What Makes Your Practice Special?

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March 2001

By Carmelo D. Tenuta, PT

What Makes Your Practice Special?

Customer service is the key to getting your business to stand out from the crowd.

Many private practice owners try to differentiate their services from the vast sea of competitors by claiming superiority based on their level of training and experience. We brag about the number of successful cases we have treated over the years and our commitment to learning the newest treatments. While this strategy seems like a sound marketing approach, the reality is that skill level or experience level is not enough to trounce our competition down the road. Rehabilitation has not been able to truly define its effectiveness and outcomes.

Surviving in a surplus market

Business guru Tom Peters remarked at a recent seminar that private practice owners must create something special to stand out in a world of surpluses. He noted that we live in a surplus society, which is a society full of similar companies employing similar people, with similar educational background and experiences, with similar ideas, producing similar things, with similar quality, and similar prices. This concept is a bit redundant, but it is true. Is your rehabilitation business a surplus business?

Not only do I believe that rehab is a surplus business—I also believe that it competes in a very mature market and has more difficulty maintaining originality than businesses in an emerging market.

Most rehabilitation practices are very similar. We tend to employ similar people with similar educational backgrounds and experiences. Most of us attend continuing education to advance our skills and careers. Most of us, if not all, believe we deliver quality services, although often we cannot prove it.

Rehab practices are also in a mature market, where the competition is high and the consumer expectation has been set. An emerging market occurs when competition is low and consumer expectation has yet to be determined. Imagine if you did not have HealthSouth or other national groups, networks, and hospitals providing rehab services in your area or region. Not only is the likelihood greater for financial success, you would also have an opportunity to create the expectation of services for all of your stakeholders.

The Importance of Customer Service

Your challenge is to create a special practice where you stand out among your competition. The question is how. How do you look, feel, and taste different when you provide services that are not exclusive to your practice in a market that already has defined expectations? How can you create a practice that represents more than just good therapy?

Customer service is something that is still sadly missing in health care. It is rare to hear about a large hospital system that is noted for its customer service. Yet in business, some of the United States’ largest and most successful companies are benchmarks for customer service, including Disney, Nordstrom, and Ritz Carlton Hotels. What is their secret? It is an all-out commitment from top management to secretaries on servicing the customer in such a way that the customer comes away with a long-lasting impression or experience. So ask yourself, does my practice create positive lasting impressions with each customer?

In order to achieve great customer service, a few questions must be answered. First of all, who are your stakeholders? Are they patients, physicians, payors, nursing staff, youth league coaches, vendors, case managers, or employees? How do you interface with each stakeholder? How many opportunities are there in your practice to impress? There are an equal number of opportunities for failure.

Look at Disney and the people you interact with when you are visiting its parks. The operators that take your reservation, the guides that help you with parking, the people that greet you at the gates, the ticket takers, the grounds crew, the sales clerks, the show performers, the parade announcer, the food venders—the list is endless. There are many facets involved in creating a great experience for a guest at a Disney park. If any of these people were not properly trained or the processes not securely in place, Disney would not enjoy its reputation as one of America’s best companies. How many of your people or processes interface with your stakeholders?

Customer service is a corporate-wide initiative that must start at the top. I believe you must treat your employees as valuable stakeholders if you want them to treat all customers, management, and other stakeholders with the same regard. This is the essence of creating a special practice. A practice that creates lasting relationships with all stakeholders.

First of all, how many of your managers or owners know all of your employees by first name? It is tough to teach customer service when you do not know all the employees underneath you in a department or company. Are your employees part of the decision- making process in the areas that affect them and your stakeholders? People often will support what they help create.

Do you give your staff the autonomy to solve problems immediately without a lot of red tape? You may want to give them a budget that they can use at their own discretion without penalty. You must start with your staff. You cannot expect your staff to act differently than how they are treated by you.

How do your receptionists handle callers? Do they wait a long time before answering calls? Do customers sit on hold for long periods of time? Do your receptionists welcome the call? Do they badger your caller with a million requests in a callous manner? What training have you provided to ensure their success? Do they know how to handle a client as opposed to a referral source? Have they been given the appropriate support staff to be productive in their role?

What about your health care providers? Are they sensitive to the entire relationship with each patient or client or are they just concerned about diagnosis? Are their schedules flexible enough to fit into clients’ busy lifestyles? Do your clinicians get to know each client? You must go well beyond knowing an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) protocol in order to build loyalty. Do your therapists validate a client’s waiting time if they are running late? Do your clients receive an explanation—preferably one that benefits them rather than the practice—if they will be seeing a different clinician than they usually do?

Examine your service model. Who are the beneficiaries of your model? Are they your stakeholders or are they your staff? Are your hours convenient? Are you open early and late in the day, on weekends? Have you challenged a physician to refer on Sundays or Friday nights? What does your model include that is special? Do you need a greater mix of provider specialties? Only you can decide what is best for your practice.

I believe that paying attention to customer service creates that special quality. You can create it only if it is a top-down initiative and you begin to treat your employees and staff as stakeholders. It is up to you. Find out what makes your practice special.

Carmelo D. Tenuta, PT, is the co-owner and director of Sports Physical Therapy and Rehab Specialists, Kenosha, Wis, which has 11 outpatient centers throughout Wisconsin and Illinois. He also cofounded and is a partner in Rehab Management Solutions, which provides billing, coding, AR management, and collections to other rehab providers nationwide.

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March 2001