How to Overcome Administrative Stress & Grow Your Business With Practice Better
September 26, 2022
Ok friends, time for a little trivia.
Who was it that said “give me 6 hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first 4 sharpening the ax”?
If you said Abe Lincoln, I’m impressed, you’re quite the history buff (or maybe you googled it like I did).
But let me tell you, Mr. Lincoln couldn’t have said it better.
Now what does this have to do with scaling your business?
Everything.
It’s all about spending the extra time upfront to create something that works EFFICIENTLY and gives you back more time in the long run.
Cutting down that tree with a properly sharpened ax is going to take much less time. But leave the blade dull, and you’ll be left hacking away at that thing for twice as long.
Now, when it comes to managing your practice, I bet you can relate (on some level) to that feeling of chipping away for hours on end, only to end up frustrated or exhausted at the end of the day.
Believe me, I’ve been there! But after years of fine-tuning, I’ve discovered how to sharpen my ax so to speak.
Sharpening your ax = streamlining your business.
It’s all about simplifying things!
And today I want to share with you my favorite tool that made this all possible.
Keep reading to learn all about how and why Practice Better can help you streamline your business & create a more sustainable wellness practice.
What is Practice Better?
I’ve said it once (actually soooo many times) and I’ll say it again…
Practice Better is one of my all time favorite software programs for private practice clinicians & health professionals.
As a business owner & clinician myself, I know what it’s like to wish you could just focus on your patients. But doing so feels impossible when you’re constantly having to fuss with administrative details.
Practice Better is a client management system that can streamline all of your patient-related processes in one place, cutting down on the tedious admin tasks.
With a little upfront work, Practice Better allows you to…
✔️ Save countless hours of admin work that can be better spent on patients
✔️ Increase patient engagement, follow-through & referrals
✔️ Create a central hub for all client communication (no more email digging)
✔️ Build a sustainable business that provides you with more FREEDOM
Do I have you hooked yet??
Good, let’s get to the actionable stuff!
Three Ways to Grow Your Business With Practice Better.
1. Automate Patient Onboarding.
Let’s start from the beginning shall we?
Patient onboarding is a critical process in your business. It’s something that happens over-and-over, and it impacts a patient’s first impression & overall client experience.
You want your onboarding process to be easy, straightforward and automated. No more re-creating the wheel every time friends!
Now…without knowing your unique business model, I can’t tell you *exactly* what to do, but the first place to start is to make a list of everything you currently do when someone schedules an appointment with you.
This might be the same for every type of appointment, OR it might be slightly different depending on which type of appointment the person makes. Either way, you want to map out the onboarding process/workflow.
Here is an example onboarding workflow:
- Client schedules an appointment via your scheduling link
- Appointment is added to your calendar
- Email confirmation with Intake forms are sent out to patient w/ teleconference link
- Access to client portal is granted to patient with second email
- Access to certain content is granted to patient based on type of appointment
*Note: some clinicians only onboard patients into Practice Better once they schedule a new patient appointment, while others create a record even for people who just schedule a free consultation. You get to decide what works best for you!
Once you have your list of onboarding steps written down, it’s time to automate!
In Practice Better, you have the ability to create an automation for pretty much any onboarding step you can think of, including adding new patients, confirming appointments, granting access to the client portal or specific program content, sending forms & sending questionnaires.
Another automation to consider for your onboarding process is adding “tags” to people based on the type of appointment they made. For example, you could add the tag “Free Consultation” to every person who schedules a free call with you. This allows you to easily see where everyone is at in your overall customer journey / experience.
Maybe you decide to run a promotion for people who have completed that free call but didn’t schedule. Your automated promotion is to encourage them to make the next step and sign up for your 4-week digestive health program. Either way, consider adding an automation to “tag” people as they move through the system.
2. Improve Patient Experience
Now that we’ve talked about how to onboard new patients, let’s talk about how to engage the patients you already have & how to ensure your patient experience is top-notch!
[Because the truth is – it’s far less work to KEEP your existing patients than it is to win over new ones.]
With Practice Better, you can really enhance your patient experience with the following::
Leverage Customized Forms
Make it easy-peasy for your patients to give you the information you need with customizable forms that are mobile-friendly & aesthetically pleasing. The key to using these forms is to really think through exactly what information you need, and ask for it in a succinct & organized way. (Pro tip: enter your brand colors in the Practice Better settings and all your new forms will automatically carry these through).
Reduce Overwhelm w/ “Tasks”
Help your patient keep track of action items by using the tasks area where they can easily mark each task off upon completion – who doesn’t love checking boxes off?!
Professional & Clear Protocols
Make sure your patients are receiving the information they need after each appointment. But don’t waste time creating each protocol from scratch! By starting with a base protocol template, you can easily add or remove information that is not relevant to that particular patient.
Enhance Communication & Community
Consider holding weekly group sessions to provide people with a lower-cost option of staying connected. You could structure these around various topics of interest to help build community, or make them “drop-in” Q/A sessions. You can integrate Zoom calls right within Practice Better, and send out an email with the sign-up link for weekly sessions.
3. Start Generating Reviews & Testimonials
One of the very best things you can do to build your business is collect great patient reviews!
And do you know how to get those?
You Ask!
Now I know it feels a little uncomfortable to ask for reviews. Andddd I know you get busy so it’s easy to let this fall to the bottom of your “to-do” list.
Which is why I want you to automate it within Practice Better!
To get started:
- Write a short email, asking for their feedback, that is generic enough to send to any patient.
- Create an automation within Practice Better so that every patient who has had “X” number of appointments receives an automatic email & link to share their review.
- Setup an email to notify you when a patient has completed a review, so you can share this “social proof” on social media, your website & your sales pages.
Still Have Questions About Practice Better?
If all this “tech talk” is starting to sound like a “mwa mwa mwa” trombone sound (oh hey, Charlie Brown), I have your back!
Check out this value-packed podcast with Practice Better specialist Brittney Andrejan for even more insight into this amazing tool.
And…if you’re ready to move your practice forward fast – you can schedule a time to chat so we can explore working together 1:1.
I’m rooting for you friend!
*Some of the links in this blog are to products or services I use and love. If you take action (i.e. make a purchase) after clicking one of the links, I’ll earn some coffee ☕ money which I promise to drink while continuing to support your journey. 😘
