Join us May 2 for our next Virtual Seminar.

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Mike Perusich: Hi, everybody. Mike Perusich, David Kats, Patrick Hammond with Kats Consultants. You know, guys, I have a funny one for you today. I was talking to a doctor the other day. He's actually not a client, but I was talking to a doctor the other day. He said, "I'm really having trouble getting patients to stay on their treatment plans." He said, "In fact, I do a great exam and then I do a report of findings and then they never come back." I said, "Well, what do you see to be in the report findings?" He said, "Well, I go through and tell them, 'Here's your back pain and I understand what's going on with your back pain and here's why you're having it. Here's what we can do for it.' And then I turned to him and I say, 'How many times do you want to come in?'

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They go to the front desk and they never come back." You know, we've all learned this, but we have to be very directive with our patients because when they come in, they're looking at us as the...

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Speaker 1: Hi everybody. Mike Perusich David Kats. Patrick Hammond with Kats Consultants thanks for joining us today. We've talked about reputation management before but what happens if you get a bad review? What do you do?

Speaker 2: The first thing I would suggest you do is not panic. We have clients that call us and they'd get total panicked because they got 15 positive reviews and now they got one negative review and there's this statement I like to use. It's not the most positive statement. It says nothing is ever as good as you think it's going to be and nothing is ever as bad as you think it's going to be. One bad review or two bad reviews is not going to put you on the skids. You'll be fine.

Speaker 1: That's absolutely right. An important thing to do is to answer the review. You have an opportunity to basically rebuke the review. You can put out there how maybe if somebody who didn't like your charges, how you collect money in your office and you can write a...

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Mike Perusich: Hi, everybody, Mike Perusich and Patrick Hammond with Kats Consultants. Patrick, one of the things that I think builds doctor authority is having calm determination. Let's talk about that a little bit today.

Patrick Hammond: Yes, you just can't become too reactive to good, and bad, and everything in the middle. If a patient states that they're feeling better, you don't go, "Wow, that's great," or if they feel a little worse, you go, "Oh, boy."

Mike: "Don't know why that happened."

Patrick: Right. You got to have that calm determination. You got to understand where they're coming from, but also be prepared for different things that can happen throughout your day.

Mike: That's right. There's lots of things that can happen. When you're dealing with the public and you're in a healthcare situation, you can have all kinds of emergencies, for example. I can give you a great example that happened in my office one time. I had an elderly...

From the Desk of Dr. Michael Perusich

The Luck of the Irish

Happy St. Patrick’s day!  The annual day of green not only brings about ideas of good cheer and fun, but it also makes me think about finances, and the “green” of success.

This is a great time of year to really be thinking about the success path that you are on with your practice and your personal life. Being the end of the first quarter, this is a good time to reflect on your goals that you set at the beginning of the year. Analyze whether you are on track or need to make some first quarter adjustments.  

It’s also a great time to analyze your cash flow.  By now, you should have a good idea as to how insurance is paying you this year.  How does it compare to last year? On which services have they decided to cut your fees?  How much of your care recommendations will patients be paying out of pocket in 2019? These are important questions that can tremendously affect your...

Time for an Update

By Dr. Michael Perusich, President Kats Consultants

Have you noticed lately that it seems that almost every business has a newly updated and current look?  From fast-food restaurants to the local dry cleaner, businesses are finding value in freshening up their look.

And it makes sense.  A new look means you are current with today’s trends, styles, and services.  The fast food restaurant may be serving the same burgers, but new paint and furniture on the inside and a fresh facade on the outside keeps them attractive to patrons.

The reason is today’s consumer finds value in having a complete experience.  They are attracted to services, vendors, and companies that look and feel current.  Take for example the food truck. These novelty vendors are sweeping the country with their new twist on fast food service.  It’s unique, it’s novel, it’s fun. And it represents a new way of doing business for the restaurant...

Michael Perusich: Hi, everybody. Mike Perusich, Patrick Hammond and David Kats with Kats Consultants. Thanks for joining us today. Guys, I thought we talked a little bit today about setting the pace in our clinics. As the doctor and owner of the practice, we really should be setting the pace, being the example leader, lead by example if you will, in the practice as the owner of the practice. How do you guys do that?

David Kats: Go ahead.

Patrick Hammond: Okay. Mine is, I get there early. I think you set the tone. If you can walk in late, you're already behind for the day. You get there early, you walk in with a positive body language, you're ready to rock and roll. You got to set that tone so your staff says, "Oh man, Dr. Hammond, he's raising up the day, right?" But if you come in and go, "Hey, what's up," low key, it's already setting the tone. You got to set the tone about high pace and be ready to go. Then when that first patient comes in you got to be all smiles, you got to...

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Mike: Hi, everybody. I'm Mike Perusich, Patrick Hammond, David Kats with Kats Consultants. Thanks for listening today. David, you had a topic you wanted to talk about today.

David: Yes. One of the things that I have found in consulting, I found it quite by accident, was that if your no-show rate is high enough, your practice will plateau regardless of what size practice you have. Before the age of computers, I hate to say this, maybe when the computers were just starting, we took our client stats and we laid them out in a long row and we looked at their no-show rate. Some people had a no-show rate of nearly 50% and some people had a no-show rate of about 7%. What we found is if you went to about 13%, anybody that has a no-show rate of less than 13% was growing, and anybody that had a no-show rate of more than 13% was plateaued or possibly even going downhill.

The way you figure that out, you see how many patients were supposed to be here today, and then how many patients...