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Seven Ways to Increase Your Practice's Profitability and Productivity Jay M. Geier

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By Jay M. Geier

If you are serious about growing your practice, you must ask yourself an important question: what do all highly successful organizations have in common? The answer is excellent leadership.

Plain and simple, your practice is an organization that runs on human capital. If you want your practice to grow more profitable so that it provides a more fulfilling life for you, your family and your employees you must realize that your practice is a business built around the talents of people. And, more importantly, you are the leader.

Top-notch leadership is an invaluable asset. It is the driving force to any noteworthy accomplishment. The triumphs of great leadership can be seen throughout history in business, sports, politics and almost every aspect of human life. Just to give a few examples: Howard Schultz, leader of the Starbucks revolution; Mohandas Ghandi, leader of the Indian independence movement; Susan B. Anthony, leader of the women's suffrage movement; Martin Luther King Jr., leader of the civil rights movement; and Steve Jobs, leader of Apple, Inc. and the creator of almost every new piece of technology we use today! All of these leaders are people like you and me.

The reason these people were able to lead others and produce amazing results was because they each had an extremely high level of engagement in what they were pursuing.

A leader is one who goes before, or with, to show the way. A leader is not merely someone who is in charge of other people. The greatest leaders are not those who just tell people what to do, they are excellent at showing the way to others. As a leader, you show the way by having a high level of engagement in the pursuit of your goals.

Highly engaged leaders motivate those around them, and help the group to achieve collective goals. A great leader in your office staff can allow you, as the doctor, to be more productive. A great leader at the front desk can schedule more patients to increase collections for the practice. Leaders are worth real money to your practice. As the doctor, it is essential to the growth of your practice that you develop into an excellent leader and cultivate excellent leaders among your staff.

So, how do you develop leadership? I've created a tool within my company known as The Engagement Scale. It is a system we use for self-analysis. The scale ranks your level of engagement in particular areas of your life such as work, finances, family, physical fitness, spirituality, etc. The engagement scale rating system goes from zero to 10; with zero being the lowest level of engagement and 10 being the highest.

Characteristics of a 10: this person is extremely passionate, expressive and very emotional; oftentimes very persuasive. He or she is influential; usually a great leader and teacher. A 10 is a pretty fantastic person.

Alternatively, a zero is a person that is completely uninvolved, with no idea what's going on. Whereas a one is a person with at least some very limited knowledge or awareness.

How would people describe you in the office? Would you win the leadership award? Or are you known for contributing the least possible to projects? This is an interesting way to find out what other people think about you.

Use the engagement scale on yourself – and be brutally honest. You do not want inflated ratings because that will not help you grow. How you come across to everybody in the office is really important. Especially since you are the leader by default! This engagement scale is essential for you.

After honestly ranking yourself, the goal is to increase your ranking and each of your employees' rankings. There are 10 proven strategies that great leaders use to keep their engagement high, and reflected below are a few to help you raise your personal ranking and support the improvement of your employees' engagement.

Take responsibility. Every important task has to be assigned to a person and be held accountable for its success or failure. Allowing staff to take on tasks independently will make them feel productive and accountable. People who are not held responsible for something or don't accept responsibility for the good and the bad breed low productivity.

Set specific goals for yourself, the office and for individual staff members. Specific goals immediately elevate a person's level of engagement. Additionally, to sustain engagement you must track results daily. It is a universal principle that when you track something, it naturally motivates you to take the action necessary for its improvement.

Clarify expectations. Everyone in your office should know what it is that they impact, what they're responsible for and what they should be focused on enhancing. The more specific you can be the better. Clarifying expectations is a critical step to take toward increasing the productivity and profitability of your office.

Develop a strategy to avoid distractions. Many people are easily distractible, some more than others. Once you have a clear purpose and a specific goal, you must have a strategy to stay on track. You should come to work and leave your personal stuff at home. While at work you should be nearly unreachable by anyone, unless it directly relates to your productive activities. And when you are at home, protect what goes in your headspace. Keep your mind clear and occupied only with information that is important to your life and priorities. Focus on the positive.

Finally, in life you must believe that ultimately, you get what you deserve. In order to grow your practice you must be an excellent leader. To be an excellent leader you must become great at setting the bar for your staff with your own actions. To accomplish that, increase your level of engagement in pursuing the goals for your practice. Following these simple strategies will help you achieve the level of engagement you need in order to achieve your practice goals. Here's to your success!
Author’s Bio
Jay M. Geier is a speaker, consultant and the president and founder of The Scheduling Institute. He helps his clients reach new levels of success and create a lifestyle they dream of, using their practice as the vehicle. He has a unique ability for getting results in a practice by leveraging its current resources with a primary focus on the staff. The Scheduling Institute currently offers several on-site training courses that focus on telephone training, marketing and creating the ultimate new patient experience. The strategies in this article are the basic strategies the Scheduling Institute clients are implementing. For more information and special Townie pricing, call 877-216-8225 or e-mail at info@schedulinginstitute.com.
Orthotown Magazine
September 2025
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