Welcome to the Planning for Practice Success Newsletter

Practice Startup Success
Information Advice Encouragement

February 5, 2007
ISSN 1934-3248

QUOTE: The only factor becoming scarce in a world of
abundance is human attention. Kevin Kelly, in 'Wired'
magazine

In this issue:

What's New: FREE Report on chiropractic software companies The Power of Focus:  The Entrepreneur's Dilemma Figuring Collections on the Cash Flow worksheet

Something FREE for you: Go to my website
(www.dcpracticesuccess.com) and you can download a free report which includes information on how to choose chiropractic practice management software companies, and a report on four of the top companies. And it's not even Christmas.  Please don't share with your friends; ask them to go to the website and download for themselves (so I can have an opportunity to show them our products).

Do you pay attention to people? Do you truly listen to them?
People want to be listened to, and they want to feel that what they are saying has value.  Dale Carnegie says one of the best ways to "Win Friends and Influence People" is to pay attention to them.  And Stephen Covey says, In order to be understood, first understand." In other words, get into the habit of truly listening.  People will appreciate it and they will like you and keep coming back as patients.

Part Two of The Power of Focus relates to "the Entrepreneur's Dilemma," which is basically trying to do everything as you set up your new business. Like Michael Gerber says in The E-Myth Revisited, this will only lead to ruin.  Decide what you do best (Adjusting people? Marketing?) and find a team of support people to help do the other things.  I love working with QuickBooks, so I do this myself, but everything else that's not related to writing, I let someone else do.  Believe me, it's worth it!  You will make much more progress in your practice if you start out with an employee.  Find a great (not just a good) CPA and attorney and insurance agent.  Find someone to set up special events and speaking engagements for you.  You will find yourself able to do far more by engaging in the power of focus (and leaving the rest to others).

How do you determine what you will collect your first year?  Someone reported that several banks were sure the assumptions in the Planning for Practice Success spreadsheets were inadequate.  He wanted to know what a "typical" collections estimate might be.  But this is a complicated subject, and the reasonableness of your collections estimates is dependent on several variables.  For example:

* How many people pay by credit/debit card? This greatly increases your immediate collections if many patients pay by credit card.
* How well do you enforce the "payment at time of service" policy?
* How often do you follow up on non-payment with phone calls and letters?
* Are you accepting Medicare and other third-party pay arrangements? This dramatically slows down your collections, since these people

  are paying only the co-pay and you have to wait for the rest to arrive.

I think what the banks want is that you show that not all of the money will be collected.  For purposes of this exercise, though, we could make some assumptions.

Let's say you have about 50% of your patients paying with credit/debit cards, and the rest are primarily "cash," with a few Medicare patients. Let's also say your charges for Month 1 are $10,000.

Month 1 you might collect 50%.or $5,000.
Month 2 you might collect another $3,000.
Month 3 you might collect another $1,000.
Month 4 you might collect another $500.

That would mean $500 would be left uncollected. You might never collect this last bit. If a bank questions the collections assumptions and you can show them that you know your ability to collect depends on the factors above, you should be ok.

Instead, why not order Planning for Practice Success and start maximizing your productive time in planning your practice.
_________________________________________________________________

Ask Dr. Jean Murray a question: email her at jean@dcpracticesuccess.com
Order Planning for Practice Success or one of our other
products or call our toll free number at any time (24/7): 1-866-940-7526

Best wishes for your continued success,

Jean Murray
Planning for Practice Success
Online at:   http://www.dcpracticesuccess.com

The most absurd and reckless aspirations
have sometimes led to extraordinary success.
-- Vauvenargues

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