3 expert suggestions to Make Sure Your Entire Team is on the Bus
You’ve probably thought about your practice goals for the next few years. Maybe it’s offering additional services. Perhaps it’s regional recognition. Or you simply want to help more patients.
You may have taken steps personally to move towards those goals. But no matter how much effort you put in, improving your practice isn’t something done alone. It takes a team that share your goals.
So where do you start? How do you get your team on-board?
You’ve probably thought about your practice goals for the next few years. Maybe it’s offering additional services. Perhaps it’s regional recognition. Or you simply want to help more patients.
You may have taken steps personally to move towards those goals. But no matter how much effort you put in, improving your practice isn’t something done alone. It takes a team that share your goals.
So where do you start? How do you get your team on-board?
1) SCHEDULE TIME, SET COMPELLING GOALS, AND REPEAT
In the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, author Stephen Covey starts with the first two principals, “Be Proactive” and “Begin with the End in Mind.” These are essential for individual leadership. Combined, they offer a road map on how to communicate with your team.
Be Proactive and Begin with the End in Mind
The first principle, “Be Proactive” requires scheduling time with your team to discuss goals.
Dr. Rich Castellano, a Plastic Surgeon in Tampa, FL and CEO of PracticeProfitabilityMD.com, shared, “The best way to set clear expectations and group priorities is to schedule regular meetings or trainings with your team, at least 30 minutes per week. Many offices offer little or no training to their staff and often expect the team to figure things out. Email training and hallway conversations will not get the message across. When you commit to scheduling this time, magically your team will more easily internalize expectations and priorities.”
Gloria Faulkner, Administrator at Aloha Laser Vision, agrees. “Monday morning staff meetings are essential. It’s a time to get together, iron out problems, go over the week. In Monday morning meetings, everyone has a voice; everyone has an opinion, which I think is valuable.”
The second principle, “Begin with the End in Mind” requires you to “develop a clear vision of your desired direction and destination” for your team.
You probably have a ranked list of goals for your practice: outstanding patient care, exceptional service, and friendly interactions that put patients at ease, just to name a few possibilities. If you asked every member of your team for those goals , would they produce the same list and same rank order?
If not, perhaps it is because your practice’s goals haven’t been crystalized and repeated. If the goals are not easy to understand and are not a part of your regular conversations they will be forgotten.
One organization that is routinely applauded for its employees' commitment to the organization’s goals is Walt Disney World Parks. They created a set of standards (or goals) for all employees over sixty-five years ago that are still being used today. They call these goals the “4 Keys to the Kingdom”: Safety, Courtesy, Show, and Efficiency. The “4 Keys” work because they are simple to understand and ever-present.
It’s no different for your team. Clarifying your priorities and repeating them not only helps your team members, but it may help you in making executive decisions and staying on track.
2) CAST A COMPELLING STORY
Roger D. Schank, a cognitive scientist and entrepreneur, once said “Humans are not ideally set up to understand logic; they are ideally set up to understand stories.” Without a narrative of what you’re aiming for, it’s harder for your employees to understand your vision.
Humans are not ideally set up to understand logic; they are ideally set up to understand stories.
A team story has three steps:
Where we are now
Where we want to go
How we are getting there
Having open discussions about where you are and where you want to go can clarify the journey and can motivate your employees to participate in the process.
Think about your favorite film: at one point early in the movie, the hero tells someone what they want. Now for the rest of the film, the audience is rooting for the hero to achieve his or her goal. It’s human nature. When we see someone with a goal, we want to help them achieve it.
“Once I got my team on board with our training and our story, the greatest thing happened in my life,” Castellano shares. “My team started telling ME what to do. And they were right, because they were so well trained and in tune with what we do, they often knew better than I how to create even more value for our patients.”
Sharing where you are now and where you want to go is relatively easy. Defining how you get there can be more difficult.
One way to communicate this part of the story is with a company mantra. A mantra distills your practice’s goals even further into a short, pithy statement that guides decision making and behavior.
Many top companies use them, including Google’s “Don’t Be Evil” and Apple’s “Think Different.” Neither of them describes what the company does, but tries to illustrate how the company acts.
Shane Snow writes about this for FastCompany: “Unlike mission statements, mantras are pivot-proof. They transcend current target markets and quarterly quotas. Google’s ‘Don’t be evil’ says nothing about search, social, or self-driving cars. It’s a banner under which augmented reality glasses and payment systems can thrive alongside pay-per-click ads, and it doesn’t conflict with any particular product’s mission of moment (say, organizing the world’s information). The mantra is the guiding star, not the operating manual….Cheesy? Who cares. Everyone remembers it. And in a startup where the soil of culture is fertile, a meaningful mantra can be one of the greatest seeds you plant.”
Claudine Anz, Office Manager of Smile Design Dentistry and former consultant to medical practices across multiple specialties, says that the phrase she uses in every office is ‘red-carpet service’. “I tell [all the employees] here when someone comes in, from the moment that they walk in that door, that they receive ‘red-carpet service’.
