You have hired your associate and you are both excited and concerned. You are excited because your new doctor will help you make more money as well as help you free up sometime. However, you are very concerned because you have to train your new hire, and you hope he follows your protocols and systems.
Before your associate starts seeing patients, I highly recommend that the new doctor is trained on selling podiatry. It is one thing to have a doctor that is well trained in surgery and biomechanics, but it is another thing to get a patient agreeing on the treatment. No matter how great the doctor is, they need to have extensive training.
I do not have the new doctor see a patient for the first two weeks. During the first week of hire, the doctor will follow one of the experienced physicians of the practice. In addition, the doctor will review his treatment protocols. These protocols are completely written out in a guide, such as the Ultimat Podiatry Practice Management Survival Guide.
During the second week, a staff member will sit down with the new doctor and go through physician drills on selling. These sessions are videotaped. We take our staff members and have them act as a real patient. The doctor will need to treat the staff member as a real patient and go through a complete history, exam, and treatment process with a patient. The trainer will correct the doctor and explain how to improve on the selling process. The biggest issue we see is the doctor hesitates on telling the patient she needs surgery. We correct the doctor and tell him, just give the patient the options and then your recommendation.
At our office, we have a 105 drill questions that we have put together in order to test the doctor’s knowledge on selling and there is another test on coding. Testing and training is the only way to make sure the doctor is knowledgeable on the way your practice runs.
~Coach Peter