, May 20, 2009

An Argument for developing a Web Presence

An impressive web presence is generally not a high priority for most private practice health care owners. Although many practices now have website, the importance and use of them is often not taken to seriously.

I am not a computer genius nor do I know the first thing about HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language - used for creating web sites) formatting. I use a computer at work and like many people, I have a computer at home that I use for email and more importantly, to "Google."

By "Google" I am of course referring to the massively popular activity of searching for information on the web to find a restaurant, a vacation spot or a doctor's practice that I am considering going to.

Over the past three years, it has become more and more obvious that Americans are more and more using the World Wide Web to find out about companies that they wish to do business with. The days of looking up a doctor's phone number in the bulky, yellow, phone book are gone. I am not implying that paper phone books are no longer useful, they most certainly are. I use mine at home to shore up a short leg on my basement desk. However, if I am interested in finding a good doctor to visit, I am just a mouse click away from the largest resource of information of doctors in my area ever known.

For example, my Veterinarian's site provides directions to her practice so that I can easily refer my friends to her. Her site also lets me know about new services for my pet, background information on her new employees and emergency hours. I even discovered that her office is starting a grooming service! (Hmm, good idea, I am scheduling an appointment for my dog "Bo" next week.)

The idea for this blog was created from an incident that occurred just recently. In the normal course of doing business, I was invited to speak with a Veterinarian in Colorado. Prior to my call, I decided to look up the doctor's practice on the web to find out more about the doctor himself and his practice. As a professional, I find it helpful knowing something about a client before meeting them. I was surprised that I could not find any information regarding the doctor on-line. I attempted to find him on several search engines; I even varied my search. I tried his name, I tried his name plus DVM in "City Name," CO. I even did a search just for Veterinarians in his town. Finally, I was able to find the doctor's name in the web site of his competitor in the same town! His competitor's site was very beautiful with plenty of information about his practice, the staff, his facilities, etc. If I were a resident with a pet in this beautiful town in Colorado, I would now know exactly which practice to go to, and it wasn't his. And yes, I did call the doctor as scheduled and made the doctor very aware of what was happening in his neighborhood. Interestingly enough, the doctor was wondering why his practice was contracting in a community that was expanding quite rapidly.

Unfortunately this is not only a true story it is also very common.

Developing a web presence now is more important than ever. Home computer use is not going to slack off in the years to come. More than ever, Mr. and Mrs. Patient and Client are going to go to the World Wide Web to find information regarding the doctor or practice that they are going to visit.

And yes, word of mouth is still the number one draw of new patients and clients to your practice. But know this - after I hear your name and how wonderful your practice is from my best friend, I promise you, I will Google you. What happens after that is up to you.

We also invite your feedback to this blog or previous blogs by participating in our
Discussion Forum at the Silkin Facebook Page BY CLICKING HERE.

Larry Silver
President, Silkin Management Group

Silkin Management Group Home Page
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Thursday, May 14, 2009

THE REAL SITUATION

Here is Part 2 of the latest article by Mr. Bruce Wiseman regarding the sources of the worldwide financial crisis.  Part 1 can be seen in our previous Blog below. If you haven't read Part 1, please do so before reading Part 2, below.

Larry Silver
President Silkin Management Group

THE REAL SITUATION


More to the point, you may have noticed that you weren’t consulted on this setup. Neither was Congress. In other words, the command channel for implementing global financial strategies goes from the FSB leadership to its central banker members and from them to the world’s financial institutions. You don’t get a peek, neither does Congress, nor, for that matter, does the White House.

And while there may be some accountability in some of the member countries, by and large these central bankers have the authority to implement these regulations and strategies. And they are held responsible by the FSB to do so.

In short, on April 2, 2009, the President signed a communiqué that essentially turns over financial control of the country, and the planet, to a handful of central bankers, who, besides dictating policy covering everything from your retirement income to shareholder rights, will additionally have access to your health and education records. There is also this troubling little line about “clear specification of the structure and functions of government.” What the hell is that suppose to mean? There is no oversight here. Not by you, not by Congress, not by anybody. No oversight over a handful of central bankers who operate out of a clandestine organization that is above the law and is responsible for having implemented and enforced the “standards” that froze world credit markets and precipitated the worst financial crisis in the planet’s history (see “The Financial Crisis: A Look Behind the Wizard’s Curtain”).

I haven’t heard word one out of Congress about this, but I’m afraid they are a few clowns short of a circus up there. Which begs the question, what do we do about this?

THE SOLUTION


There are two critical things that need to be done. The first lies in the fact that the communiqué signed by the President is an agreement that is binding on the United States and, as such, requires approval by Congress. If classed as a Treaty, it requires approval by two-thirds of the Senate. At the very least, approval should be by Congressional Executive Agreement, which requires a majority of both houses of Congress. The agreement signed in London on April 2 has been called a New Bretton Woods (Bretton Woods being the location of a meeting of world leaders toward the end of the Second World War, which gave birth to the international financial organizations the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund). The original Bretton Woods agreement was put in place as a Congressional Executive Agreement. So this “new Bretton Woods” should at least do the same. But this step is just to get Congress to recognize their responsibility here. The Federal Reserve Act, the bill that established the Federal Reserve System, was passed in 1913 two nights before Christmas by a sparsely attended Congress. People have been complaining about this ever since. What do you say we don’t let this happen again? Not on our watch. Congress needs to understand that it has a responsibility to approve any agreement signed by the President that is binding on this nation. But the point is not to get Congress to approve what has been done. It is to first get them to recognize that agreements have been made that affect our entire financial system and that it is their responsibility to shape these agreements in a way that is beneficial to our Republic AND to provide a mechanism for real oversight of this international body. Central bankers should not be making decisions about international finance without oversight and a system of checks and balances that are reflective of those provided by a republican form of government. I am, of course, not talking about a political party here. No, no. I’m talking about the American form of government where citizens elect others to represent them.

A republican form of government is one that is operated by representatives chosen by the people. Congress must step up to the plate. They must insist that the Financial Stability Board be ratified either by Treaty or Congressional Executive Agreement. And that ratification must include the creation of a body with oversight and corrective powers that is comprised of representatives of all the nations involved who are chosen from each country’s elected officials. There is nothing inherently evil about an international financial organization. As much as we might protest it, it is a global world today, and a body that oversees the smooth flow and interchange of currencies and other financial instruments is needed in today’s world. But the organization cannot be controlled by international bankers who are not answerable to the citizens of the countries in which they operate. It should be overseen by a senior level group which itself is organized as a liberal republic, following the original model of the United States. Why? Because the system of government originally created by the United States has been the most successful form of government in man’s history. Any problems with the system have come about as a result of deviations from the original structure—a representative form of government with adequate checks and balances. Such a body could help create an international economic system in which those that want to be successful can be so. It would also allow them to take an active role in controlling their futures by effectively participating in the legislative process. ACT!