Organizing a practice’s ethos around a phrase gives employees a tool to measure their work decisions against. According to Anz, emphasizing ‘red-carpet service’ ensures all team members understand creating an exceptional patient experience is paramount.
3) MAKE THEM PART OF YOUR MISSION
Once you’ve established your practice’s goals and shared your story, it’s your team’s turn. Invite your team to be part of the process and come up with innovative ways for how they will implement the company’s vision.
When employees feel their innovations are being implemented, or at least fairly evaluated, they feel more invested in the mission of the practice. Employers in all sectors, including medical, often underestimate the power of your employees feeling that they are part of a team, working towards a common goal. Psychology Today reports that peer motivation is the number one factor in what encourages employees to “go the extra mile.” Writing for Entrepreneur Magazine, John Rampton writes, “To show an employee that you truly trust and respect his opinions, let him make decisions that will impact your company’s culture and future.”
“To show an employee that you truly trust and respect his opinions, let him make decisions that will impact your company’s culture and future.”
This doesn’t mean you have to surrender control of your organization, just that you intentionally make yourself open to implementing ideas that fit your priorities, and that comes from your employees.
Many company-changing innovations came from the most unlikely sources. For example, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos were invented by a janitor who called up the PepsiCo CEO with an idea for a new flavor of the product. Not only was this a success for the company and the janitor, but also for the CEO who was willing to listen to a new idea that resulted in a multi-million dollar innovation.
“People say patients come first, but for us, our employees do. They have to feel valued” says Faulkner. “Our employees have contributed ideas from our workflow to even our furniture arrangement. They really do have a pulse on what patients are saying.”
Marie Norgaard, Administrator of Boxer Wachler Vision says, “We empower our staff to make decisions to help patients. For example, if a patient has had a delay in a driver picking them up, a staff member might buy them lunch while they wait or pay for an Uber ride for the patient. A patient is struggling financially; they can provide them a reduced rate.”
Everyone ends up benefiting when the team is part of the mission: the practice, the team, and the patients.
IN THE END
Making sure your employees are “on the bus” is a process that starts with management. Your team is looking towards administrators, office managers and doctors for leadership and inspiration.
No one wants to get on a bus that’s sitting in a parking lot. Have a vision for your practice and goals to move towards. Communicate those with your team and give them opportunities for input.
These are the ways that you can get your team excited and motivated about the priorities you have for your practice to keep moving forward.
4 Reasons Your Team May Be the Secret to Social Media Success
Social media experts recommend you keep your audience engaged by posting on Facebook every day, on Instagram three times per day, and on Twitter fifteen times per day. That is a tremendous amount of content to generate on a regular basis to attract potential patients and to stay top of mind with your current patient base.
Posts featuring your doctor(s), educating patients about procedures or treatments you offer, and before-and-after patient photos are commonplace. However, one area that is often overlooked, are posts highlighting your team.
Social media experts recommend you keep your audience engaged by posting on Facebook every day, on Instagram three times per day, and on Twitter fifteen times per day. That is a tremendous amount of content to generate on a regular basis to attract potential patients and to stay top of mind with your current patient base.
Posts featuring your doctor(s), educating patients about procedures or treatments you offer, and before-and-after patient photos are commonplace. However, one area that is often overlooked, are posts highlighting your team.
Creating posts that showcase specific members of your team is an excellent way to keep content fresh and to extend your social media presence.
Here are just a few reasons why you should consider featuring your team on social media and some examples from practices we think are doing it well.
1 - Recognizing Your Team Can Increase Employee Satisfaction AND Patient Satisfaction
According to Entrepreneur magazine, employee recognition lowers turnover, increases employee happiness, increases employee engagement, and increases trust.
With social media, recognizing your team and sharing accolades is easy.
You can highlight a specific team member, maybe on his or her work anniversary, birthday, on a day that celebrates their contributions like National Doctors Day (March 30) or National Nurses Day (May 12).
Austin Weston, The Center for Cosmetic Surgery in Reston, Virginia commemorated National Nurses Day, with Instagram posts profiling all of their nurses.
Not only will your team appreciate being recognized, but when you highlight the talented people working with you, you might find your patient satisfaction scores rising as well.
According to Mark Somol, founder of Zeal and an expert in employee metrics, “Employees who are passionate about their workplace are typically much more highly engaged. Passionate and engaged employees are your best customer advocates. Research shows that companies with very high levels of employee engagement can have 3x higher customer satisfaction ratings.”
You might worry about remembering every team member’s birthday. Luckily, social media platforms have scheduling either built-in or available as a third-party app like Hootsuite. Edgard Izaguirre, brand manager for Austin-Weston, The Center for Cosmetic Surgery, plans their social media campaigns for the entire quarter. “Things can be tweaked, but it’s better to be planned in advance,” he says. With these tools, employee appreciation posts can easily be scheduled for the entire year all at once.
2 - Posts Featuring Your Staff Almost Always Garner Higher Engagement
Posts highlighting team members consistently have a higher level of engagement on social media platforms.
