The Prosperident team does an amazing job of uncovering and assisting you in dealing with the legal issues around embezzlement. You now have this done, are feeling violated, and are not sure how to recover. Now what???
I believe that many doctors sitting in this circumstance continue feeling jaded and rightfully so! But how does this impact the quality of your life moving forward? How does your remaining team, who are also shocked and in disbelief, feel? Do they now think that you look at them distrustfully? The only thing worse than uncovering embezzlement would be then to run your practice the rest of the way into the ground. I am not trying to be crass with these statements, but your next few months will make or break your financial future! Choose wisely!
So what can be done first to rebuild a trusting relationship with your remaining employees and recover from the economic losses?
First, let’s start with the relationships moving forward. Clearly, blindly trusting people has not worked in the past. What I believe a behavioral psychologist would suggest is to “trust and verify.” If you don’t trust at all, you will likely lose the rest of your team and have shallow relationships for the rest of your life. What I have witnessed psychologists suggest is to watch “belief behaviors.” In other words, implement systems and expectations that increase transparency. Does this save you from future problems? No. But it does help to prevent them. Here is a parenting example — you tell your child to be home by midnight. Do you simply go to bed, and not verify or do you stay up regularly in the beginning and periodically over time to create accountability? I would suggest yes. So what expectations can you set and verify within your practice?
Next, how can you recover from the economic losses? The best place to quickly recover and grow your income, savings, and retirement is to focus on Case Acceptance. At AccelerateMyPractice , we teach “consumer psychology.” How do what you call “patients” (which we call “consumers”) make purchase decisions? We believe that you are competing for discretionary spending against Apple and Best Buy. The question is, do you understand the psychology of your patients as well as those consumer product companies do? Sadly, in many cases, the answer is no. The great news is that this isn’t difficult stuff to understand and learn, so don’t let it overwhelm you!
Here is the very short version and a link to some resources to help. Read the following blog on Case Acceptance. People make decisions for two reasons:
Avoid Pain- we all know the patient that shows up in pain with an abscess and how easily they accept treatment.
Gain Pleasure- we all also know the patient who comes in looking for a cosmetic makeover, generally also an easy case to get accepted.
That leaves all the stuff in the middle, which is the majority of your patients and cases. How do you get these accepted? Well, the two principles above still apply. We just need to figure out how to elegantly utilize the above principles to discuss treatment with our patients. If we explain that the severity of the case today, and that neglecting it will only get worse and cost more, we are utilizing the avoid pain concept. In addition, if we point them toward the benefit of the solution now, better health, better cosmetics, we are applying the gain pleasure concept.
When you combine both methods together, you can build great momentum toward a patient accepting treatment. Here is why this can be so impactful — on average, I see practices having 45-55% Case Acceptance. If you have a practice that produces about $80K per month, in a typical practice you have nearly the same amount walking out the door monthly. This number usually shocks doctors. By this point in your life, if you have recently uncovered embezzlement, you have already been shocked and surprised.
The good news is that with some minor modifications to how you communicate, you might be able to dramatically increase your profitability and get back out of the hole you might be in. Re-funding your savings and retirement can happen quickly.
If you have questions or would like to discuss how to increase your Case Acceptance, give AccelerateMyPractice a call for a free consultation at 877.721.8793.
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