Practice Tip 11 – Client Compliance and your quality of care…

THE FINE ART OF CLIENT COMPLIANCE
AND YOUR QUALITY OF CARE…

You may have heard the joke about the veterinarian who won the lottery - they practiced till the money ran out, right? At first glance this may seem amusing but without some skill in the art of client compliance there is some sobering truth to it.

Fact: Many veterinarians do what we do for the interest and activity of the medicine and surgery and with only a secondary regard for financial remuneration. When faced with client objections to our treatment plans we 1) take procedures off the quote and lower the quality of care, 2) don’t charge for procedures, or worse, 3) try and charge for them with out the client’s go a head (dangerous).

These actions ,if unhandled, can leave a practice that is delivering less than optimum medicine and dangerously close to insolvency. Euthanasia of pets with treatable conditions can increase as well (just look at Emergency Medicine these last couple of years). With out some skill we get trapped between what is best for the clients’ pocket book and what is best for our patients needs. So what is a solution? Enter the fine art of Client Compliance.

First realize that there are clients who DO want to and WILL spend money at your practice when they FULLY understand what you are trying to do. But in recession economies there is a lot of fear associated with spending any money not deemed absolutely necessary. Client compliance is the tool to use to remove invalid objections (I.e. the client is financially qualified but resistant to spending money) to your treatment plans and keeping your quality of medical care high. This starts with you being interested in your client and what the problem is.

Client Compliance Rule #1:
BE INTERESTED IN THE CLIENT IN FRONT OF YOU.
When you are in the exam room keep your attention there, not on things happening outside. Thousands of client surveys have told us that the number one reason they chose their veterinarian is they are interested and the care.

Client Compliance Rule #2:
DO NOT CONFUSE THEM WITH MEDICAL JARGON WHEN PRESENING YOUR TREATMENT PLAN.
A confused client will not understand what you are trying to do and will be unable to make a good decision. More often than not the decision they make will be to not go ahead with your treatment plan.

Client Compliance Rule #3:
HANDLE OBJECTIONS WITH MORE COMMUNICATION.
To do this takes time and you must block off enough time, ideally 30 minutes, for each client presenting a major problem with their pet. A detailed estimate in simple words will do wonders to explain everything that you are doing and will add value to your services in the eyes of the client. Work on getting agreements with the client for each of these steps. If the client is not confused and sees good value and they are financially qualified they will go ahead with your treatment plan.

So try this next time you go into the exam room:
1. Give yourself and the client enough time… a 30 minute consultation...
2. Be interested in your client…
3. Communicate clearly about what is happening with the case… Do not use ANY large medical terms that will confuse the client. Keep it simple!
4. Always print and work off a detailed estimate that breaks things down...
5. Get the client’s agreement on each step of the estimate…

If the client is financially qualified watch them give you the go ahead
And keep your quality of care high!


Sounds simple? It is. Try it out and watch what happens.

Questions? Give me a call.

Do the VPS Client Compliance Builder course.

This course is the catalyst for the beginings of change...

“This course is the catalyst for the beginnings of change and growth of our practice. It outlines the process we need to follow, and if we do, there is no reason we can’t attain our goals.”

Shelagh Morrison, DVM
Formulas for Business Success

Learning different ways to communicate...

"Reading the statistics properly and knowing how to apply the formulas will make goal setting and Battle plans much easier to do. Learning different ways to communicate well with your staff was also very informative."

Lynn Armstrong, Dir. Admin
Breaking The Code

I am excited to utilize these tools...

“So much of my life up until now has been a series of dreams, plans; so many of which have failed to come to fruition. Now I know why.

All I had were plans, without the actual structure or series of necessary steps to make those plans a reality.

I am excited to utilize these tools; whether they be applied to a goal of cleaning out the garage, making sure I have the garden this summer, that vacation, lifestyle, clean office or secure retirement. I just have to work through each step, one-by-one and finally get there."

Janelle Walker, DVM, Practice Owner
Policy and Planning Addendum

For my overall health I need to have Personal Integrity in place...

“The Personal Integrity Course really made me take a good look at my own life, my own code of honor, and what my own ethics are, but more important than that was the need for every business or family to instill the importance of their own personal ethics and integrity in their staff, family, or children. It is never too early or too late to put your ethics in. It is your right and your duty to have the integrity to put in place a code that you live by in your day to day life. ...For my overall health I need to have Personal Integrity in place.”

Colleen Davis, Practice Manager
Personal Integrity Course

Practice Tip 7 – Control

ARE YOU IN CONTROL OF YOUR PRACTICE…
OR DOES IT CONTROL YOU?

Good question, right? As private practice owners we all paid the price of admission and signed up for success. Or so we thought. Many times stress, burn out, low morale, not enough business, too much business, working too many hours, low profit etc… quickly moved in .

These are all signs of poor control. The problem (and solution) comes down to this seemingly simple law: Control is the ability to either speed something up, keep it the same, or slow it down. It’s pro-active in it’s approach. With this in mind, get the idea that you either control something (like driving a car), or like a passenger it controls you. So how does this relate to your practice?

For starters, very few of us really know how to first compile objective data to diagnose the condition of any area in our practice and then use this data to proactively speed an area up or slow it down. For example, early on I kept going to my accountant with the monthly statements and asking “This data is interesting but what can I do with it?”. He had no practical solutions. But as clinicians we naturally think this way, right? We compile subjective and objective patient data, make an assessment (diagnosis or tentative diagnosis) and then proceed to make a proactive treatment plan to improve the condition of the patient.

So how about doing this with your practice?
Here’s a place to start:

Pick some basic objective things to track over time
- monthly New Patients and Client Visits are good ones to start with (Note: just like your patients, a practice has different systems that work together. Each can and should be monitored like you monitor the heart rate, the white count etc… of a patient).

Graph these out to develop your Management Dashboard
- just like in your car - so you can visually see the direction these areas are heading.

Keep it up to date
...and develop your external and internal marketing plans as tools to use to pro-actively influence the areas you are tracking. Over time you should feel more and more in control.

This is the foundation of good practice management.
Questions? Give me a call.

We can now detail out the steps we have taken...

“This addendum put all of the theoretical knowledge from the Ethics for Business Survival course into a real-life context in our practice. We can now detail out the steps we have taken and need to continue with to affect a sustainable practice growth with organization and efficiency that will make the management side of our Veterinary careers much less daunting and more enjoyable.”

Shelagh Morrison, DVM
Ethics for Business Survival Addendum II