Strategize your education
By Tom Deters, DC

We have all been there — sitting in a seminar, trying to get caught up on the latest techniques and information while we earn CEUs for relicensure.

Sure enough, in every crowd there is some doc reading a newspaper, clipping his nails or nodding off. What a waste. While continuing your education may be mandatory in many cases, it also provides a tremendous opportunity to move your practice forward.

Continuing education is critical to maintaining a motivated doctor and staff. It affects both patient care and office procedure. It also develops you as a professional, affects the business of your practice and helps you see more patients and generate more revenue.

The question becomes, “How can you best allocate your money and time to educate yourself and your staff — and in what areas?”

Too often, courses are chosen reactively (for mandatory license renewal) or even randomly, rather than proactively with strategic thought and planning. Education should fill your needs, requirements and priorities as dictated by your overall strategic plan — and should not be a last-minute waste of time and money.

CEs ONLY HALF THE BATTLE

While many states require proof of CEUs for re-licensure, too many chiropractors live like the Lone Ranger. They help many people in pain and disease and do a great job but do not spend enough time seeking innovative sources of information. Their exposure to what is new and cutting-edge may be limited to one mandatory seminar per year, chosen more because of scheduling convenience than any thing else.

Look at your practice as a whole. From an aerial view, any practice or business has three main strategic goals. The first and most important is to grow, maximize and protect the core business. For chiropractors, that means the traditional sources of revenue; personal injury, managed care, workers’ compensation and your cash business can all be core business elements.

Each element of your core business needs to be analyzed, marketed, advertised and managed separately.

The second goal is to develop new revenue streams that use the core business as a launching platform. Nutritional service programs, nutritional supplements, fitness programs, low-back schools, smoking cessation and a host of other wellness concepts can be used to grow your practice and develop new revenue streams. The key here is that new business should never come at the expense of your core business.

The third goal is to strive for operational excellence. This encompasses staff training, office procedures, patient education, billing, accounting systems and personnel issues. While this does not sound terribly exciting, many practices are stunted or limited by lack of excellence in these areas. Operational excellence areas can make or break a practice.

FILLING THE GAP

After thinking about each of the above goals, what opportunities and challenges are primary in growing and improving your practice? What factors are limiting your growth? How would you prioritize them?

Another way to ask yourself these questions is, “Where are you now? Where do you want to be? What is the gap? What resources, skills, knowledge, education or training do you need to get there?”

Most times, it is not your clinical skills that determine the success or failure of your practice, but rather your business expertise and management skills.

That may be an uncomfortable pill to swallow and you may feel like “that’s not what I went to school for” — and you are right. Most doctors went to school to learn how to care for patients. We did not go to school to learn how to plan or develop a business. Typically, the “business side” comes after you have already been thrown in the briar patch.

So what does your practice need most? Does it need more skill in business planning and strategic positioning to capture the huge new markets? Does it need more efficiency in operations (billing, office management, patient education)? Does it need more training on new products or services? Think and decide.

WHAT IS YOUR ROI?

If you are going to invest your valuable time, energy and financial resources, plus bear the opportunity cost of missing office hours while traveling and attending courses, what will be the return on your investment? True, you may not be able to calculate an immediate figure, but attending programs that address your strategic needs and priorities will serve your practice most.

How applicable will the material presented be to helping you or your staff improve? If you do not have enough information, call the presenter or organization responsible for the event and ask for more specifics on the content.

‘HAVE TO’ OR ‘GET TO’?

The passion and hunger to learn and grow, both personally and professionally, drives us all. Growth is a basic human need. It may help to look at seminars and programs as something we “get to” do rather than something we “have to” do. Learning is a gift — a gift that we get to choose. Choose your education wisely to help your practice and serve your patients.

For further information on seminars, workshops and consulting on strategic practice development by Dr. Deters, visit his Web site, www.tomdeters.com, or e-mail him at info@tomdeters.com.