Let your Representatives and Senators know: the Financial Stability Board must be approved by Congress and must be subject to oversight by elected officials of the
countries involved. Personal visits, followed by calls and faxes to both Washington and local offices, are the most effective. Don’t be surprised if they don’t know what you’re talking about. Politely insist they find out and take action. And understand this when dealing with legislators or their staffs: they are focused almost exclusively on legislation that has already been introduced—a bill with a number on it.

That is not the case here. You want them to take action on this matter by introducing legislation that brings the approval and structure of the Financial Stability Board under congressional control. This can be accomplished.

“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” —Thomas Jefferson

Find your elected officials here:
http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/

Bruce Wiseman
bdwiseman@earthlink.net
www.Brucewiseman.net
Copyright © 2009 Bruce Wiseman

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

HITLER’S BANK GOES GLOBAL

About a month ago, I presented a 3 part article from Bruce Wiseman concerning his research on the "whys and wherefores" of the global financial crisis. I followed his article with another piece I found in my research by Dick Morris, former Clinton advisor and political strategist, that echoed some of the information that Wiseman wrote about. I just got a follow up piece by Wiseman that I thought was very, very interesting and worth sharing with anyone reading this blog. His data seems factual and, from what I can tell, accurate although I certainly haven't gone and attempted to verify every piece of it. I invite you to read it and share any thoughts through our Discussion Forum at the the Silkin Facebook Page BY CLICKING HERE.

Larry Silver,
President Silkin Management Group

Here is Part 1.

HITLER’S BANK GOES GLOBAL


THE PURPOSE OF THE FINANCIAL CRISIS


By Bruce Wiseman

A towering citadel housing what is essentially a sovereign state known as the Bank for International Settlements is located in Basel, Switzerland. The bank now controls the financial affairs of planet Earth.

If you think this is an exaggeration or the conspiratorial ramblings of the author . . . or not, I invite you to read on.

I wrote the first installment of this article—“The Financial Crisis: A Look Behind the Wizard’s Curtain”—in mid-March of this year. The article included the following statement: “The purpose of this financial crisis is to take down the United States and the U.S. dollar as the stable datum of planetary finance and, in the midst of the resulting confusion, put in its place a Global Monetary Authority—a planetary financial control organization “to ensure this never happens again.”

This purpose has now been accomplished.

The dollar, the former king of currencies, now goes begging in the pant-suited persona of Hillary Clinton to our creditors at the Chinese Communist Party. Almost unthinkable a few short years ago, the U.S. dollar is fast losing its status as the world reserve currency, and any thought of saving it is being nuked by the Larry, Moe and Curly of U.S. economic policy - Bernanke, Geithner and Summers - and their Alice in Wonderland trillion-dollar budget deficits. I would not be surprised to see central banks start using the renminbi (the currency of the newly awakened People’s Republic of China—also called the yuan) for international trade and reserves in the not too distant future. This prediction will likely be scoffed at by global economists, but then they have about as much credibility as pharmaceutical salesmen these days. A more generally discussed alternative is the International Monetary Fund’s SDR (which stands for Special Drawing Rights). There is no production or property behind the SDR. It is one of those clown currencies that are made up out of thin air—a magic trick central bankers like to do. Intoxicated by the power of the purse, they think of themselves as fiscal alchemists. But the dollar has seen its glory. It can return one day, if Washington ever finds its financial backbone. But let’s be real, with the exception of a very few, like Ron Paul in the House and Tom Coburn in the Senate, these folks are addicted to spending like junkies on horse.
More importantly, the other shoe has dropped. Like some ghoulish predator from another Alien sequel, a Global Monetary Authority has been born. It lives.

THE FINANCIAL STABILITY BOARD


On April 2, 2009, the members of the G-20 (a loose-knit organization of the central bankers and finance ministers of the 20 major industrialized nations) issued a communiqué that gave birth to what is no less than Big Brother in a three-piece suit.

Which means? . . .

The communiqué announced the creation of the all too Soviet sounding Financial Stability Board (FSB)—and no, I’m not going to make a crack about the fact that this acronym is the same as that of the Russian intelligence service that replaced the KGB. The Financial Stability Board. Remember that name well, because they now have control of the planet’s finances . . . and, when one peels the onion of the communiqué, control of much, much more. The FSB morphed into existence from an earlier incarnation called the Financial Stability Forum. The Financial Stability Forum (FSF) was established in 1999 to promote international financial stability through co-operation in financial supervision and surveillance. Since it had done such a wonderful job, the central bankers decided to expand its powers and give it a new name.

A board sounds like it has more authority than a forum. But the name change isn’t the problem. The FSB’s broadened mandate includes under point 5, “As obligations of membership, member countries and territories commit to pursue the maintenance of financial stability, maintain the openness and transparency of the financial sector, implement international financial standards (including the 12 key International Standards and Codes), and agree to undergo periodic peer reviews, using among other evidence IMF/World Bank public Financial Sector Assessment Program reports.” Rather a mouthful of elitist banker-speak. But, as a friend of mine is fond of saying, “The Devil is in the details.”

THE 12 INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS AND CODES


While several press releases from the G-20’s London conclave reference these codes as though they were handed down from a fiscal Mount Sinai, finding the specifics takes some digging. But then the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), out of which the FSB operates, has never seen transparency as one of its core values. In fact, given its fascist pedigree, transparency hasn’t been a value at all. Known as Hitler’s bank, the Bank for International Settlements worked arm in arm with the Nazis, facilitating the transfer of gold from Nazi-occupied countries to the Reichsbank, and kept their lines open to the international financial community during the Second World War.

As noted in the first article, the BIS is completely above the law. It is like a sovereign state. Its personnel have diplomatic immunity for their persons and papers. No taxes are levied on the bank or the personnel’s salaries. The grounds are sovereign, as are the buildings and offices. The Swiss government has no legal jurisdiction over the bank and no government agency or authority has oversight over its operations. In a 2003 article titled “Controlling the World’s Monetary System the Bank for International Settlements,” Joan Veon wrote: “The BIS is where all of the world’s central banks meet to analyze the global economy and determine what course of action they will take next to put more money in their pockets, since they control the amount of money in circulation and how much interest they are going to charge governments and banks for borrowing from them. . . .“When you understand that the BIS pulls the strings of the world’s monetary system, you then understand that they have the ability to create a financial boom or bust in a country. If that country is not doing what the money lenders want, then all they have to do is sell its currency.”

And if you don’t find that troubling, a close reading of the new powers of the FSB are chilling. The 12 key International Standards and Codes, which are minimum requirements, contain such things as

  • clear specification of the structure and functions of government;

  • statistical and data gathering from ministries of education, health, finance and other agencies;

  • corporate governance principles;

  • shareholder rights;

  • personal savings;

  • secure retirement incomes;

  • international accounting standards to be observed in the preparation of financial statements;

  • international standards of auditing;

  • securities settlement;

  • foreign exchange settlement;

  • minimal capital adequacy for banks;

  • risk management;

  • ratification and implementation of UN instruments; and

  • criminalizing the financing of terrorism.

