Keep small problems small

In one of our client practices, we recently ran into a technical problem that affected all 14 offices in that client’s group of offices.  Before we could begin to investigate the cause and solutions of the problem, our client requested that we involve his legal team and 2 sets of accounting firms to investigate and solve the problem.  Certainly, involving them would lead to some type of action being taken – and enormous fees being run up.

But are those fees merited.  At this point, we’re not even sure of the underlying cause of this technical issue.  The matter could simply be that a clumsy engineer at the service provider tripped over the power cord and cut us off.  Or, there could be more sinister forces at work with that client being the subject of an undercover investigation by a federal law enforcement agency and they are gradually shutting off services before swooping in with guns drawn.  The solution most probably lies somewhere in between.

Before you haul out a bazooka to solve a problem where a fly swatter will do, please take the following steps:

Take the time to identify the actual problem

Here’s something common that happens in every dental and orthodontic practice (or anywhere, for that matter): your internet connection goes out.  First reaction might be, “Did we pay the bill?” or “Call the internet provider, stat!”  Because who can live in this day and age without their internet connection?  A few offices have and will shut things down for the day and head home.  

But what if the problem is simpler than that.  What if a simple power cycling of the router (i.e. turning it off and turning it back on) solves the problem?   Or what if it is a brief inconvenience as the result of testing or upgrades by the internet service provider?  Again, step back.  Assess.  Check all your connections and settings.  See if your neighbors are down too.  Run your diagnostics and so forth and so on. 

Understand the actual problem

A long time ago, we had a practice in Texas that was doing very well.  New patient contracts in both of this doctor’s offices consistently ran in the 40-45 per month range.  The combination of his personality and our marketing was perfect.   Then, the new patient contracts dropped to about 10 per month almost suddenly.  Not much had changed about the marketing.  New patient calls were about the same as they had been and the amount of available consultation time had not dropped off.

When I contacted the doctor to ask him what he was seeing, his response was: “This has everything to do with your company’s marketing effort.”  The numbers most certainly did not agree with that.  The real issue was that he was unhappy with his economic arrangement.  Our marketing produced volume and the no down payment nature of it produced a short term phenomenon that affected collections.  We spent some time working on his financial arrangement with our company and got results back on track.  

If we had gone and changed up the marketing from a very successful formula, we would have torpedoed his business which would have been very unfair to him (and us).  So please make sure that the problem you are attacking is the RIGHT problem.

Remember Occam’s Razor

Without getting into the technicalities of it or offending the purists, my understanding of Occam’s Razor is essentially that the simplest solution to a problem is often the most correct one.  In other words, when a problem crops up in your practice, don’t immediately go to the FBI-snipers-on-the-roof theory of the problem.  Start with the simplest possible explanation and solution and work your way up from there.

As an adjunct, keep reasonableness in mind.  In another 10 office practice, that practice’s bank (one of the large ones) made some changes to the security systems and issued new tokens.  That practice’s manager made the assumption that the doctor or some related party had upset someone at the bank over a unpaid debt or relationship from the past so they couldn’t get a new token.  They wanted to get the legal team involved. Looking at this closer, we probably know a few things in general.  First, a big bank doesn’t really care so much about a relatively small client like this that they would withhold that token from that client out of the substantial number of tokens they had to issue.  Second, that bank probably didn’t handle its own changes.  A lot of the process was probably outsourced to a firm specializing in this area.  That firm probably doesn’t even know who the client is and would probably get in a lot of trouble for selectively holding back tokens from customers.

In the end, a call to the bank was made to cancel any previous tokens and to issue a new one to the address on record.  Again, a simple solution to a relatively mundane problems.

Of course, all problems are not so simple and you have to involve some outside heavy firepower.  But before getting to that point, please make sure to know the problem and see if there is a simple solution to the problem.