Often times, we are able to see some private practice wastage as it's glaringly obvious. However, in all the years we've worked in private practice, we know there are more subtle, costly aspects of wastage.
Practice wastage is any aspect of the business that isn't running "lean" or as effectively as it can be. One way to identify practice wastage are by reviewing your profit and loss and identifying that your expenses are too high. Wastage can include: 1. Time 2. Resources 3. Inefficiencies 4. Mismanagement While you may feel these areas are under control, we want to get you thinking outside of the box. What are all of the different ways the term "wastage" can be applied to private practice? We find practice wastage in a variety of places. Instead of looking at the business as a whole, we're going to focus on any wastage specific to private practice.
Too many referrals to clinicians
Not possible you're saying. I respectfully disagree.
Let's take a look at Practitioner 1 as an example:
Available 5 hours a week.
18 active clients on their case load
Works with clients fortnightly
56% of their clients reschedule booked appointments
1 new referral a week
Rescheduled appointments: Fifty-six percent of Practitioner 1's client reschedule appointments. Administration has to work with each of those rescheduling clients more than a client who doesn't reschedule. Yes, you may be able to book another client into a rescheduled session and yes, you may be able to still have a billable hour, but it costs you more on average to manage a client who reschedules. Let's break this down further. Fifty-six percent of Practitioner 1's clients is equivalent to ten clients per week rescheduling. If Admin uses 3.4 minutes to find a new booking for said clients, that's 34 minutes per week, multiplied by the number of clinicians in the practice. It gets costly.
Non-Attended First Appointments: Most practices will track the number of new bookings they have into their practice. However, are you tracking how many of those new bookings are attending their first appointment? Depending on the practice's training with their reception team, client attendance for new bookings can be as low as 50%! As a result of this low attendance, new bookings can contribute to wastage in Google AdWords spend, reception time to rebook/cancel appointments, room utilisation if the practitioner isn't billing that hour, as well as the impact on the practitioner's job satisfaction because they aren't billing a session.
Cancellation Policies: If you have this policy and aren't collecting a fee, or if you're losing clients because of it -- get rid of it! It's taking space on your client registration form. It's taking up time every time the client cancels or reschedules. It's taking up time when they make their first booking. It's causing the client to stop treatment. This very policy can be the most detrimental part of private practice. Upskilling the whole practice on ways to address this policy is the most effective way to minimise this wastage.
Conclusion
Your first step is to understand the baseline of the wastage. While our list is by no means extensive, you will find that with a few changes within your practice, you can help address some of this wastage.
For a free e-book to work through your own practice wastage, click here.
