It is all over the headlines—corporate greed leads to lost jobs and financial ruin. Leading economists have opinions. Polls and surveyors say people do not trust big business anymore. Broadcast and newspaper journalists are predicting dire times ahead. Patients are talking about it. Practice employees are wondering if their job could be at risk from your financial mismanagement.

Believe it or not the issue is not simply finance, nor greed, nor plain ole' stupidity. The issue is what the business really produces that people need and or want. The executives of these companies lost sight of what they were doing for customers and consumers.

The truth is that every business or practice has a result or item that it produces in exchange for money and goodwill. Some businesses get so caught up in ways to "make" money without getting a result for the consumer that they actually forget why they are there and what they are doing! This not only occurs at executive levels, but also right down to the level of janitor or sterilizer.

If the scheduling coordinator calls a patient to remind them of their scheduled appointment tomorrow but does not actually talk to the patient and only leaves a message the she is guilty of forgetting why she is there.

If the receptionist is so busy that she barely acknowledges the presence of a patient who has arrived for their appointment, then she is guilty of forgetting why she is there.

If the dental assistant ignores the tray setup and brings in a tray for

a crown when you are doing a root canal then she is guilty of forgetting why she is there.

If you tell a patient that they need a crown and then tell them that it is okay to wait until their insurance covers it next year then you are guilty of forgetting why you are there.

To say that frequent forgetting about the result only occurs in a large corporation is not true. Only the frequency of forgetting determines the profitable exchange of results or items for money.

To address the problem one needs to understand what causes the problem. There are a few causes; they are finite in quantity.

The single biggest factor is not having the employees initially oriented and trained to do what you want them to do. Then not following this up with on-the-job training with specific examples of actions they have done correctly and incorrectly.

The next big factor is not constantly and consistently communicating with all employees what results you expect from them and what results the patients expect from them. This includes each step of the process of handling a patient with every action they do connected to what result it achieves throughout the organization.

New clients tell us that the biggest factor is what is going on in the employees' private life. This is not true. The biggest are the above. But what can you do when it appears that the personal situation is the factor?

Still continue to do the above. Having the work aspect of life as the stable aspect of life can overcome many personal situations. There are some situations that totally overwhelm your employees, but this is generally a small percentage of occurrence, relatively short lived, and can be addressed on an individual basis as they occur.

What to tell a staff member who is worried about the economy, about the big corporations failing, about their job? Tell them that if they are well trained to do their jobs including the internal marketing aspects of caring about each patient and helping each patient feel important in each aspect of their job (yes even on collections), they will never have to worry about having a job. Also, if they make the time to learn how to do these things better and look at what they do with patients as if they were the patient, they will always get good results.

What they "forget" about getting results on their job with people will come back to haunt them!

At Pacific Management we specialize in helping you get yourself and your team operating towards results with all patients in all areas of the practice. If you are having any difficulties in reaching your goals as a practitioner, business owner, or manager you should call us.

Existing clients should call their consultant, and those who have never received help from us should call for a practice analysis.

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