“Sounds oppressive,” you say; “but I don’t really care what a bunch of bankers do in Basel, Switzerland. It’s got nothing to do with me.” But I am writing this to tell you that it has everything to do with you, your family, your business, your country, and—if you’re up to it—your planet. Because as currently structured, the dictates of the Financial Stability Board will impact your life without any say-so on your part whatsoever.

Here’s one example from an article written by former Clinton advisor and political strategist Dick Morris in an article for The Bulletin on April 6, 2009. “The FSB is also charged with ‘implementing . . . tough new principles on pay and compensation and to support sustainable compensation schemes and the corporate social responsibility of all firms.’ “That means that the FSB will regulate how much executives are to be paid and will enforce its idea of corporate social responsibility at ‘all firms.’”

You begin to see what’s involved here.

You see, these standards and codes are commitments, obligations and requirements, not merely advice. The strategy, policies and regulations of the FSB are worked out at the senior levels of the bank. They are approved by the plenary and implemented through the national representatives.

THE STRUCTURE

The plenary, in this sense, is the complete membership body of the FSB. And the membership, my friends—the national representatives who implement these policies—just happen to be the heads of the planet’s more powerful central banks. And in case it slipped your mind, most central banks are private institutions and answerable to no one. Take our central bank, the Federal Reserve Bank. Yes, the chairman is appointed by the President and often testifies before Congress, but there is virtually no public control over the institution. It can’t be audited nor can Congress tell it what to do. It is not really accountable to anyone. The idea that the Fed is a government agency subject to the control of Congress is a PR line. It is simply not true. Among other things, central banks govern a country’s monetary policy and create (print) the country’s money. They make income by charging interest on the money they loan to the government.

Watch this, because if you blink, you’ll miss it.

Governments are perpetually in debt. They are always borrowing money. They have a mental disorder that prevents them from spending less than they collect in taxes—BDD, Budget Deficit Disorder. And if it looks like they might balance the books some year, why, someone can always start a war.

Here’s an example.

Let’s say the annual budget calls for the U.S. government to spend $2.5 trillion. But the income will only be $2 trillion. They’re going to be a little short. But no worries, they have the ultimate credit card—a debt limit that they themselves control. If they borrow up to the established limit, they can just vote it higher —which they have done to the tune of a cool $11.2 trillion dollars.

The Fed loves this.

Listen as the Secretary of the Treasury calls the Chairman of the Fed.

“Ben. It’s Tim.”

“Dude. What’s happening?”

“I need a little bread. Friggin’ Taliban again.”

“No problem, Timbo. How much you looking for?”

“Five hundred big ones.”

Ben licks his lips. “Anything for you, big guy. Send me the notes and I’m down with the five hundred. Five percent work for you?”

“Whatever.”

So the Treasury prints up $500 billion dollars’ worth of IOUs—they are called Treasury bills (short term), notes (medium term) or bonds (long term)—and sends them over to the Fed with a fifth of Chivas.

In the old days, the Fed would print the cash. These days, they click a mouse.

Now here’s the part where you aren’t allowed to blink.

When the Fed prints the money or clicks the mouse, they have no money themselves. They are just creating it out of thin air. They just print it, or send it digitally. And then they charge interest on the money they lent to the Treasury. A hundred-dollar bill costs $0.04 to print. But the interest is charged on the $100. Go ahead: read it again; the words won’t change.

The interest on the national debt last year was $451,154,049,950.63. That’s $1.23 billion a day. These are the same people that are now running our banks, insurance companies and automobile manufacturers.

Reason weeps.

Sure, I oversimplified it. The Fed doesn’t own all the debt and they do some other things. But these are the basics. That is how a central bank works. It is the heads of the planet’s central banks and some finance ministers that make up the membership of the FSB.

In brief, here’s how it works: the Board’s leadership provides strategies, policies and regulations to the membership. The members vote on the matters and then see to their implementation in their respective countries.

FSB leadership is in the hands of the chairman, Mario Draghi. Mr. Draghi is also the governor of Italy’s central bank. He is a former executive director of the World Bank and like his comrade in international finance, Henry Paulson—the former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury who bludgeoned Congress out of the first $700 billion bailout package—Draghi was a managing director of Goldman Sachs until 2006. Like Paulson, he left Goldman in 2006, a year before the financial crisis exploded: Paulson went to Washington to run the U.S. Treasury; Draghi went to Rome to run Italy’s financial system as well as the Financial Stability Forum (forerunner to the Financial Stability Board).

Let’s call it government by Goldman, shall we?

END PART 1

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Are You Getting Enough Compliance to your Treatment Plans?

Are You Getting Enough Compliance to your Treatment Plans?

We have found over the years that one of the most rapid ways to increase practice production is to increase patient compliance to recommended treatment plans. This increase in production can be done without increasing the number of new patients. A minor 10% increase in compliance can result in tens of thousands of dollars of additional production and income with no change in overhead. The biggest single factor in increasing patient compliance is the doctor's ability to properly present treatment plans to the patient. Below you will find some helpful tips along this line.

Treatment Presentation Tips

A sale is an exchange whereby all parties involved receive something of value. In health care professions, a patient/client receives care to remedy a health problem and/or to maintain good health. In exchange for the work done, the staff and doctor are paid. A successful practice has doctors and staff members in it who care enough to sell patients exactly what they need.

The doctor's role in the sale cycle is to diagnose and plan treatment for the correct care. Without that, there would be nothing to sell. Does this sound easier than it actually is? Most doctors would say "yes".

From working with doctors for over 25 years, we've isolated many common mistakes doctors make when presenting treatment plans. Three of those are covered below.

Convincing vs. Selling

Convincing people they need to buy something is different than selling them on an idea, service or product. Selling is really nothing more than obtaining agreement. A patient/client who understands the treatment needed, agrees that it needs to be done and commits to doing it is the result of a successful treatment plan presentation. In an attempt to convince a patient/client to accept a plan, doctors often talk too much which, in most cases, works against them. Don't overwhelm your patients/clients with information or with too much communication.

Plan A vs. Plan B vs. Plan C

Do you give your patients/clients too many choices? Your patients/clients don't know what's best for them. They rely on you to tell them what they need. If you don't do that, but give them a choice between Plan A, Plan B or Plan C, the patient/client will naturally ask the cost of the different plans and select the least expensive one. Asking someone to make a choice between a $600 plan, a $350 plan and a $195 plan can even cause suspicion. The patient/client may wonder why you would do a $600 plan if a $195 plan will suffice. Don't let the patient/client decide what he/she needs or what is best for them. That's your job. You are the professional and should give your professional opinion as to what is the right thing for them to do.

