Human Resources for Doctors PART 2: The Secret Force

Dear Doctor, there is a force behind the success of those medical groups we admire: the ones who became the best in their fields and are being acquired by private equity funds, allowing the founder(s) to retire in style after years of house calls and relentless service.

This secret force works in two parts:

PART 1: Clearly define the core reason (to its root) why your medical practice exists, which becomes your mission. If your team shares that mission to its core, that creates alignment. That alignment creates a powerful resulting force in the direction you are aiming—as mentioned, your mission.

PART 2: The key to this secret is: Is your core mission aligned with your patient's expectations? (brain explodes.) …

You don't believe me? For those scientific minds, let's talk about physics and the sum of force vectors. Here is scenario one (most likely where you are today):

• Each blue arrow is an employee. The size of each arrow is the amount of force they are moving with. Some employees are very energetic (large force), others are not encouraged enough or don't care (smaller force).

• The black arrow is YOU, and you want to move your practice towards YOUR goal.

In this scenario, where is your practice moving to, and at what speed?

• Considering the sum of all forces at play, the result is the red arrow. That is where your practice is going.

So, the conclusion is:

1. Your practice is not moving where YOU want it to go; it is moving in the direction that results from all employees pushing on their own and based on their belief of where they should be going.

2. You are not aiming toward your patient's expectations. Don't mind if you are just another medical practice in the medical directory.

Here is the desired scenario:

Remember we talked about patient surveys? Those surveys will tell your patients' expectations and what they want, need, desire, and hope. Based on thousands of surveys reviewed, I'll give you a hint – in that order:

1. Time 1: how long did they keep me waiting to be seen?

2. Time 2: how long did the Doctor spend explaining what I wanted to know?

3. Was the staff friendly to me?

4. Was the treatment successful; do I feel better?

Based on knowing what your patient wants:

1. Redefine your Core Mission and include those key patient expectations.

2. Make sure your Core Mission is 100% understood by your staff. Give rewards and bonuses based on the patient survey results and employees performing according to your Core Mission.

And this will happen:

In this case, where is your practice moving to, and at what speed?

Your resulting force (red arrow) and speed will increase exponentially towards your patients' expectations; when this happens, prepare for an expansion.