Compare these two Facebook posts by Brinton Vision, in St. Louis, Missouri.
The first is a classic social media post that advertises their services in a creative way:
The second shares a childhood photo of one of their team members on her birthday.
The post highlighting a team member not only received more comments, it also received a much higher level of engagement with more “social reactions” (emoticons) as compared to simple “likes”, which translates into a higher ranking within Facebook’s news feed algorithm.
Other posts that garner a high number of “social reactions” include promotions, achievement, or life events. Take a look at this post from Belcara Health in Baltimore, Maryland:
Beyond “social reactions” and “likes”, posts like these are more likely to be shared beyond your social media feed and on your employee’s own personal feeds. According to the MSL Group, your employees are already networked to more than 10x the number of people on social media than your organization can ever hope to on its own. By spreading the message, you increase overall brand awareness and can reach more current and potential patients.
3 - Showcasing Your Team Alongside Doctors Can Make Potential Patients Feel More at Ease
As the saying goes, people buy from people they trust.
Patients need to feel comfortable with their doctor, of course, but some patients have difficulty connecting with their doctors. They might see an education difference, a class difference, a racial difference, or a gender difference, and these differences can be invisible barriers to building a trusting relationship.
However, there are likely many similarities between your team members and your patient base.
Highlighting members of your team in your social media is one way you can help build trust since patients may relate to your team more easily.
Plus, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer, employees are judged to be more credible than their bosses. There’s an average of a 16 point gap between how much a consumer trusts an employee of a company and how much they trust the head of that company.”
All practices are very proud of their doctors, but highlighting other team members can make patients who look and feel different than the doctors themselves, more open to your team. Brand manager for Austin-Weston, Edgard Izaguirre says, “It’s always important to know the surrounding market and develop a campaign that they are receptive to.”
Izaguirre also notes that managing a brand is about connecting with the “human element.”
Photos and videos of your team put an approachable human face on your entire practice. Allie Watson-Fowler, Relationship Management Specialist at Belcara Health add “While doctors are the recognizable names and faces of a practice, our patients are primarily in contact with the other members of our staff, like nurses, patient advisors, and administrators. By featuring these team members on social media in addition to the doctors, patients can quickly and easily see exactly who it is they will spend their time with while in our office. Our existing patients love seeing the ‘behind the scenes’ staff like anesthesiologists and post-operative nurses who helped them after their procedure; we always get a good deal of comments on these types of posts, which also helps prospective patients to feel comfortable with the care they will receive at our center.”
4 - Build a Social Media Army by Turning Your Employees Loose
Satisfied patients are fantastic evangelists, but even the most satisfied patients will be thinking about your practice only occasionally. On the other hand, your staff members are thinking about the practice’s success (hopefully) every day.
FastCompany advises “Simply encouraging employees to share their company’s social media updates–when done properly–can dramatically expand a company’s total following, extending the reach and impact of its messages.”
Every “social reaction”, “like” and “share” on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn promotes the social media post in the respective system’s algorithm, resulting in higher rankings and more current and potential patients seeing your messaging.
High-profile brands like Starbucks, Zappos, and Southwest Airlines even train their employees to constantly share their work on social media, with rewards for who can get the most likes, views, and engagement.
This is not mandatory, of course. FastCompany continues: “To be clear, any employee social media program has to be voluntary. I’d even go a step further than that, however. For this process to work, employees have to actually want to share company news.”
However, it is an easy program to incentivize. You’re not asking for additional time, any more than the five minutes it takes to craft a status update. The occasional $5 Starbucks gift card for the team member with the most liked post this week goes a long way towards incentivizing the kind of behavior that will have immediate tangible effects in generating new prospective patients.
Word-of-mouth messages from friends and colleagues are widely seen as more relevant and trustworthy than social media blasts from corporate accounts; according to the MSL Group, “Brand messages are shared 24x more frequently when distributed by employees vs brand.”
Think about it yourself: Which car dealership are you more likely to trust? The one running slick Facebook ads in your feed? Or the one where your cousin Debbie works, that she’s always talking about (positively) online? Naturally, you’d lean to the second choice.
Final Thoughts
You’ve always known that your team is the most indispensable asset By showcasing them in your social media posts, you are inviting potential patients to preview an integral part of their experience with your practice. You’re overcoming mental barriers to treatment by presenting relatable people. And you’re allowing your team to speak directly with more credibility than your official pages ever could have.
How Offering A Cash Discount Could Boost Your Bottom Line
If you're like most practices, there is a good chance that you have encountered at least one patient who asked for a discount. You also likely have met the patient that wants a longer term no interest plan that you don't offer. What if there was a way to make both of these patients happy and improve conversion ratios overall without costing you a penny more?
If you're like most practices, there is a good chance that you have encountered at least one patient who asked for a discount. You also likely have met the patient who wants a longer term no interest plan that you don't offer. What if could make both of these patients happy and improve conversion ratios overall, without costing you a penny more?
To start, you'll need to transition your practice to a Cash Incentive Model. The goal of a Cash Incentive Model is to provide an incentive for those who can pay in cash to do so and for those who can't pay in cash to be offered the most attractive patient financing options.