"Maybe" vs. "You Need"

As mentioned, you know what your patients/clients need in order to be in good health now and in the future. You spent years and years and years in school learning this. However, when discussing treatment with patients/clients, doctors will often "water down" the presentation. Phrases such as "I think" or "Maybe it's a good idea" instead of "You need" create uncertainty in the patient's/client's mind. If a patient/client needs a specific treatment that may be costly, and this is presented to them with obvious hesitation, they will follow your lead and get the idea that it's an optional treatment. They may not understand that it's vital to their well-being. When you have confidence in the treatment you're providing, you don't need to back off from stating it with certainty. Your patients/clients will appreciate your sincerity, honesty and competence. A very successful application of this concept is to say, "If it was my situation, I would do....". As long as that is the truth, and you say it with sincerity and certainty, the patient/client will follow your lead.

Try following the above tips and I think you'll find an increase in your patient compliance to the treatment plan you present.

We invite your feedback to this blog or previous blogs by participating in our Discussion Forum at the Silkin Facebook Page BY CLICKING HERE.

Larry Silver
President, Silkin Management Group

Friday, April 17, 2009

More Marketing Tips -

What Is The Most Effective Way Of Getting New Patients Or Clients?

In my daily reading, I saw a couple of articles, one in Rueters called, US small business sentiment stays gloomy in March, and one from an Orlando Florida newspaper entitled, SBA help not getting through to businesses that both indicated that small businesses are not experiencing any positive effects from all the stimulus plans recently passed.

As I've said in many of our blogs, we, as small business owners, need to make sure we aren't waiting around in some state of "hope" for anyone to take care of us. That is why I've been writing many recent blogs about marketing in a health care practice.

I'm often asked, "what's the most successful means of marketing for new patients in a private practice?" It’s not the yellow pages, it’s not direct mail or advertising. Yes, these methods can and do work, especially if proper surveys and good promotional pieces are created. But these are expensive forms of marketing.

The most effective marketing, in terms of cost and results, is referrals from your existing patients and clients. Referrals are so valuable because word of mouth is both free and extremely effective. Your patients or clients speaking positively about your practice to people they interact with is a sure-fire way to increase the number of people walking through your doors.

The real problem with getting referrals is training your staff to successfully speak to patients or clients in order to get them to refer your practice to their friends and family.

There is a right way to do this and a very wrong way.

A very important thing to be aware of, when asking patients or clients to refer your practice to their friends and family, is that people actually like to contribute to the expansion and growth of things that they like. I’m sure you know examples of this. If a nice mall is built in a community, people tell other people to go there and other businesses and people move into the area. If a great new restaurant opens in an area, people go to it and recommend that others try it out. Those people in turn will recommend it to THEIR friends. The point being, if your patients or clients like your practice, they will be willing to contribute to its growth and expansion and, therefore, you shouldn’t be shy about asking them to refer.

At the same time, it is important to know that the MAIN reason people don’t refer their friends and family is that they are never asked to so they rarely think about it. The solution, then, is to simply ask the patients/clients who truly like your practice to recommend you to friends and family.

An example of the proper way to ask a patient or client for a referral can be as simple as the following:

“Hello Sue, how was your service? Great. Did you know that we are expanding? In fact we have hired new staff so that we can help better service our patients. We are also taking on more patients and if you have any friends or family who you think could be helped by [your medical field] care, have them come in for a consultation. Here are a couple of our business cards for you.”

Communicating it in this manner gives the patient or client the feeling that you are growing and puts the idea in their mind that they should recommend the practice. In addition, it avoids making the patient feel put on the spot or uncomfortable about having to give you names and numbers. Of course you will have to adjust this to your specific circumstances.

The above is just one example. Obviously, if you haven’t hired new staff you wouldn’t say this, but you could and should easily come up with honest reasons why it would be good for patients to refer.

On the other side of the coin, here is an improper way to ask a patient/client for a
referral:

“Hello Sue. Hey do you have anyone you know that needs [your medical field] care? We really would like them to come in if you do. Do you think you could ask them? Or just give me their name and I’ll call them?” This puts the patient or client on the spot and would make most people feel uncomfortable. You should have your staff practice correctly asking for referrals with one of your other staff or with you until they can do it easily and comfortably.

After that it is a matter of ensuring they do it and you should increase your new patients in no time! We have numerous other methods of internal marketing, but the above ideas are a good starting point.

If you wish to know more, just contact us at: info@silkinmanagementgroup.com and we’d be happy to help, or visit our Discussion Form on the Silkin Facebook Page BY CLICKING HERE.

Larry Silver
President, Silkin Management Group

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Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Marketing 101

“The Dictionary Is The Only Place Where Success Comes Before Work.”

–Vince Lombardi

I recently ran across this quote - a great quote by one of the most famous football coaches of all time. I was thinking about how this applied to the general subject of marketing that I’ve been addressing, when not talking about the financial crisis backstory, in many of the recent blogs.

So, how might this apply to marketing a health care practice? Everybody wants to know how to capture their share of the market for their area and wants that magic bullet that is going to get new patients or clients who have the means to purchase the treatment plans you recommend without batting an eye. And to have them lining up outside their office door.

Well, this month’s Hot Tips is about an attitude or viewpoint that must be there to make marketing even happen, let alone work. I recall a doctor once told me that as long as he practiced good medicine patients would come to him with out having to do anything. I don’t hear much from him any more. I wonder what happened to him? Why? Because even if he was the greatest doctor in the world, without proper marketing – even if it is only "word of mouth”, very few people will know to go to him. In fact we’ve seen doctors in the exact same socio-economic areas of a city – one being a truly great clinician and the other being an average clinician, have completely different practices. And it was the average clinician who was out producing the brilliant clinician by well over two times. Why? Because he marketed himself and the other one didn’t at all.

Just last month this same average clinician told me that he had his best month ever. His production and his collections for the month beat all previous records! And this happened while the economy is going down the drain. What did he do differently than others? Simple…he is promoting his business using any reasonable, cost effective method he can.

While other practices are sitting on the sidelines concerned with what their colleagues might say about a practice that is aggressively promoting for new patients, or feeling that the economy is too lousy to spend any money to market their practice, he is actively marketing both internally and externally.

A simple, low cost activity produced him several quality new patients. He set up a booth at local fair and paid his staff to hand out gift bags with his practice name on it and a practice brochure in the bag. He simply decided that, in order to capture his share of the market, he would let people know where to find him and what he could do for them. Just six years ago, when he was still getting his practice off the ground, he was really concerned that the doctors in his area were going to look down on him if he promoted his practice. Once he realized that both the quantity and quality of health care that he delivered had a great deal to do with him achieving his purposes as a health care provider, he decided that he had to be proactive in marketing and promotion for new patients. He saw that if he didn’t do this, he would simply be at effect of whether he was able to deliver both the quantity and quality of health care that he felt he was capable of delivering. With that in mind he quickly learned good, cost effective marketing techniques and now he is flourishing in a very small town in tough economic times while others doctors around him are complaining about a lack of productivity and blaming it on the economy.

