PracticeCare

Life would be a lot easier if patients always agreed with you, never questioned you, and just did what you say when you say it. They don’t always do that. Sometimes they object to recommendations. Sometimes they ask questions that sound like objections. Regardless, these are a fact of life, and the better you can overcome patient objections, the more successful your practice will be. My guest toda...

Expenses in business are as certain the sunrise, yet both my guest today and me meet prospective clients all the time who don’t seem to have a handle on them. If you don’t, problems are coming. Planning expenses is a natural requirement of any successful practice, and my guest today helps her clients do just that. Michelle O’Connor, a believer in following one’s dreams, has risen from an inner-cit...

Have you gotten an unsolicited offer to buy your practice recently? You might not have realized it, but that’s a signal that your local market might be attractive for you to be a buyer. What do you do at that point? My guest today helps his clients buy practices, and he’ll tell us what he thinks. E.J. Cyran has spent over a decade as a healthcare lawyer, which means he represents physicians, denti...

Are the types of patients willing to pay cash for treatment the same as, or different from, those who use their insurance? Obviously they’re different, at least in some respects. If that’s the case, then attracting new patient leads, and handling them, is different as well. How do you attract cash paying patients? My guest today did it himself, and he coaches his healthcare clients on how to do it...

If you take health insurance as payment, then choosing good payers makes sense. How do you figure out which payers to contract with? It’s a logical question that has a very involved, sometimes not so logical answer. My guest today helps his clients work successfully with insurance companies, including which ones to contract with, and he’ll share some tips with us. David Zetter is the founder and P...

Keeping good records is boring and tedious. Why bother? Because bad records can cost you thousands of dollars per year. My guest today helps her clients find those dollars in ways that are easy to track. She’ll share her ideas on this episode. Alexis E. Gallati is the founder and Lead Tax Strategist at Cerebral Tax Advisors and Cerebral Wealth Academy, and she’s the author of the book Advanced Tax...

Getting referrals from other patients is critical to the success of any local practice. Are you really getting as many referrals as you can? My guest today has built a system to make sure she can say she does, and she’ll give us some insights into her system on this episode. Mary Lou Savino has been practicing physical therapy since 1992 and opened Be Fit PT & Pilates in 2008. She specializes in t...

All practices need referrals from other providers, even primary care practices. Building a referral network that performs is one of the most misunderstood strategies to grow a practice that I’ve seen in my time working with private practice owners. My guest today runs a coaching business devoted to fixing this for her clients, and she’ll walk us through some of the biggest mistakes practice owners...

Adding a new associate sounds cut and dry. After all, they’re there to treat patients, for which they have the training to do so. Easy, right? Not so fast. There’s more to it. My guest today advises his clients on numerous accounting and operational issues, including hiring, and he’ll share his experience with us. Joe Lessard is a partner at Professional Business Management, a healthcare practice...

Finding good staff in your medical practice seems only to be getting more challenging. At the same time, more tools that substitute for in-office staff are available. Those tools should be helping, but sometimes they seem to make things more confusing. My guest today runs a medical virtual assistant company. They help their clients deal with staffing shortages and make sense of their choices to fi...

As important as it is to understand the patient journey, my industry has done a terrible job of helping practices make “the patient journey” anything useful day to day. My guest today agrees, and he helps his clients turn that journey into a tangible, actionable mechanism practices can use to grow. Daniel Tribby is a healthcare provider, effective business growth strategist, award winning author,...

How do you know if your financials are healthy? Hint: there’s more to it than just having more in your checking account at the end of the month vs. the beginning of the month. At the same time, you don’t want to be buried alive in your financials. My guest today is a partner in a primary care practice, and she consults to private practices. She has a good idea of the basics of healthy financials,...

Private practice might seem like it’s on the ropes, but new ones actually start all the time. Who are the successful ones? Those who weigh out the pros and cons and really think through the business side of the practice. My guest today helps physicians figure out these questions, and he’ll share some of this thinking with us. Adam Middleton has committed his entire professional career to healthcar...