So, how does it work?
STEP 1: CALCULATE YOUR COST
Let's presume you're comfortable paying 5.8% for ALPHAEON CREDIT”s 6 month No Interest if Paid in Full, but your patients want the 12 month No Interest if Paid in Full (or your competitors are offering it and you're worried it is swaying some patients).
The cost for the 12 month No Interest if Paid in Full plan is 8.9% to you. So your additional cost to offer this plan is: 8.9% - 5.8% = 3.1%
STEP 2: ADJUST PRICING
Once you know how much offering the longer term plan will cost, you will add that cost to your overall prices. Most practices choose to round up to make the next step - offering a cash discount - easier to explain.
So in this scenario, it costs you 3% more to offer the 12 month no interest plan, so you raise your prices across the board 5%. This raise will help cover the cost of patients who choose to finance, but should also save you money as you will see in the next step.
STEP 3: OFFER A CASH DISCOUNT
Now comes the best part - not only can you offer 12 month no interest to all patients, but you can also offer all patients who choose to pay cash a 5% discount.
This 5% discount may also save you money by converting those who would have elected to finance, but had the cash, to pay in full. Plus, it standardizes your discount policy and ensures patients who routinely ask for discounts, still feel like they are getting a deal without impacting your bottom line while those that prefer to finance can do so without impacting your profitability.
When is the right time to share YOUR price?
Do you advertise your prices online? Should you? This was the question posted recently on the ShoutMD community by an ophthalmologist. And the survey says...
23% of physicians share pricing before speaking to a patient or having a consult today. Yet, many believe this is a trend that is becoming more popular especially among younger physicians and corporate owned providers.
So what are the pros and cons?
PROS
1. Reduces Sticker Shock and Keeps the Schedule Open for Qualified Patients
By posting your prices, patients come into consults educated and are less likely to experience sticker shock. This is especially true if others are advertising unrealistic prices in your market, such as $299 for LASIK. By sharing your prices, patients won't be surprised and are more likely to have begun to consider how to pay for the procedure such as with financing. For those unable or unwilling to pay, they are less likely to schedule a consult, come in, and say, "How much?...Hmm...I'll pass.". By letting them know your price in advance, you can keep your schedule filled with those that are prepared to pay.
2. Differentiates Your Practice
If your prices are above or below the the norm for your market, advertising pricing can be a differentiator.
Right or wrong, when patients have limited information to compare like products and no existing relationships at any practices, they often turn to price first as a comparison tool.
Price can tell patients what type of practice you are. Are you a Neiman Marcus, Macy's, or Wal-Mart? There is a consumer for each of these retailers, and there is a patient for the high, middle, and low cost practice as well.
Some patients will always be searching for the lowest priced provider. If this is you, advertise, but proceed with caution as lower prices can impact patient satisfaction. In a 2008 Stanford study, researchers applied electrical shocks to the wrists of participants before and after they received a placebo painkiller. Some participants received an "expensive" painkiller and others received a "low-priced" painkiller. 85% of those in the "expensive" pill sample group reported a reduction in pain from the shocks compared to 61% of those in the "low-priced" sample group^. If you are the lowest priced provider, be cognizant of this unconscious bias among patients to be less satisfied when they know they have paid less.
On the flip side, if you are the highest priced provider in your market, patients may be apt to believe your practice is superior to other options for the same reason. In many markets, the physician charging the most isn't always the more experienced or educated, but often patients believe that he or she is due to their price points. Yet, being the highest priced provider also comes with a warning. Setting your price too far apart from the norm can backfire, as other studies have shown consumers have a “middle bias” or “edge aversion.” From multiple choice tests, to menus, to a selection of jams on a shelf, consumers tend to gravitate towards the middle choice as it feels the most safe*. In the end, being priced squarely in the middle might serve you best of all.
CONS
1. Reduces Call Volume and Consults
Almost every practice receives the “How much is X?” call on a regular basis. These "price calls" are always opportunities to redirect the conversation and help the patient understand what questions they should be asking (experience, education, outcomes) and to begin to establish a relationship. If you post prices, you run the risk of patients not calling at all as the only question they know to ask has already been answered.
2. Creates Unrealistic Expectations
In many scenarios, it may not be feasible to provide cost without first evaluating a patient. If the patient comes in and you determine they are a better candidate for another procedure or that their procedure will cost more, "anchor pricing" could prevent the patient from moving forward. “Anchor pricing” occurs when one price is provided, giving patients a starting point or “anchor”**. Moving forward, all other prices are compared to that initial number. For example, when scheduling a consult if a patient believes he will be paying $3,000 for a procedure because of advertised prices, but it’s later determined he or she would be served better by a $6,000 procedure, overcoming that $3,000 difference will be difficult. Had the "anchor price" started at $6,000 and ended up being $3,000, the patient would be more likely to move forward.