Some doctors say, “Well, I didn’t get into medicine just for the money…” I think that is true of most every doctor. But that doesn’t mean you should ignore making your practice as prosperous as possible because “you didn’t get into it for the money.” When your practice is suffering along with the economy and you have to lay off staff, or cut back on bonuses or vacations and not be able to buy the equipment you need, your noble purpose can only take you so far. You do have to know more than just your doctoring skills. And marketing is just one of at least a dozen practice management skills that have nothing to do with whether or not you are the finest clinician in your city or state. Without some level of effective marketing, you will not and cannot grow your practice, no matter how good of a doctor you are.

You are a doctor. It is therefore a safe “given” that you want to help others by practicing your medical expertise. But, to state the obvious, you need new patients coming in the door to service in order to achieve that. And to do that, you need to do something. Get out of your practice and let people know you exist. Join the Lion’s Club or Rotary Club or Chamber of Commerce and get yourself really known in your community. Donate your time and services to those who need it and get that known by others. Sponsor a Little League team, start a canned food drive, do something to let your community know that you are alive and in practice to help them. Make yourself known to the public at large that you are part of the community and you are there to help. Use any media at all to help you do this. All of these are very inexpensive ways to promote your practice externally. Additionally, you should have an excellent internal referral program that all by itself could produce enough new patients or clients for you to thrive on.

Given the economic climate of the day, now is the time to truly be pro-active with the marketing and promotion of your practice. Doctors cannot sit on their past laurels and expect an adequate volume of patients to walk in the door as they might have been able to do some years ago. It takes action to make it happen but it doesn’t have to be costly to do. We know a myriad of ways to make all this happen. If you wish to know more, just contact us at: info@silkinmanagementgroup.com and we’d be happy to help, or visit our Discussion Form on the Silkin Facebook Page BY CLICKING HERE.

Larry Silver
President, Silkin Management Group

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Tuesday, April 7, 2009

THE FOUR COMPONENTS OF GREAT SERVICE

Great service to your patients/clients is one of the most important factors required for building a successful practice. During these difficult economic times, health care can become much more of a discretionary purchase than it should be. As health care providers you all know that health care is factually not a discretionary activity, like buying a new TV. At the same time you have to realize that, in your marketing activities, you are dealing with a public that often sees no difference in their purchasing choices between buying that new TV, or new clothes and their need to purchase the needed health care service. What we have found is that if patients experience superior service and are properly educated they will make the proper health care decision and understand the priorities of their health versus the new TV. Below are four key components of good service that, if applied, will help you get and retain new patients and clients.

Under the heading of great service, you will find the following key components: convenience, communication, cost and quality, and importance of your service as perceived by the patient/client.

CONVENIENCE: Consider the location of your practice. People generally select a service based on how convenient it will be for them to get to the location. Surveys and studies show that well over half of the public selects their health care services because of a conveniently located facility.

Are your hours structured to meet the needs of your patients/clients? Most people operate on a very hectic schedule and will actively seek out those practices that offer convenient or flexible hours. Practices that really work at ways to make it more convenient for their patients/clients to use their services will surely reap the rewards for their efforts.

COMMUNICATION: Words are not the only way in which communication occurs. Appearances and actions weigh equally as important in conveying an idea or concept to your patients/clients. Look at your staff, building, reception area, signs, business cards, letters, etc. What do these communicate to the public?

Decide exactly what it is that you wish to communicate to your patients/clients and prospective patients/clients. Then convey that in not only verbal communication, but in all of the above categories as well. Teach your staff to do the same.

COST AND QUALITY: The cost of your services is directly related to the quality of service that you deliver to your patients/clients. Your patients/clients will never feel that your fees are too high (or even really think about it for that matter), if they perceive the quality of service to be valuable. If you provide inferior or slow service, it will almost automatically make your fees appear to be too high. Again, patients/clients will take into account the amount of time they had to wait, the appearance of staff and facility and the demeanor of those servicing them.

Communication ties in with this area. Ensure that your patients/clients know what you are doing. Talk to them during the examination and explain what you are doing and why. This impacts the patient/client's impression of the fairness of your fees. Clear and professional communication with your patients/clients helps to ensure that they go away feeling satisfied that they have received excellent value for what they paid.

IMPORTANCE: Although you may perform valuable services, it is most important that the patient/client perceives how important the service is. This presents you with a "marketing" challenge. A large percentage of the population does not visit their doctors often enough.

This only indicates that the importance of regular exams has not been conveyed effectively to the public at large (or even to some of your patients/clients).

National health educational campaigns are designed to increase the public's perception about health and the importance of regularly visiting all of their family doctors. You cannot, however, rely solely on that type of campaign alone. It is vital that you take every opportunity to provide education to your patients/clients and to raise their "IQ" in the area of good health. The more they know, the more likely they are to use and appreciate your services and to tell others about you.

Provide a variety of brochures, put out a monthly newsletter, create your own handouts. Train your staff to educate the patients/clients. Maintain awareness in the practice that an educated patient/client is a more compliant patient/client and one who is much more likely to refer new people to your practice.

Participate in our Discussion Forum! Check out the Silkin Facebook Page BY CLICKING HERE.

Larry Silver
President Silkin

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Friday, April 3, 2009

A SIMPLE MEANS OF INTERNAL MARKETING

In my last Blog, I discussed some points on internal marketing and the importance of properly handling a new patient or client when they walk in the door for the first time. In this article I will further discuss marketing, but address a simple means of how you get patients in the door in the first place.

In today's economic climate a great deal can be said for the benefits of marketing effectively. There are many mediums for marketing a practice - referrals from existing patients/clients is normally the best and most cost effective means of getting new patients/clients. External marketing such as the Internet, business directories, new resident mailings, bus benches, Valpacks and even the local newspaper, radio and TV have worked for some. Some form of one or more of these has proven to be successful in various markets, but not all of them are effective in all markets. Given all this, it is vitally important to know how your new patients/clients are finding out about you and, based upon this, focusing your marketing dollars in the most effective areas.

Somewhere on your new patient/client form there should be a little line that says, "How did you find out about our practice?" (If you don't have this line on your new patient/client form, you should institute it right away.) Some offices have little check boxes that mention their various marketing activities and others just offer a blank line to be filled in. However you do it, the purpose of this line is for your new patients/clients to tell you which of your marketing tools have been most effective. This is vital information for your promotional and marketing activities, as long as you do something with it. Unfortunately many doctors don't use this information properly.

In fact, the last poll taken in our on-line journal "Solutions Magazine",showed that 54% of those responding said that they "did nothing" with the information that they got from this question on their forms. At the same time, our current poll shows 43% stating that they are increasing the amount of marketing they are doing to counteract the down turn in the economy. The poll data seems to support that "marketing for new patients/clients" is important to practice owners but the importance of tracking effectiveness of marketing seems to be missing.

