Are more than 15% of your exam patients “Will-Call-Back”? Do too many of your exam patients not start treatment? Do you think that you might not be doing your best to start every exam patient? If so, this pearl can help you ferret out the reasons why you have fewer starts than possible.
Ideally, 100% of your exams should start is some type of treatment—but life is not ideal. There is a certain percentage that does not need or can't afford treatment—probably 1-3%. There is a certain percentage that gets turned off because you do not present the kind of exam that makes them feel like starting treatment. This is due to the doctor’s and/or TC’s personality that establishes remorse instead of rapport and/or because the exam is poorly conducted—this can reduce your exam starts by 5-25%. There is also a certain percentage that can get lost in Observation Recall because of poor follow-up—this can reduce your exam starts by 9-22%. Thus, some practices can only start a maximum of 50% of exams while others can start as many as 85%; most practice fall somewhere in between. If you want to determine your overall percentage, take the total (for 24 months) of your Full + Ph-I + Limited starts (but not Ph-II starts who don’t have a second exam) and divide that total by the number of new-patient exams for the past 24 months. For example, if you had 800 new-patient exams and 520 total starts, you start 65% of your exams, which is probably typical.
As noted, there are many reasons why your new exam patients never end up in treatment, but could if you resolved your problems. Presented chronologically they are:
1) You and/or your TC don’t have the best personalities and/or have not taken the necessary steps to account for that. To help resolve this, refer to: http://www.thebioengineeringco.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=242&Itemid=766
2) Your ability to sell your patient/families on your practice is weak. To help resolve this, refer to: http://www.thebioengineeringco.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=202&Itemid=766
3) You are doing too many exams from welfare or insurance cases that will not pay for all or a realistic percentage of your fee. To help resolve this, review your cases for all insurance companies (or welfare) sources and determine those that clog up your daily exam slots on your schedule. Either do not accept patients from those sources or only give them an exam at an unpopular time—and/or—only give out one of those unpopular exams every week or two.
4) You are not protecting your starting appointment slots in your schedule, using them for patients already started, making them unavailable for the TC to use for new starts. To help resolve this don’t allow any team member, except the TC, make appointments in those starting appointment slots.
5) You don’t follow up on Will-Call-Back patients very well and they will just fade away. To help resolve this, refer to: http://www.thebioengineeringco.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=233&Itemid=766
6) You do not have control of patients placed in Recall Observation and they are getting lost. To help resolve this, refer to: http://www.thebioengineeringco.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=182&Itemid=766
In most practices, the second greatest reason patients don’t start is lack of Observation Recall control in 6) above. But, the greatest reason why exam patients don’t start is because they aren’t convinced and become Will-Call-Back (WCB) patients that the TC does not diligently follow up upon. To resolve this, refer to the PDF attachment “TC Diligent Control of Will-Call-Back Patients” using the attached “TC, Exam Outcome Control form”. Also included is an effective "Will-Call-Back Procedure" and its Tracking Log.
If you want the best overall approach, including all forms,verbage and procedures you can purchase the "New Pt. Experience TC Kit".