In the end, regardless of the procedure or service, price plays a starring role. While the majority of practices still do not reveal pricing before speaking or meeting with a patient, there does appear to be a shift towards making it easier for the patient and sharing publicly. If you choose to post your prices online, remember the cost barrier doesn’t automatically disappear; it will still remain a concern to address, which is easily overcome by providing financing options. So if you list a procedure for $3,000, be sure to also mention the patient can finance the procedure for $73 a month or pay for the procedure over time with no interest. Calculate Monthly Payments
^https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/behavioral-impact-higher-price
**https://conversionxl.com/blog/pricing-experiments-you-might-not-know-but-can-learn-from/
You Want Customer Loyalty? Be Brilliant at the Basics
The following guest post is from John R. DiJulius, best-selling author, consultant, keynote speaker and President of The DiJulius Group, the leading Customer experience consulting firm in the nation. You can subscribe to his blog at www.thedijuliusgroup.com
Customer Bill of Rights – Burden of the Brand
World-class service companies have what I like to call a “Customer bill of rights” that every person in that organization clearly knows and follows 100 percent of the time. Would you ever expect to see a Disney cast member, in full uniform on break, chewing tobacco and spitting on the ground near the front entrance where guests are walking by? Doubtful. Or would you ever think a Ritz-Carlton employee, when asked for directions to the ballroom, would give a response like “I don’t know, I work in housekeeping”? Highly unlikely! One of the most effective ways to elevate your company’s Customer service level is by instituting your own Customer bill of rights.
If anyone is going to wear your uniform or name tag or represent your brand, you only need a small set (six to ten actions/standards) for your employees to live by. These nonnegotiable standards are also referred to as the “never and always” list. The critical importance is, if they do occur, you have to be confident enough that your employees recognize and understand your “never” and “always,” and you can be confident that your employees would “never” do this and “always” do that instead. If your company does nothing other than institute the “never and always” list and makes everyone aware of them, if your Customers rarely experience a “never” and consistently experience an “always,” then you are in the top 5 percent of Customer service organizations! As you read through the list, you will see that they are all simple and common sense, but the majority of businesses and frontline employees too often execute the “never” list and don’t consistently execute the “always” list.
In the examples shown, you will see that each one matches the following three criteria:
1. The items are typically one to three words in length.
2. They are black and white; there is no room for personal interpretation.
3. They are crystal clear and do not need any additional explanation.
Some things you wouldn’t see on a “never and always” list are things such as “Always be professional” or “Always return calls promptly.” Why? Because they are vague. What is professional to one is completely different to someone else. What is “promptly”? To one person it may be two hours; to another it may be two days. Let’s show some examples of a few good Never & Always:
Point versus Show
This is typically thought of in the hospitality business (e.g., showing someone to the restroom instead of pointing them there). However, in the business-to-business and call-center world, pointing happens all the time. For instance, it happens when we say things like “You can get that off our website” or “You need to call this person in this department.” Why are we making the Customer do the work? We can send them the link, and we can transfer them to the correct department.
Saying no versus focusing on what you can do
Eliminate the word no from your company’s vocabulary; no one should ever be allowed to use that word. You may not always be able to say yes, but offer alternatives and options and never allow anyone from your company to utter the word no. You will be amazed at how creative your team will get at satisfying Customers. I never want a Customer of mine to tell me that someone from my organization said no to him or her. To me that is the worst swear word you can use in front of a Customer.
While we cannot do everything our Customers request, we can always respond with what we can do. If someone asks if we can sell them something we don’t even sell, we can answer with “While we do not carry product X, what we do carry is product Z, and the reason we do carry product Z is because it is proven to be the best, longest lasting, healthiest, whatever.” By the time you are done explaining the benefits of product Z, that Customer should never want product X. If for some reason they still want product X, then you explain how and where
they can get product X.
“No problem” is a big problem
The biggest street-slang terms used in every business today are the responses “no problem” or “not a problem.” In fact, as a result of reading this right now, you will be shocked at how many times you will hear “no problem” over the next two days. Joe Schumacker wrote an excellent blog titled “No Problem, Big Problem” that articulates this point really well. “No problem” is a problem for two reasons. The first issue with saying “no problem” is that it consists of two negative words. We shouldn’t be using any negative words, let alone two back-to-back.
The second problem is that the “no problem” auto-response sends the message that what the Customer is asking of you is not a problem for you. However, when we are serving others, it is not about our convenience; it is about what the Customer wants. The phrase “no problem” places the staff member’s comfort ahead of service to the Customer. Customers want to feel that their interests are first and foremost in the mind of the staff member, not that they may have inconvenienced a staff member by being a Customer.
Excellent responses instead of “no problem” are “certainly,” “my pleasure,” “I would be happy to,” “consider it done,” and “absolutely.” Using “certainly” or “my pleasure” is so much more professional than the often heard “not a problem.” It elevates the professionalism of your employees’ terminology. It starts establishing a culture of hospitality where the Customer is first.
The following are great examples of “never” and “always” items that are a Never & Always from great companies that The DiJulius Group helped to create. Ideally, you only want a maximum of ten “nevers” and ten “always.”
