As a physical therapist with lots of experience in running a practice, Kim Chastain decided to make a change and do it right in her own practice.
For 6 years Kim was partners in a national rehab company, managing to grow her clinics to six with the help of another local partner. But she felt herself hindered by restrictions on her marketing budget and time that allowed her no ability to really manage her clinics properly.
“I put in long hours, which in the beginning was fine as we originally had some control over who we could hire and what needed to be done. That changed over the years and I found myself working more and more and having less and less control. The only way we were allowed to market was by going out in person to doctors which was never really productive and again took away from what little time I had to run the clinics.
I wanted to be able to expand but found that with our skeleton crew we were wearing all the hats and there was no real organization, no method to grow predictably. We were doing duplicate work and no one really knew how to measure how well each was doing individually. If we were successful it was the “partner” that did it. If we were not, it was the “partner” that did that. As an executive responsible for the operation this may be largely true but it is a team effort and each individual who works there contributes to the overall success of the practice. Those contributions can and should be measured. I knew that even if I left this partnership I would still need to solve this problem. I also needed to solve the problem of organization itself.”
Kim finally decided that she didn’t want to continue in her business partnership. She was working long hours, wasn’t having fun and wanted the freedom to be able to expand as she saw fit.
“I had Measurable Solutions’ newsletter for a few months, sitting in my briefcase – I would read it once a week at least. I realized that all that they are saying, all the myths that they had listed – that was exactly how I thought. I thought, this is too good to be true…this newsletter was almost too good to be true. Then I decided I am going out on my own. I needed to gather as much information as I could because I knew that everything that I had been taught by this national rehab company, if I kept doing that, I was going to be in the same boat. I would never get out of my practice. I would never be able to work part-time.
“Shortly after I made this decision, I took the New Patient Course, as I wanted more control over my expansion. I knew I would really need to get the word out as I was going to be building my own practice from the ground up. I also realized that despite a respectable degree of success I really didn’t have the knowledge it took to effectively manage a practice.
I opened my new practice with all the information from the New Patient Course in place and my office manager had been trained on it as well. We just went like gang-busters. We had patients calling before we had actually opened the doors.
I then rolled up my sleeves and became trained as an executive as well at Measurable Solutions. I can say that I now feel 100% certain of success. Before I felt that only my relationships with doctors would determine my growth. Now I know I can grow as fast as I want to grow and that I can create a diverse referral base through what I now know about public relations and marketing.
I can also say with total certainty that I understand what it takes to make a team and how important every staff member is to the expansion of the practice. Having the ability to manage each individual’s production with statistics allows everyone to be self-sufficient and to determine their own pay as well. We are also starting out with a way to communicate internally which will not waste each other’s time and will allow each individual to do their own job; something which we never had before. I feel that I really can have the dream that I wanted, I feel that I can opt, if I’d like, to not work the practice at all. I feel that I have all the training tools that I need to create another CEO (that is not even me) and I could leave. That blows my mind! That I could not be there, and it can be a lucrative business. With the training, it’s whatever your goals are. Depending on how much you choose to expand is how much you will expand. And I can step out or not. That’s definitely being able to do what I want to do with my own personal life!
I have seen what’s out there by the so-called experts. This is the only workable technology that I have seen. Just the New Patient Course alone, you go back to your practice and you know exactly what you need to do when you go back. No other course has given me that. Even those specific to physical therapists.
Prior to Measurable Solutions’ training what was drilled into me was to buckle down and shrink. For 6 years that was what the philosophy was. Measurable Solutions’ philosophy is the complete opposite, you know, you have to expand! I never thought that I would be seeing 200 patients a week! I never thought that would happen!
If your goals are to be a slave to your practice and to have it be totally dependent on whether you are there or not, then continue to do whatever you are doing. But if you want some freedom and you want to be able to work part-time or not work at all and still have an income, you need to have these tools or you are never going to get out.
I consider myself fortunate at this point that I had the experience of running a practice against considerable odds since it opened my eyes to the pitfalls that are there. I am glad I took the opportunity since then to really do things right the first time in my new practice and would encourage anyone in practice for a long time or just starting out to get trained as an executive.
