Owning your own practice is full of amazing opportunities, and many potential pitfalls. You may constantly be searching for different ways that you can grow your practice, but have you stopped to think about what you could be doing wrong? Here’s five of the biggest mistakes practice owners make, and what you should do instead.
Not delegating enough
As the group practice owner, delegating tasks is vital to your practice’s growth. Delegating will give you time and energy to do more important tasks, like seeing clients.
It can also empower your team. Everyone has their own set of skills and expertise, and finding the right person to do the job better than you makes for a win-win situation. You get the job done correctly, and the other party gets to grow in their abilities and responsibilities and makes them feel like an important part of the team.
Not delegating can lead to burnout. Burnout can cause exhaustion, a lack of motivation, irritability, and even health problems. These will all have a negative effect on the success of your practice.
Assuming patients will come to you
A lot of practice owners assume, since they’re providing a needed service, that patients will come when the practice opens for business. While you may get some business from this, it’s a passive way to think about your practice’s growth..
Take on a more active role in seeking out patients by creating a solid marketing plan (which you can outsource), asking existing patients for referrals, and finding a way to build your online reviews.
Being unaware of the numbers
Financial planning stirs up a lot of uncomfortable emotions for many of us. The stress and fear that’s tied to how we think about money often runs very deep. But in order to make important business decisions, you need to be aware of your revenue and expenses.
Keep track of things with a profit and loss statement. This will get you the objective information you need to forecast future revenues and expenses and create an accurate, informed budget.
Hiring the wrong team members
Whoever you hire will be a direct representation of your practice. When you hire the wrong team members, it can create a negative work environment and lead to less patients and a lack of efficiency.
To combat this, look into your hiring process. Make sure you clearly define what your goals and values are. This will allow you to really dig deeper into potential employees to see if they would be a good fit. It’s important that your team gets along to encourage a positive, successful environment.
Not having a strong front desk
The front desk is the backbone of your business. It’s where patients form their first impression of your practice, describe their problems, and seek information. If your front desk isn’t functioning properly, your business will never grow.
A quick and easy solution to this is UPbook. We help health care practices turn more calls into appointments, quickly growing their active patients, revenue, and profitability. We offer complete phone systems plus a front desk evaluation and reward software..