So let's take up "effectiveness of marketing" as a running theme and discover how it might be used. A simple starting point would be to actually use the data you have already gathered by doing a quick break down of where your new patients/clients came from for the past 6 to 12 months. Assign your front desk person the task of reviewing the files of all your new patients/clients and tabulate their responses to the question concerning what brought them to your office. Once the tabulation is done, have this staff member provide you with a summary of this information - i.e. "45% came from referrals, 20% came from new resident mailings, 10% from Yellow Pages ad, etc." Using the results from this summary, locate the area/s that seems to be providing you with the most new patients/clients. Do not be surprised if "referred by a friend or relative" shows up as the number one item - in fact you should be surprised if it doesn't.

At this point, inspect your marketing budget. By this is meant, what do you spend to make sure people know how to find your practice? How much are you spending on your half-page ad in the phone book and how many new patients/clients came from that? What kind of materials do you have to stimulate referrals? Examine each area that you are spending your marketing dollars on and what your return is on those dollars. You'll then want to invest more heavily in the area/s that are giving you the most return, taking into account the cost effectiveness of each activity. For example, if "referrals" is your number one draw, and the Yellow Page ad is not producing much, how can you shift your Yellow Page dollars into more support activities for referrals? As an example, creating a "Refer a friend or family member" card might be one way to start.

To summarize:

1. Have a means to know where your new patients/clients are coming from;
2. Don't ignore this data - tabulate and evaluate the information;
3. Invest your marketing budget in the most effective areas based upon the data you gather;
4. Regularly re-assess this information and adjust your marketing plans and investments accordingly.


If you do the above regularly and religiously, you'll find a steady increase of new patients/clients coming in your door.

Participate in our Discussion Forum! Check out the Silkin Facebook Page BY CLICKING HERE.

Larry Silver
President Silkin Management Group

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Wednesday, April 1, 2009

THE TWO SIDES TO MARKETING YOUR PRACTICE

I was reading an article today in USA Today about internet and email marketing. It is an interesting piece about the use of emails and other internet marketing methods to bring in new business. I think you'll get something out of reading it. To access this article click here.

This brought to mind taking a look at what happens with new patients or clients when they walk in the door - i.e. what their initial experience is with your office and how they will or will not be properly converted to an active patient or client. My point in this blog is that there can be two sides to marketing - what you do to get someone new in the door, and then what their experience is once they walk in the door. The information below concerns the later.

The facts are that a new marketing idea that is creating new people coming into your office can completely fall apart as soon as the new patient or client walks through the front door. The subject I am referring to is the lost art of customer service and the customer experience. The graciousness that a new patient/client coming into an office feels as he or she first walks in the door can make a huge difference in whether they will actually proceed with any recommended treatment plan. Your technical skill and all the fancy new equipment that you just leased for your practice is for naught if the new patient/client that just found your practice is not comfortable with you, any of your staff and/or feels ignored.

The customer experience can fall down at any point in a practice. We have seen it all too often that a treatment plan that was well explained to a client by the doctor was completely sabotaged by the Tech that had no authority to alter the treatment plan. We have seen the overly chatty chair side assistant that was “Just trying to make the patient more comfortable” completely talk the patient out of the chair to go get his or her dental work done elsewhere. In my own experience, I have had an office manager turn me away because she was unable to handle my questions regarding payment options for the services I needed. All of these situations can be easily handled with good coaching on the subject of customer service.

A good experiment for any practice owner to do is to walk outside his or her practice and close his or her eyes for a moment. Have the doctor or owner get the idea that he or she is a brand new patient or client and then have them walk into the practice. Get the idea of that brand new patient or client arriving to the practice on time for their appointment. Now, having that idea firmly in mind, walk in the front door and look around. What is your first impression? What do you see? How does the practice look? What is the staff doing? What do you hear? What odors linger in the office? Each and every person that is walking in your front door is unconsciously assessing all of these perceptions. Having other staff do the same experiment can be very beneficial as well. Have them jot down their observations and present them for discussion in your next staff meeting. What solutions can the team come up with to address these issues? If you really want to get an unbiased assessment, ask a friend or relative who is not known to the staff to call in and set an appointment and to note down how they were handled. Then have them come in for their appointment and go through the normal new patient routing in procedures. When they are done, have them honestly evaluate their experience as a new patient. Go over all the positives and negatives with your staff. Reinforce the positives – see how you could do more of these things. And, of course, address and fix the negative points that come up. Note all these points down and review and reevaluate them in a few months to make sure you are improving.

In this economy, the individual practice owner can ill afford to waste even one customer experience. Each customer that leaves with a bad impression of the practice is costly in terms of production and potential word of mouth. A very famous phrase in customer service jargon is “Nothing gets talked about more than a bad customer experience.” In fact marketing people have determined that a happy customer tells 1-3 people about his experience while a dissatisfied customer tells 7-10 people about it. It is a key datum for managers in any industry to keep in mind when assessing weak points of service in business. By making “Customer Service” the motto of your practice, you will ensure that the marketing dollars that you are spending to attract new patients and clients will be well spent and result in patients/clients returning to your practice for their health care needs.

If you have any feedback on this, let us know by visiting our discussion forum at the Silkin Facebook Page.

Larry Silver
President, Silkin

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Friday, March 13, 2009

WHAT ACTIONS SHOULD YOU TAKE DURING THIS RECESSION?

I mentioned in my last blog that I would give you an article we wrote several months ago for our clients and prospective clients that addresses both a viewpoint and specific actions one should be looking at during tough economic times like these. We feel that it is still relevant, even if written some months ago. If you have any feedback on this, let us know by visiting our discussion forum at: Facebook.

Larry Silver
President, Silkin



Not a day goes by without more information coming to light regarding the economic situation we are all experiencing in this country and around the world.

It is very clear that we are now seeing the very obvious signs of a national recession, despite whatever spin may be put on it by the politicians from both sides of the aisle. This crisis is not limited to the finance sectors or the housing market and is effecting many people and numerous businesses. It is likely to get worse before it gets any better, and as the economic problems go deep, it could possibly be as much as a decade before we’re able to fully recover.

That’s what’s happening today.

Silkin has worked with health care professionals for over 25 years and during that time, we’ve seen several periods of economic difficulty with different names attached to them. Some called them recessions, some called them "stagflation", as well as a variety of other names. Whatever cute label one wants to attach to tough economic times, there is no fooling people with the fact that the economy in general, and their specific economic situation is far from ideal. And today, some economists are stating that this is the worst economic situation since the Great Depression of the 1930’s.

During a recessionary period such as this we oftentimes see practitioners "tightening up", meaning they manage through fear, worry, and reduction. Promotional efforts are decreased and doctors often let go of staff. They may cut corners and consequently the quality of their service may begin to suffer. It’s a proven fact that doctors who act in this manner will begin to lose some portion of their patient base. This can make it a perfect time for doctors who don’t succumb to such thinking to capture more market share and increase their productivity.