Action Plan – Create a small set (6-12 actions/standards) that match the following criteria:
* The standards are 1 – 3 words
* Do not need any additional explanation
* Not stage specific (i.e. do not apply towards phone, check in, check out, etc.)
3 Questions to Ask When Approval Rates Fall
"It's weird. Our approval rates seemed to be fine and all of a sudden we've had several patients who weren't approved. What is going on?"
Ever find yourself in this spot? If so, you're not alone. Often, practices will see approval rates drop and make a call to their patient financing provider who will say nothing has changed on their end - underwriting has remained the same. So what's going on?
In our 50+ years of patient financing experience, we've found there are three common explanations when a change in underwriting at the bank is not to blame for a decline in approval rates.
1) Is it just bad luck?
It very well could be. Sometimes it is a fluke and a few patients with less than stellar credit scores applied at the same time. Luckily, this issue will resolve itself on its own and rather quickly. The more patients you apply for, the quicker this run of bad luck dilutes and the faster your numbers return to normal.
You may also find there is some seasonality in your approval rates. For example, consumers tend to overspend every December in preparation for the holidays. This credit card usage frequently leads to a post-holiday hangover, as far as credit scores are concerned. Credit scores may drop slightly due to credit utilization ratios being abnormally high in December. When evaluating your approval rates, looking at year-over-year data is often more helpful than month-to-month.
2) Has something changed with our staff?
If you have a new employee or someone that is new to presenting financing, they may feel uncomfortable with the payment discussion. In these cases, they often won't bring up financing unless the patient asks for it. The problem with this approach is that the patients who have to ask for financing tend to be the ones who need it the most as they have no other way to pay. They are also less likely to be approved as their credit scores often reflect their precarious financial situation. When these patients aren't approved, your staff may be even more reluctant to offer financing as communicating a decline can be awkward.
In an ideal world, staff members would offer patient financing to every patient for a couple of reasons. One, you can't judge a book by its cover and that woman in the fur coat and diamonds may not be able to afford the procedure you're offering unless there is a way to pay over time, but she may hesitate to ask for financing. Two, that patient who may be able to pay in full might prefer to pay over time using no interest plans, as it can be a smart financial move. They can keep their money in savings, earning a small return and pay off the procedure over time. If you hesitate to offer no interest plans due to the additional fees, consider the fact that patients given the opportunity to pay over time at no interest are less likely to ask for discounts and more likely to spend more than those paying in cash.
If there isn't a new employee or someone in a new role, confirm that everyone is leading with your preferred patient financing provider. If everyone isn't on the same page, and someone is offering another patient financing company first, that will automatically cause your overall approval rate to drop with your preferred patient financing provider. This scenario can be especially present in larger practices or practices with multiple locations.
3) Have we changed our marketing?
The slightest shift in marketing, from one radio station to another or from advertising in one new publication, can change the demographics of patients walking in the door. While driving more patients to your door may be a good thing, it won't help your practice if those patients can't afford your services and can't get approved for financing.
The good news is that knowing who gets approved for patient financing and who gets declined can give you additional insight into your marketing efforts and what type of patient you are attracting. If you find you are receiving a lot of declines, take a look at your recent marketing efforts and the source of these declined patients.
In the end, while changes to underwriting might cause a drop in approval rates, often that is not the case as underwriting is complicated. Most banks look beyond the credit score alone and look at hundreds of variables to determine if a patient would be approved or not. As a result, they don't change the process often, maybe once or twice a year.
After checking with your patient financing provider to make sure things haven't changed on their end, often you'll need to look internally to see if an shift is to blame or if it is just a run of bad luck that will reverse itself in due time.
Getting Dialed In
Have you ever launched a pay-per-click campaign and received emails and calls, but for some reason the conversion rate was lower than expected? If you answered yes, then there may be room for improvement in your team’s phone skills. I’ve noticed that even the most skilled front office associate sometimes tends to miss an email or forgets to ask for the patient’s name and phone number on a call. I know these actions seem rather simple, but you’d be surprised at how many times they’re overlooked.
At least quarterly, practices should "mystery shop" their own practice, by calling and pretending to be a patient, to learn first-hand what their patients experience and to identify areas for improvement. You can use the following "Perfect Phone Call" checklist when evaluating your practice.
The Perfect Phone Call
- Superior Communication Skills - Enunciation, tone of voice and demeanor reflects positively on the practice.
- Takes the Lead - Who’s the expert here? The trained office associate, or the patient? Letting the patient lead the conversation may not be the best tactic.
- Key Questions Asked - Asks the right questions: Name, phone number, how they heard about you, main concern, special event coming up, etc.
- Credentialing - Every team member should have each provider’s CV down, backwards and forward. Why would the patient want to choose a certain practice if they don’t understand the value behind it?
- Procedure and Product Knowledge Shared - When a patient is calling in with specific questions, sometimes they can only be answered in a consultation with the provider. However, each team member should have a good amount of knowledge about the products and services sold in the practice and know how to explain them in a way as to not provide medical advice and pricing.
