Michigan Passes Legislation to License Physical Therapist Assistants

Michigan Passes Legislation to License Physical Therapist Assistants

Michigan is now the 48th state to regulate PTAs, according to the Michigan Physical Therapy Association (MPTA).

Owners' Summer Roundtable Event 2009

Owners' Summer Roundtable Event 2009
It is about marketing, public relations, promotion, referrals, more new patients, higher numbers and success!

At the Owner’s Conference held in December 2008 we asked the group if they would be interested in getting together again in about 6 months instead of waiting till the end of the year and the answer was “YES!”

So, you asked for it and here it is – the Owner’s Summer Roundtable Event!

This event is a three day series of roundtable discussions hosted by some of our most successful clients. You said that you wanted to hear from other private practice owners and so that is what we are giving you at this event. Modeled after the outstanding presentations hosted in December, these roundtables will address the areas of marketing, public relations, fundamentals of promotion and much more. If you didn’t attend the event in December please check out the earlier posts on this blog to see what you missed.

In all 12-15 topics will be presented by our clients with ample time for discussion, question & answer periods and networking.

Additionally there is time built into the event for everyone to work out a PR & Marketing Campaign that will end 2009 with a BANG!

The Summer Roundtable starts on Monday July 13th at 9am and lasts until 4:30pm on Wednesday the 15th. The agenda for each day is being finalized and the schedule is 9am until 5pm except for the last day. This event is exclusively for our Executive Training clients.

The event will be held in sunny Clearwater, Florida at Measurable Solutions. As usual, we have corporate deals with local hotels compliments of our always hard working Joanne Wheaton so bring the family and make a vacation out of it!

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Physical Therapists Advocate for Access to Rehabilitative Services on Capitol Hill

Two hundred physical therapists, physical therapist assistants, and students of physical therapy marched on Capitol Hill Tuesday to educate lawmakers about the critical need for patients to have improved access to physical therapy services. The group -- members of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) -- conducted approximately 350 visits with Representatives and Senators.

Physical Therapists Advocate for Access to Rehabilitative Services on Capitol Hill

New Patients Requesting the Owner to Treat Them, What to Say

An owner has many responsibilities beyond patient care. Since the owner is often known in the physician community is it sometimes difficult as the clinic expands and one hires more clinical staff to reduce his or her clinical hours.

Many times patients will call in and ask for the owner but their condition may not really require the owner’s assistance but since the docs consider that the owner is the same as the practice in many ways, it becomes quite difficult to reduce the clinical hours so that the owner can take the helm of his or her ship.

Here is how I’d recommend your Reception handle calls from New Patients requesting to be seen by the owner:

Patient: “The Doctor told me to see Owner.”
Receptionist: “Owner is very busy running the practice on a day-to-day basis and has a very limited schedule when he sees patients. Fortunately, owner also only hires the very best physical therapists to work with him AND he has a firm policy that if after 3 visits working with one on his other physical therapists if you are not happy with your care he will personally move you over to his limited schedule.”

If the patient persists in seeing me:

Patient: “I really need to see owner.”
Receptionist: “Sure. I can schedule you on owner however he does not have a very flexible schedule and as long as your schedule is flexible perhaps we can work it out. Would you like mornings or afternoons?”
Patient: “Afternoons.”
Receptionist: “I’m sorry but owner only sees patients from 8-10 daily. Can I schedule you at that time?
Patient: “Sure.” (Go ahead and schedule as the openings allow.)
or
Patient: “No. I really need afternoons.”
Receptionist: “Let me go ahead and schedule you onto PT (name). She is very good, patients love her and she is one of our best. I will let owner know that you preferred him and I will see to it that he introduces himself to you and makes this transition as smooth as possible. Okay?”
Patient: “Sure. Let’s do that.” (Go ahead and schedule on another)

NOTE: If any patient who requests the owner is placed upon another PT please make a note next to their name that they requested the owner so that he or she may introduce themselves and ease the patient’s concern and to let them know that their PT will take excellent care of them.

