Engineering Your Patient Flow for Better Results in Your Chiropractic and Healthcare Practice

A smooth pathway creates more capacity for service.

A smooth and consistent patient pathway improves your patients' experience. It also opens up more capacity in your adjusting and treatment schedule.

One of the tasks we have as management consultants is to help you find and fix the biggest bottlenecks, or constraints, in your patient flow.

Back in the early 90s, Dave Michel and I discovered a book by Eli Goldratt called The Goal. It explained how bottlenecks work. Goldratt developed what came to be called the Theory of Constraints. Highly recommended!

“A chain is no stronger than its weakest link.”

(Eli Goldratt, The Goal)

Many times, the bottleneck is the doctor’s notes. Often, it is the front desk that becomes burdened by admin tasks, which can take precedence over greeting, scheduling, and generating referrals.

Patient finances is often a weak link in patient flow. Not knowing what they are being charged, or what insurance is paying, patients are easily confused about payments and what they owe. Then they stop showing up.

Good practice management is always policing the patient pathway and looking for blockages or deviations that minimize the total capacity of the office. (We cover this on our MBA program.)

Let’s look at your office. If all you had to do was provide care to your patients, how many could you see per day comfortably. 40-70 visits plus 2-4 NPs?

This is where your engineering comes in.

In some offices we have worked with the entire staff to create a flow chart of the key actions that take place on Day 1, Day 2, and Day 12. We would then rehearse the flow, taking on the role of the patient.

Not only would the team improve its understanding of how one department supports another, but we’d always discover a redundancy, or a vital procedure that was left out.

But, it is all about the flow and keeping it fast, smooth, fun.

Sure, it takes some time to plot out each action, and then to practice it. But every effective group activity does this. Sports teams and musical groups are examples.

The Fast Train to Wellness

Imagine a train. It travels along predefined rails.

lt stops at designated and agreed-upon locations. The train stays on the track and doesn’t miss a stop.

In your case, the train is your patient, and the tracks are the pathway that the patient follows. The patient makes a stop at the front desk to make a payment. Then the patient travels to see the doctor and gets adjusted. The patient stops at therapy if needed. Then (on the 1st or 2nd visit), the patient stops for a financial consultation and gets fully “on-boarded” with a treatment plan and schedule.

Your patient now knows what the track is and where the future stops are. They know that if they follow this pathway repeatedly, they will achieve their goal – relief, improved function, and better health!

This is working ON your business. This is how you keep it on the rails, and how you improve it.

With your team, create a flow chart and review it often, and you'll see your practice reach its full potential and capacity.

Help your patients get to their goals faster and enjoy the ride more.

Be a Goalineer(sm)!

Ed

PS Want help with this? Contact me.

If you have any questions about creating a Goal Driven Business, just schedule a call or reply to this email.

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The Goal Driven Business at www.GoalDriven.com