As a practice owner you need to know the difference between perceived reality and actual reality.
To put it simply, perceived reality is what you ‘feel’ or ‘think’ is happening with you and your practice. This is dangerous ground as it often is quite far from the actual truth.
The actual reality is founded in stats and what stops us from looking hear is usually fear.
And fear is based on the meaning we add to our perceived reality and this is based on our negative beliefs which in turn is founded on the past, all of which is not real!
My mentor, Marcus Bird once said to me, run flat out towards your fear.
This means looking at your appointment book today, for the week ahead.
This gives a clear message to the universe to bring in the energy, call in the patients.
But here’s the thing. Be careful you don’t add negative meaning when you look at your book and see gaps.
It doesn’t mean you’re not successful, not getting results, or not able to sustain your practice! It is simply a gap and is not necessarily reflective of the bigger picture.
This is where stats come in.
Stats provide us with a balanced, over-arching perspective that is reflective of your ACTUAL REALITY, not what you ‘think’ is going on.
But here’s another thing!
You need to know what stats to look at, when you look at them and how to interpret them otherwise they will influence your perceived reality.
Here’s my top 3:
- Trend analysis: Your patient management software should provide you with a function to see you’re overall trending in graph form and compare to same time last year. Your trend trajectory should steadily climb at about a 20-30 degree gradient over time and be ahead of last year. Be aware of steep inclines and declines. Steep inclines are quite simply not sustainable and most likely you will stall. Steep declines can be a slippery slope and mean you need to take a massive action step NOW.
- PVA or patient visit average: Total Office Visits / New Patients. This number should steadily increase over time. Think about the ideal patient and the optimal number of visits they need to comply with your optimal treatment schedule. This is the number you are aiming for. If not then you are not communicating – enrolling your philosophy or treatment plan with your patients well enough.
- CA or case average: Total Gross / New patients. Again this should steadily increase over time. Essentially this value relates to the value of a new patient all things being equal. Look to a practitioner who you aspire to and calculate their CA, this can be your starting point.
Bottom line, don’t be scared to look at your stats and your book. As a practice owner and as individual practitioners you need to know where your practice is at any given time. Stats help you set targets and goals that are realistic and then help you monitor your progress towards your goals.
Best of luck.