Time to reflect on the lessons and wins of 2021, and start planning for the year ahead. The best way to plan? Set specific, attainable goals. Whether you are goal-setting for your entire practice, yourself professionally or for your personal growth—here are three simple, but often overlooked, tips for setting and achieving your goals. Let’s make 2022 the best year yet for you and your practice!
1. Visualize Your Goals (& Write Them Down!)
Writing down your goals is the first step to discovering, analyzing and committing to what’s important for your practice to achieve in the New Year. According to a recent study, you are 42%* more likely to achieve goals that are written! So, get your favorite fountain pen and start jotting down your biggest potential wins for 2022.
Think from the bottom up by envisioning your end result. What will this time next year look like ideally? Will you work toward better customer service, spend less time on claims or something else? Perhaps your goal is simply to increase same-day contracts in 2022? Did you know that OrthoFi practices average more than 42% same-day starts, which is more than two times higher than the average practice!?
Whatever your goals for 2022 are, remember to write them down. Focus on one to five goals to start with and add to it throughout the year as needed. Seeing your goals come to fruition will excite and motivate you to keep goal-setting!
2. Start Now
The first weeks of the New Year are a great time to get a head start on the much-needed organization that will help you achieve your goals in 2022. Take a moment to think through any relevant changes that your practice may need to make, get a jump-start on any cleaning or ordering the office needs to do to make sure you’re ready for a busy Q1.
Make a to-do list that everyone at the office can follow and contribute to. Here are a few ideas to get your list started:
- If your goal is to increase your office’s conversion rates, make sure your team starts 2022 off right by agreeing on efficient processes and systems that reduce points of friction for the patient. For example. verifying insurance ahead of time directly correlates to more same-day contracts, so pre-populate information early and follow up with patients who haven’t provided insurance information at least two days before their new patient exam.
- Are you up-to-date on the important insurance code changes in 2022 and thought about how your practice will handle them? Tina Byrne’s MasterClass webinar, where she takes a deep dive into insurance coding and strategy, may be a great resource to watch in the New Year.
- If building a better 5-star patient experience is a 2022 goal of yours, check out our most recent webinar with Treatment Coordinator and social media influencer, Janelle Baum of Aszkler Orthodontics where she’ll teach you all her tips and tricks for creating value beyond the exam.
- Is taking actionable insights and learnings from the past year where you want to focus? Take advantage of free resources and webinars that provide the opportunity to learn, even if you only have small chunks of time you can dedicate. Check out our free resources, including our recorded webinar series from 2021.
3. Leverage Your Team
Everyone on the team can contribute to achieving office goals, but first, everyone needs to be on the same page in regards to overall direction. From there, they need to understand exactly how they can help. Think through the individual strengths of each team member—from the Doctor to the TC to the Financial Coordinator—and help them understand how their unique skills will get the team across the finish line in 2022.
Where does each person excel, and how can the team help them be more efficient and therefore, successful? Maybe the Doctor is a powerful motivator, the TC an outgoing communicator and the Office Coordinator a data enthusiast. How can the team leverage individual skills to make for a more cohesive and goal-driven office…and what tools can we use to make each team member’s job easier and more efficient? After all, one of the main reasons practices partner with OrthoFi is because it enables them to focus on playing offense and allows the team time to focus on developing their individual strengths for the team’s greater good. Instead of sitting on hold with insurance companies to verify benefits or chasing down delinquent claims payments, your team can focus on more productive and growth-oriented tasks that allow them to do what they do best and leverage their unique, individual strengths.
On this same note, take some time to think through what conferences or seminars each team member attended in 2021, and hold a team meeting to discuss the outcomes and ideas that can be re-energized for the New Year. Get buy-in by collaborating as a team to decide what new concepts you will implement in your office.
While you take inventory of your goals and the tools you will use to get there, keep in mind that with OrthoFi, practices are significantly outperforming the industry when it comes to production and collections. Not only do OrthoFi practices grow at a higher rate than the industry average, they do so in a scalable and maintainable way. We would be happy to schedule some time with you to share our tips and tricks to help you start more smiles in the New Year. Cheers!