- Books the Appointment - After the above steps are completed, booking the appointment should be a breeze, right? But how do we know they’ll show?
- Completes Follow Up - Personally emailing the patient to confirm before the end of the day is very important, as well as a confirmation phone call the day before the scheduled appointment. I’m sure this is happening most of the time, but what exactly is being emailed to these leads? Text message confirmations and automated emails are super convenient, but then the personalization is left adrift.
The checklist above is definitely something to consider when spending your marketing dollars into paid advertisements. Is your team ready? Do they know what campaign you just launched? How will you keep track of who may need training or a refresher course for phone etiquette?
About the Author: Lacy J. Banks is the owner and CEO of Aesthetic Practice Concepts providing phone and consultation trainings for board-certified plastic surgeons and their staff. If you’d like a complimentary assessment of your team’s phone skills please feel free to contact her at (760) 747-1111 or at lacy@apc.management. She’d love to hear from you.
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The Secret is Out
Hi, I’m Tony Seymour and am the President of ALPHAEON Credit. I’ll be writing short posts periodically for our blog on interesting topics regarding ALPHAEON CREDIT and your practice.
The first thing, I'd like to point out is what makes ALPHAEON CREDIT spectacular. I know you may be thinking it's our "Great approval rates," or our "Generous credit limits,." I agree, we have those, but the true secret is pretty simple. "We answer the phone."
After 15 years at CareCredit, I knew I wanted to be a part of something different for our industry and so did a few other employees. Katy Thomas and Lisa Taylor were my top two managers renowned for their customer service. Together we discussed our likes and dislikes with larger banks, and the first thing we all agreed needed to change was their call centers, including our current bank, Comenity. The routine with all large financial institutions is to push numerous buttons, hope you get to the right place, usually wait, and then depending on the call center representative, you may receive a resolution.
We vowed to be different. Like you, we know navigating phone trees and waiting while a patient is sitting in front of you is frustrating and embarrassing – after all, you recommended patient financing to the patient. To prevent this from happening at ALPHAEON CREDIT, we installed a Hotline that rings directly to all ALPHAEON CREDIT employees’ cell phones, including my own.
At ALPHAEON, "we answer the phone.". Every day of the year, 24 hours a day. Call us anytime at 920-306-1794 to speak to someone immediately with no hoops to jump through.
We will be there for you, so you can get your questions answered and move on with your day.
We look forward to speaking with you.
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How to Avoid a "Surprise" Decline
Usually the person sitting in front of you knows their credit score better than anyone else, and when they are approved or declined for a credit card or loan, they receive the answer they expected. However, every so often, you likely run into a patient who is legitimately “surprised” when declined.
While a low credit score may be to blame, often there is another culprit - their annual income, and underestimating this figure.
Since the CARD Act of 2009, banks are required to evaluate every credit card and loan application based upon the patient’s ability to repay the debt. To do so, they calculate a “debt-to-income” (DTI) ratio for each patient. The bank adds up all debt reported on the patient’s credit report and compares it to the annual income entered by the patient on the application. If the DTI ratio is too high, the bank is required to decline the patient or give them a credit limit that won’t overextend the patient.
The problem with this method is that often patients forget to include income sources resulting in an inaccurate DTI ratio.
To avoid the “surprise” decline due to inaccurate DTI ratios, patients should be reminded to include all sources of income, in order to repay the debt including:
· Full or part-time employment
· Freelance work or small business
· Household income from spouse, partner, adult child, parent, or grandparent
· Government payments such as social security benefits or disability
· Income from investments such as 401Ks, IRAs, and/or pensions
· Alimony, child support, and/or separate maintenance income*
*If they don't wish to have alimony, child support and/or separate maintenance income considered as a basis for repaying the obligation, they should not include it in their annual income amount.
In addition to forgotten income, many patients report their net income (take-home pay) rather than their gross income.
Hopefully with a little guidance at the time of application, your patients will only be surprised with how much they are approved for!
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Three Times, Three Ways
In surveys, patients were asked if they were aware of financing options.
Amazingly, many patients said "no" even when there was irrefutable proof via recorded calls, pre-prepared patient packet inserts, emails, and witnesses to consult conversations.
Why? The answer is simple.
They were distracted. Even though the practices shared information, they didn't absorb it. Often patients have many questions during a call or consult and focus on what they are going to say or ask next, versus the shared details.
That is why we always promote the "Three Times, Three Ways" method. If you want the patient to understand the procedure is affordable, you must present financing options, "Three Times, Three Ways."
The easiest way to accomplish this, is to focus on the senses. Let them hear, see, and feel the options.
Hearing is easy. Repeatedly verbalize your financing options to the patient, especially anytime price is mentioned.
For sight and touch, rely on ALPHAEON marketing materials to do the work for you. Place the brochures and brochure holders throughout the office in your waiting room, checkin/out locations, consult rooms/stations, and exam lanes so patients can touch and feel the brochures. Use the ALPHAEON tabletop signs to visually remind patients of the options as well. These can be placed in areas that are seen by patients, but not necessarily within arms reach like a bookshelf or credenza in a consult room.
