Say No!

 ~Warren Buffett

Do you ever feel like you are being pulled in a 100 different directions?  You are constantly confronted with challenges that need to be overcome in your practice.  When you talk to your team they are flooding your minds with requests; we need more space, better equipment, better reimbursement, more pay.  

With good intent, you are reading articles and books, attending conferences, and talking to colleagues. Your mind gets flooded with more ideas, possible strategies and solutions to improve your business. 

With nearly 19 years as a private practice owner, and 22 years in a leadership role, I have learned that running a good practice is actually quite simple. The difficult part is getting clear and focused and blocking out distractions.  Our minds are naturally drawn to what is complex.  Simple solutions seem too easy; we feel there is no way such simplicity could yield good results.   

In our practice we have two themes to help us all to stay focused and avoid distraction.  

Our practice theme is, “You Matter.” As a team, I want to focus on the value of all team members – clinical, business, support personnel and our patients. It is about personal transformation; making an impact and building a strong community.  At the end of our lives, we will look back on our careers and remember the relationships, the impact, the personal and professional growth we experienced.  We will not look at our bank accounts.  

Our leadership team is “Clarity = Focus.”  By gaining clarity, we are able to make data-driven decisions and track positive results.  We are focusing on the “Schedule.”  If a topic is not relevant to filling the schedule, it is not worthy of discussion.  We have chosen the schedule for our Clarity and Focus target due to the immediate impact of revenue, cash flow and compensation for our team members.  

We had considered other areas of focus for our leadership team; negotiation of insurance contracts, developing a hybrid cash/insurance model, and implementation of MIPS tracking outcomes data to increase Medicare payments.  We concluded that a focus on the schedule would yield a better return at this particlar season of our business journey.

We are saying a big fat NO to everything else!