Where Am I Losing Money In My Practice?

In the past 11 years since I started consulting private practice physical therapists, I have heard it all. Everything from competition to managed care as reasons why it's hard to create the practice of your dreams. New patients are needed to keep any practice going but it is how you and your staff manage these patients that determines your success in private practice.

Every practice that I have gone into over the years I have been able to increase the bottom line, improve the delivery of care and markedly reduce the confusion in the workplace, but what amazes me most is the amount of lost income from poor handling of the 5 major income generating areas of any practice. I will cover 4 of them.

The actual amount of lost income can be calculated. I will describe where you are very likely losing large amounts of money and why. These areas if handled will help you lose less money in your practice or in other words, make more money.

We are always looking for ways to increase revenue but we seldom address the areas where buckets of money may be slipping from your fingers. It is common to look at the cost of handling a situation in your office but little attention is paid to the fact that not handling a weak area of your practice is costing you way more than what it may cost to solve the problem.

You need to be able to measure the 5 areas and the way to do it is with a statistics. How can you evaluate how close you are getting toward handling any weak area of your practice or enhance an area already doing well if you are not using statistics? We operate off of statistics.

On the following page I will go over 4 of the 5 key areas of lost income within the organization.

We commonly fail to look at what we are currently losing from weak practice management and training of staff.

1. YOU CAN LOSE MONEY WITH POOR SCHEDULE BOOK CONTROL

Ideally, with proper patient control at the front desk and certain procedural actions in place you can achieve a percentage of kept appointments at 95%. To the degree that the control at the front desk is missing or the patients are dictating when they will come in or not, you will be losing money. This is quite honestly an easy fix and can improve your bottom line quite markedly.

2. YOU CAN LOSE MONEY FROM HAVING A POOR COLLECTIONS RATIO

Once you make the adjustment in your production for managed care and other plans you should be collecting 95% of the remainder. Ideally, when calculating your true collection ratio you would use the last six weeks of collections divided by the previous six weeks of production. For a quick assessment, we calculate your collections ratio based upon the data you provide from your last month's production and collections. There are 8 areas if fully handled will put your collections ratio in a whole new range.

3. YOU CAN LOSE MONEY FROM HAVING AN UNTRAINED OR POORLY TRAINED STAFF

Take your average weekly collections divided by the number of full time equivalents (FTE). Don't forget to include the owner's hours and if he or she works 60 hours that is a 1.5 FTE. Every staff member has value to the organization but some are clearly more valuable than others. When you have a staff member that knows what to do, is very efficient in his or her ability to get the job done and somehow motivates others, you know they are worth their weight in gold. What is sometimes difficult to understand is that getting employees to actually do their job with a high degree of productivity is attainable. Every time you hire someone within your organization you should have a certainty as to how much income per week they should bring to the table through their efforts. The average should be somewhere around $3,500 a week for each FTE.

4. YOU CAN LOSE MONEY FROM LACK OF EFFECTIVE MARKETING

This is the number of potential new patients in a month multiplied by the case average minus last month's gross income. This may be hard to accept but a practice that has a very large referral base sending maybe one patient a month is unkillable. Any successful business attempts to capture territory. The more people who buy some goods or services from them the better. The most risky PT practices are the one where 50% of the referral base comes from less than 10 doctors. Upsetting just one of them can be devastating on your business.

If you were able to acquire a base of say 100+ doctors referring only 1-2 patients a month with 35-40 doctors representing 50% of your business you would be much more stable in business and can waste a doctor if he or she is trying to tie your hands or treat you with disrespect and your business will not suffer. There is a way to get this without having to drop doughnuts off at the doctor's door.

It is always surprising to private practice owners when they evaluate just how much money is lost in their organizations. Try determining just how much money you are losing from having the patients controlling your schedule book versus you controlling it at a 95% Kept Appointment rate.

To find out what the 5th key area of lost income is – email me.