Our clients generally thrive during recessions because they know what to do. They’ve learned how to manage their practices through objective means. They know how to effectively market without it costing an arm and a leg. We’ve been through three of these economic downturns/recessions and we’ve seen how our clients are able to take advantage of the situation rather than be the adverse effect of it. In fact, a recent survey of our clients showed that our clients who are trained and skilled in practice management have been increasing their productivity by 10% to 15% during those years the nation has been in recession. And this includes all socioeconomic areas of the country. This type of growth is generally not true for the average practice owner. In fact recent industry surveys have shown an average decrease of 10% to 15% for the average practice during the recessionary period we are now experiencing.

Our clients thrive because they are able to prepare for down economic periods. They make realistic plans based on objective data and systematically hire, train and monitor staff efforts in alignment with a business plan, marketing plan and financial plan. They know how to closely monitor all of the key areas of the practice and thus are in control of the practice. They know if they are understaffed or overstaffed, or if they have under utilized staff. They have efficient systems that keep "busy work" off their desks and don’t have a desk full of backlogged activities. This is called running good control over your practice. And that doesn’t mean, as some people think, that it results in not having fun at work or not having relaxed staff people or having people obsess constantly over profit instead of paying attention to people and service. It simply means that you know what is going on in your practice, that your staff know their jobs and work well as a team together and, because of that, you and your staff enjoy the work environment much more.

Objective systems are the components that allow staff people to remain calm and competent. When they know their jobs inside and out, it allows them to respond creatively to unique and unanticipated situations. It allows them to be calm and composed even when work backs up or the amount of office traffic increases greatly. Staff become accountable and self motivated because their work is measured by objective statistics. They are productive rather than just busy. Prior to the current economic situation, we have seen a large percentage of practices and businesses supported and inflated by the bullish economy. It normally does not take superior management skill to grow during such periods. Now that credit is less available and people have less disposal income, it becomes obvious which offices have the management skill and resulting infrastructure capable of handling the change. It isn’t enough to do the same old thing. Every income source must be maximized and must be maximized with the best interest of the patient in mind. Staff must be able to communicate the importance of delivering the highest quality of care without seeming to be solely motivated by profit.

Everyday we work with practice owners to put together proper business, marketing and financial plans and help them properly implement those plans in a time frame that allows the creation of a stable infrastructure. We do this so practice owners are able to grow and thrive in a sane manner, during either good times or bad. To survive any activity, you must be trained and knowledgeable in that activity. You wouldn’t be an effective doctor if you weren’t adequately trained in your profession. It is no different in terms of managing a practice.

The business environment is very tough right now. The better you are trained in practice management, the better you will be able to not only survive this economic crisis, but to actually be able to expand during these difficult times. You can accomplish this if you approach management training with the same dedication as your professional training. That's what Silkin does. Feel free to contact us if you wish to discuss this further. We can be reached through our website at: www.silkinmanagementgroup.com, or emailing us at info@silkinmanagementgroup.com, or calling 800-695-0257.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Goals Gone Wild

Catchy title, wouldn't you say? That's what I thought when I saw it at this blog describing a recent Harvard Business School study which you can find at blogs.ft.com "Goals gone wild -- and how to tame them". The title caught my attention and got me to read the blog. Unfortunately the blog was not as interesting and catchy as it's title. But the point is that it got me to read the article.

What this brought to mind was a marketing concept that we teach our clients. Before I go into that concept, let me say that good marketing is an extremely important activity during this economic downturn. In fact in my next blog I will give you a recent article we wrote for our clients and prospective clients that directly addresses why marketing is so important during bad economic times. In the meanwhile I'll simply point out that during a down economy most businesses cut back on marketing because they feel that they can't afford it. In actual fact, what you have to do during a recessionary period is at least as much, if not MORE marketing than you've done before. If you don't, you'll continue the downslide that many businesses find themselves in - it's truly a dwindling spiral. Again, more on that in our next blog.

Now, relative to the cute "goals gone wild" title I presented above - if you read the article you'll notice that the article is at best only somewhat interesting to a select group of business people. None-the-less the title was clever enough to catch most people's attention and get you to read on. So, what's that have to do with marketing? A lot.

We teach our clients to survey their client and patient base on a variety of subjects ranging from why they chose this particular office to how the service was. From doing correct surveys one can easily find out the primary answer to the subject of that particular survey. The primary answer can then get translated into a marketing "button" - meaning a phrase that instantly captures the attention of the great majority of people looking at it. It is a marketing rule that you have less than a second to capture your audience's attention from a marketing piece to get them to read on. So getting the right "button" is extremely important in order to get the person to then read what your message is and become interested in what you are trying to say. For example, if you were a chiropracter and you surveyed your patient base as to what successes they had with your service and found out that 55% of your patients said you cured their headaches. You would then design your "button" around headaches and come up with a catchy button that grabbed their attention. Just like "Goals Gone Wild".

If you have any feedback on this, let us know by visiting our discussion forum at Silkin Facebook Page.

More on the economy and marketing in our next blog.


Larry Silver
President, Silkin

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Tuesday, March 3, 2009

THERE IS FISCAL SANITY IN MISSOURI: You can do the same.

In my never ending reading and research to keep up to date on what is going on with our economy and the myriad of solutions being presented, I ran across this fascinating blog in BizJournals - "Mo. lawmakers want to reject part of stimulus" The state of Missouri actually turned down $133 million dollars from the Federal Government that is part of the stimulus package. No, they didn't turn it down because their coffers were full - in fact their coffers are far from full. The state is in just as much budgetary difficulties as most any other state in the union. But what they so aptly observed was that taking the $133 million required, with all the strings attached, a commitment to further expenditures that they could not afford. They refused to take a short term "fix" that would end in in further long term difficulties. Hooray for the Missouri legislators for understanding that there truly is no "free lunch".

This parallels an article I read last week about an ambassador from an African country who stated boldly that she was adamantly against her country continuing to receive economic aid from the United States. She pointed out that her country had been receiving this aid for decades and it had done little to nothing to improve her country - rather she felt that it hurt her country greatly. Why? Because there was no incentive for her country to figure out ways for her country to stand on its own two feet and develop their economy. A great deal of the money ended up in the pockets of the rulers and little ended up helping the population.

These two stories reminded me of a basic management and financial philosophy that we teach our clients: rewarding production will get you more production while, similarly, rewarding lack of production will simply get you more of the same. We teach and provide bonus systems for staff that provide incentives for each staff member and the office as a whole to be more productive. Done correctly we regularly see significant increases in individual and office wide production and greater net for the practice owner. Using these bonus systems we've seen entire staff's take trips to Hawaii or Mexico with each staff member making more money and the doctor/owner greatly increasing his net and take home. Everybody wins.
They win because production is being incentivized and rewarded. It works!

So, if you want to control your own economy during this recession, if you want to provide your own economic stimulus package try implementing bonus systems that reward individual and office wide production and you'll see production increase.
We'd love to hear from anyone who has tried such bonus systems and hear what has worked best for you. Go to our discussion forum at: Silkin Facebook Page.

Larry Silver
President, Silkin
http://www.Silkinmanagementgroup.com

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

More On Surveying

Surveys can save you time and wasted effort. By properly utilizing surveys, you will not be shooting in the dark when you implement a new idea. You will not be left wondering why people are not coming back to your practice. You will KNOW what your publics need and want, so you can provide just that.