As always, all materials are free, so order as many as you'd like and help more patients walk away knowing they have financing options with your practice!
Order My Free Marketing Materials
PS: If you have ever thought, "I wish ALPHAEON had a (insert name of amazing marketing tool)," we want to hear your suggestion and create it! Please email teamcredit@alphaeon.com with any idea no matter how "out-there" you think it is! The more we can promote affordability, the more patients we can help together.
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When Credit Limits Hurt Patients
When evaluating financing options for patients, most practices look for a company that will approve as many patients as possible, for as much as possible, and at the lowest rate to their practice.
Often if patients receive credit limits high enough to cover the costs of the procedures, the practice and the patient are satisfied. Everyone wins - right? However, did you know that credit limits only covering the procedure costs may be hurting your patients?
A little background...
A patient's credit score is heavily influenced by their utilization ratios. This is calculated by comparing credit card balances to the actual credit limits. While the models vary by each credit reporting agency, most look at both the patient's usage of individual credit cards, as well as overall usage for all credit cards. Having one or multiple card balances close to their limits or worse, maxed out, lowers the patient's credit score. In fact, credit card utilization ratios account for 30% of an individual's credit score. The only factor that is weighed more heavily is payment history.
So, when a patient is only approved for the credit limits needed for a procedure, it may unknowingly, negatively impact one's credit score.
In addition, patients who don't receive the credit limits needed to say "yes" often end up going to another provider who offers procedures for less. Or, they start compromising by selecting another procedure or service that is within their credit limit.
While practices want to help patients with the procedures they desire or need, cost can get in the way. So what can be done?
The best course of action is to evaluate patient financing companies based upon average credit limits provided...most companies will tell you their average credit limit or even the average credit limit for your particular practice. By promoting the companies that provide the highest credit limits to begin with, patients will be in the best possible position from a credit utilization ratio.
Want to learn more?
30% Credit Utilization Rule: Truth or Myth
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Cash Discount Calculator - Now Available!
In June, we discussed how offering a cash discount could actually boost your bottom line. (If you missed that post, you can read all about it here.)
Practices across the country reached out to learn more. Some wanted to offer longer no interest plans without paying more, some wanted to offer fair discounts to all patients, and others wanted to simply cover the cost of their financing fees.
To help these practices, we have created a Cash Discount Calculator. With this new tool, you can enter your procedure price, the plans you currently offer, and the plans you want to offer, in order to determine your needed cost and what type of discount you can afford to provide your patients.
To access the Cash Discount Calculator, select your specialty below:
By offering a cash discount, both you and your patients can save money, making everyone happy.
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How Offering A Cash Discount Could Actually Boost Your Bottom Line
If you're like most practices, there is a good chance that you have encountered at least one patient who asked for a discount. You also likely have met the patient that wants a longer term no interest plan that you don't offer. What if there was a way to make both of these patients happy and improve conversion ratios overall without costing you a penny more?
If you're like most practices, there is a good chance that you have encountered at least one patient who asked for a discount. You also likely have met the patient who wants a longer term no interest plan that you don't offer. What if could make both of these patients happy and improve conversion ratios overall, without costing you a penny more?
To start, you'll need to transition your practice to a Cash Discount Model. The goal of a Cash Discount Model is to provide an incentive for those who can pay in cash to do so and for those who can't pay in cash to be offered the most attractive patient financing options.
So, how does it work?
STEP 1: CALCULATE YOUR COST
Let's assume you're comfortable paying 3% of the loan cost for one of ALPHAEON CREDIT’S financing plans. After all, that is comparable to what most practices pay when accepting Visa or Mastercard.
But your patient wants to use a long-term no interest if paid in full plan which requires you to pay an 8% rate. If this is a financing option your competitors are offering, it only makes sense to
The cost for the plan is 8% to you, so your additional cost is only 5%.
Please note, at the plan prices used in this article are just examples. To get a copy of ALPHAEON CREDIT’s (excellent) rates, please email enroll@alphaeon.com.
STEP 2: ADJUST PRICING
Once you know how much offering the longer term plan will cost, you will add that cost to your overall prices. Most practices choose to round up to make the next step - offering a cash discount - easier to explain.
So in this scenario, it costs you 5% more to offer the plan, so you raise your prices across the board 5%. This raise will help cover the cost of patients who choose to finance, but should also save you money as you will see in the next step.
STEP 3: OFFER A CASH DISCOUNT
Now comes the best part - not only can you offer 12 month no interest to all patients, but you can also offer all patients who choose to pay cash a 5% discount.
This 5% discount may also save you money by converting those who would have elected to finance, but had the cash, to pay in full. Plus, it standardizes your discount policy and ensures patients who routinely ask for discounts, still feel like they are getting a deal without impacting your bottom line.
The last step is to promote the Cash Discount Model to your patients consistently and incorporate it into your existing financial policy.
To access the Cash Discount Calculator, select your specialty below:
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