Medical professionals go through years of school before settling into their chosen field. A lot will go onto work in practices, but some choose to open their own medical practice. The challenge for this is that medical professionals have not been taught how to run a business. A business venture needs a different set of skills than the medicine they have learned.
Don’t Do It Alone
Hiring the right people is the key to growth. The staff at a medical practice is at its greatest asset, but also the biggest cost. It is impossible to be the main service provider and manage all the other parts of the business, especially if you don’t have the know-how to run a business. Hire the right manager and team to support you. Plan out your organization chart, rather than just reacting to growth. Waiting until you are overflowing with patients will give a bad experience for your customers and leave your staff feeling overwhelmed.
When you’re hiring, take the time to interview each candidate thoroughly. You want to be certain that they can do the job well, and that they have great people skills. The relationships you build with your patients will make or break your business, and those relationships need to be formed with every person your patient interacts with.
Support Your Team
Investing in your team is a good decision and makes everyone happier and more productive.
When you hire key employees, you will often need to provide them with some additional training. Offer the extra support that staff needs to feel happy and confident in the role, whether that’s more training or something simple to make their day easier, like an extra vaccine fridge. Happy employees will perform their roles better and will be more likely to stay with your business.
However, you should also be quick to fire an employee who has been given everything they need but is still underperforming. A lot of medical practices hold onto bad employees for much longer than they should.
Build A Unique Brand
Invest in delivering great customer service, and your customers will do a lot of your marketing for you.
A big part of owning your own business is finding your advantage over your competition and marketing that to your patients. Once you know what your advantage is, make sure your brand message is consistent. People will look for medical practices that are consistent with messaging and that seem reliable. Get your staff on board with the brand message to make sure your patient experiences your brand consistently.
There are lots of medical practices out there to forget that their business is in customer service, not just medicine. Your practice is about your patients and the satisfaction they get from visiting your offices. Online reviews have made this even more important. A huge amount of consumers put a lot of trust in online reviews, not just recommendations from friends and family. Make sure you’re getting good reviews.