Over the course of our time here at My Practice Engine, we’ve talked about using incentive programs to focus everyone in your practice on the same goals as those who have an ownership interest in the practice. Below is a very recent, real life example of the impact of a good incentive program.
In our offices in Spain, we set up a very simple incentive program that started in the fourth quarter of 2014. All of the offices there are multispecialty offices so we were interested in performance on the dental and orthodontic side. Our incentive involved a combination of orthodontic starts and dental collections. We would take the past performance in those categories and increase that by a percentage for targeted growth in the offices and that was the goal for the office to reach. For reaching the goals, the staff in the offices could earn a percentage of up to 10% of base pay. This incentive is not insignificant and its significance caused the office managers to take keen notice of the program when it was introduced in early October.
In one of our offices in Barcelona, one of the managers took a very keen interest in the program. She closely monitored the website that tracked results and reviewed the regular e-mail alerts that would be sent to her. These alerts would notify her and her team of potential opportunities for new patients in the office. For example, one alert notified the office of new patients that might have their appointments scheduled too far in the future or recall appointments that had to be addressed.
The goal for this office was a total of 105,000 euros for the quarter. On December 30, 2014, the manager sent an e-mail indicating that her office had reached 104,000 euros for the quarter, but that the office was closed on New Year’s Eve and that one particular patient had signed his contract, but had decided to start treatment in January rather than in December. As such, they would miss the goal for the quarter.
Somewhat of an aside here: we consider ourselves at OCA Spain to be a generally decent bunch of people so if the office had come that close –combined with our knowledge that this manager and office had worked hard to overcome several obstacles to growth in 2014—we would have awarded the prize anyway. But that’s not the end of the story. Not at all.
Rather than take a chance of potentially missing out on the cash award, this enterprising manager went to work. She contacted patients to gauge their interest in getting started with orthodontic treatment on December 31. As luck would have it, she found one who would, in fact, be interested. Then, she contacted the orthodontist in the office to see if he would be willing to come into the office for one patient. In the interest of building his business and ensuring staff happiness, he agreed to come in to get that patient started.
From there, everything fell into place, office opened for one patient, patient seen, office closed, incentive reached, Happy New Year to all.
Taken from a larger view, you might say, “Who cares? You simply started a contract a few days earlier. It would have been signed anyway AND the practice expenses now go up for a starting a contract that would have been started anyway.” That response misses the point. The important point here is that there was an incentive to achieve a certain goal and the staff changed their behavior to meet that goal. Moreover, I can tell you that with some of the challenges that office has faced, the fact that the office even approached an incentive goal is an impressive accomplishment. This probably would not have been achieved without an incentive.
Of course, an incentive program can be applied to almost anything you want to get done. Certainly, new patients represents an obvious. We’ve seen doctors give cash awards for the staff putting important notices in the patient files, controlling the amount of inventory and office supplies and various and sundry other things.
When applying these programs, keep a few things in mind. First, the incentive should be meaningful. A $20 prize for a goal set over a 6 month period isn’t going to move anyone to action. Second, make sure that the staff know the exact rules for the plan and exactly what you want to accomplish. Finally, ensure that participants can track how they are doing and where they stand at any given time in the process.
It’s a new year and a perfect time to kick off an incentive program. If you need help setting it up or tracking results, let us know. Click here.
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