Have you ever come up with a “great” new idea, implemented it, and when nothing significant or productive occurred as a result, found yourself tearing out your hair wondering what went wrong? Or even worse, tearing out the hair of your staff because “New patients are down!”

Have you conversely wondered, pondered and meditated over why new patients have dropped off even though you’re doing the same things you have always done for 20 years? It might well be that the things you’ve been doing for 20 years are no longer appropriate. These scenarios are likely due to failure to survey.

There are answers to marketing problems that you simply cannot procure from any source other than your patients themselves. The motto in marketing is “know before you go”, which is done by surveying.

A sample survey is given at the end of this article to illustrate what a survey should look like.

CONSTRUCTING THE SURVEY

Although surveys will vary practice to practice, there are some guidelines to follow:

1.Indicate to your patient WHY you are doing a survey and thank them for participating.

2.Ask only relevant questions in your survey. Restrict your questions to important factors that will actually TELL you


3.Keep the survey BRIEF. Write the survey so that it takes no more than 3-5 minutes to complete. If the survey is too long patients may feel annoyed, overburdened, bored or will not respond.

4.Construct a survey that asks for specific answers. Create questions that provide you with information rather than having only “yes” or “no” answers.


5.Allow patients the option to remain anonymous if they so choose.

6.Provide a way for them to receive a response to their questions or input if they desire.

7.If appropriate, set a deadline for the receipt of the surveys. Tell participants why you have a deadline and when it is.

8.Graciously thank your patients for taking their time to fill out the survey.

9.For mail-out surveys, include a self-addressed stamped envelope. Recipients will be much more likely to send it back to you.


DISTRIBUTING & PERFORMING THE SURVEY

Surveys can be done in person, handed to patients to fill out while in the office, done over the phone or done via the mail or email. If the survey is done in person or over the phone, ensure that whoever is doing the survey fully understands the questions and why the survey is being done.

TABULATING THE SURVEYS

1. If you do not receive an adequate number of responses (an adequate response being enough surveys to see a clear majority in the answers, at minimum 30 responses) by the stated deadline, increase your sampling or extend your deadline. An inadequate response will give you a poor measure of patient trends.

2. Collect all survey results and tabulate each question by tallying responses. People’s answers can vary on open-ended questions, in which case you should group similar responses together. An example would be if your survey question was “Describe the perfect dentist”. If in response to this question 5% of the people surveyed said “happy”, 5% said “cheerful” and 10% said “always smiling”, these could all be grouped together in one category as they are all a similar response.

3. Once you have the raw number tallies of people’s responses, change these tallies into percents based on the total number of surveys done.

4. Ensure that you promptly respond to any requests for a personal response.

5. At a staff meeting, discuss the areas of the practice that are indicated to be in need of change.

The information gathered from doing the above is extremely valuable in deciding
what you provide and how you promote and present that.


www.silkinmanagementgroup.com
www.solutionsmags.com
http://www.silkinmanagementgrouppressroom.com/

The Second Step: Starting Your Surveys

Surveying is vital to any successful marketing campaign. Surveying takes the mystery out of anything because it enables you to get a very specific idea of what works and what doesn’t work when selling a product or service. It also helps you isolate your publics and enables you to find out more data about them.


Surveying comes in many shapes and forms. The definition of a survey is:


SURVEY means ‘a careful examination of something as a whole and in detail.”


You might not know it, but you have immediate access to survey information from data that you have been collecting for quite some time. This survey information will tell you who your current publics are and, the great thing is, all the information is in your patient files.


If you have a computer database of patient information, gathering this data will be quite easy. If you only have physical files it might take longer, but is still worth it.


This action requires you to pull information from these patient records. To save time, you only need to look at your new patient files for the past few months as this should give you a good idea of your overall patient base.


Have your office manager collect the information from the files as to age, education, occupation, gender, income and location. This information should be laid out as a tally in different categories. Then put the raw numbers into percentages using the total number of patient files that were gone through. An example of what this might look like is as follows:


(One hundred patient files were used for this)

Age

Under 10

10-18

18-35

35-55

55+

8%

20%

30%

30%

12%

Occupation

Office Worker

Business

Educator

Service Industry

Artists

Medical

Retired

15%

26%

6%

13%

10%

14%

11%


Gender

Male Female

65% 35%



Location

Bonkersville

Sumner

South East Connerstown

Sheridan

70%

10%

10%

10%


Having this data will help you see exactly who you have as current patients. This data will help you target the areas that are bringing you the most business. For example, based on this data it would be valuable to send out a promotional piece that targets well-educated males in Bonkersville between the ages of 18-55.


Doing the above is not the only survey action you will do, but it is a fast and effective means of locating valuable publics for you to start targeting.

www.silkinmanagementgroup.com
www.solutionsmags.com
http://www.silkinmanagementgrouppressroom.com/


The First Step To A Successful Marketing Campaign: Research

To craft a successful marketing campaign for your practice you must first do some basic research actions that will start to isolate what your marketing plan and your promotional pieces will look like and what message they should deliver. The first step in your research is to work out what general mind-set and styles dominate your particular geographic area. Every state, city, town or area has its own mindset and styles that are unique to that place. If you have lived in the area where you practice, chances are you know the mind-set and general styles well. Additionally it is smart to check with others from the area to make sure your opinion coincides with the general consensus. If you are new to the area, ask locals as they generally have a good idea.


Some examples have been given below to give you an idea of what one might list as the mind-set and styles for their area.


Example #1:

Mind-set: “Slow and steady pace”

Friendly”

Easy going”

Style: Earthy.

Lots of greens and whites used in colors.

Old fashioned.


Example #2:

Mind-set: “Efficient and Professional”

Friendly”

Straight to the point”

Style: Modern and Edgy.

Lots of blues used in colors.

High-tech.


Next, find out what the top three practices are in your area and find out how they market themselves. Doing this will enable you to see what marketing approaches have been successful for your area. Looking at your three competitors’ websites is a good start, as well as looking in the Yellow Pages, local newspapers, Valpak/ADVO, etc. to see how they are marketing. Look for what words they are using to sell people, what offers they are putting forward and what their designs look like.


The next step is to isolate what successful campaigns or promotional pieces you have created and used thus far. You want to look for any promotional pieces, slogans, brochures, ads, internal marketing campaigns, discounts, and word of mouth success that resulted in notable increases in delivery. Again, look at what words were used, what offers were being put forward and what the design looked like. It is also good to look at the general demographics of your area. A good website that provides this for free is: http://www.city-data.com Gathering this data should enable you to get a good idea both of what worked for you and what works for other similar professionals in your area. It also provides you with a general idea of what people in your area like and will respond to.


This basic homework will provide you a foundation of information that can be used as you work out new marketing campaigns whether internal or external.


www.silkinmanagementgroup.com
www.solutionsmags.com