Should you add a new service to your practice? That depends on the answers to a few important questions, which unfortunately, we don’t see enough practices asking and answering before they do. My guest today helps his clients develop informed answers, and he’ll share his thinking with us. Joe Lessard is a partner at Professional Business Management, a healthcare practice management and accounting...

Agree or disagree – doctors and dentists are perfectly rational people who always make rational, emotionless decisions. It’s best that you disagree. They’re humans just like the rest of us, which means emotions get into their decision making. My guest today helps his doctor and dentist clients plan their financial futures, including managing their emotions along the journey, and he’ll help us unde...

Sales feed your income, which pays your bills and fuels your dreams. Since sales are so important, why wouldn’t you build a plan that drives sales instead of just taking what comes? My guest today helps her clients build plans that lead to the business outcomes they want, and she’ll answer this question for us. Michelle O’Connor, a believer in following one’s dreams, has risen from an inner-city c...

While I love marketing, I hate marketing jargon. Tops on my list: Brand. It’s a hugely important word, whose definition my industry has completely messed up. My guest today consults with practices about many things marketing, and together we’ll take on the task of simplifying what brand means and why even you need one. Daniel Tribby is a healthcare provider, effective business growth strategist, a...

If you take health insurance as payment, payers are a big part of your practice. What happens when they mess up? How do you hold them accountable? Can you hold them accountable? My guest today says the answer is “yes”. He runs a business that spends a lot of time holding payers accountable for their clients, and he’ll help us break this down. David Zetter is the founder and President of Zetter Hea...

A referral network is the lifeblood of many specialists, and LinkedIn has its place to help you build that network. LinkedIn is a rich platform with tons of features, so you better know what you’re doing. My guest today specializes in helping his clients build their brand on LinkedIn, and he’ll share some ideas with us. Sheikh C. Ali is a former medical student who pivoted to entrepreneurship. He...

Whenever anyone says “marketing problems” they think of things like volume of new patient leads, website and social traffic, return on ad spend, and the like. But are those truly the biggest marketing problems? My guest today says they are not, and I agree with him. What are they? Listen and find out. Since 2003, Jake Goates has given group seminars and training on sales and marketing. He is a Key...

If you take insurance, then you know about Revenue Cycle Management (RCM). The industry keeps evolving. You can bring your RCM in house, outsource it, or mix and match them. Not sure what to choose? Thinking so changing what you’re doing now? My guest today will break each option down for us to help you out. Vinod (Vinny) brings over 15 years of experience in operations, financial analysis, strate...

Why do some doctors get paid more for the same treatment than others? Even in the same city? Chances are the doctors who get paid more have a solid payer strategy. What does it take? My guest today helps his clients develop a solid payer strategy, and he’ll tell us all about it. Adam Middleton has committed his entire professional career to healthcare, working at for profit and not for profit hosp...

Looking for a way to reduce your taxes? Have a second property like a vacation home? The short term rental loophole can help you deploy your vacation home to reduce your taxes? How does it work? What are the requirements? My guest today runs an accounting firm that helps their medical clients get efficient on taxes, including using the short term rental loophole when it applies. She’ll explain all...

Incentives in compensation, used appropriately and ethically, are effective tools to help you grow your practice. You need to think them through. What sounds good on paper might not be in practice. My guest today consults with practices to help them grow. She often recommends incentives in compensation, and she’ll talk us through how to use them effectively. Lisa Levesque is the principal and Busi...

Cash is king, which means your cash flow needs to be working well. You can be strategic about cash flow, or you can be willy-nilly about it. We recommend the former, and today’s guest agrees. He helps his clients with their accounting, practice management, and cash flow needs, and he’ll help us understand how to make your cash flow strategies effective. Joe Lessard is a partner at Professional Bus...