Episode 223 | The 5 A’s of Accountability: Audit

Maureen Werrbach (00:00:01) – You’re listening to the group Practice Exchange podcast where the business development resource for group practice owners, where we talk candidly about business ownership and leadership from practice building tips to live coaching to real talk episodes with other group practice owners where the resource you’ve been looking for to help you grow your group practice. I’m your host, group practice owner and entrepreneur Maureen robach. 

 

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Welcome to another episode of the Group Practice Exchange podcast. This is Maureen. We’re back here. Host And today is episode five of our six part Accountability Equation series. Last week we talked about the five A’s of accountability. Specifically assign. If you haven’t listened to it, I recommend going back and listening to that episode because this week we’re on the fourth a of the five A’s, which is audit, and we’re going to be talking specifically about all things related audits. So once we’ve assigned accountability to our leadership team and an organization as a whole, it’s time to audit the practice. In the fourth of the five A’s of accountability, you’ll learn how to effectively audit your leadership team and their accountabilities. Because accountability can only happen when we track progress and have metrics that show clear data. I want to share that in a world of information overload, the concept of accountability has taken on a new dimension.

 

Maureen Werrbach (00:02:30) – Gone are the days of vague promises and handshakes today. Action is measured, weighed and quantified. The power of metrics has become the backbone of accountability, and it weaves its way in every aspect of business. Metrics have become the driving force behind decision making. We can’t any longer claim success or failure without any solid evidence to support these assertions, and the metrics provide a yardstick against which accomplishments are measured and goals are assessed. They bring clarity to the world of subjective opinion and they demand tangible evidence and quantifiable results. Metrics hold a really unique power the power to reveal truths, uncover hidden patterns and expose areas of improvement. And they offer an unbiased view of the reality of your business so it can allow you to see beyond what’s right in front of your face with metrics. Accountability is no longer abstract, but the concrete reality that can be measured and evaluated. It really bridges the gaps between what we are intending on and our actual outcomes. So when we think about metrics, we want to talk about KPIs, which are key performance indicators.

 

Maureen Werrbach (00:03:48) – And in order for us to figure out what key performance indicators we need to have in our business, we have to think about some questions: What are the core responsibilities of our leadership role right In all of the leadership roles we want to look at? What are those core responsibilities? That’s going to tell us some of the things that we need to be tracking. We also want to talk about what are the key objectives or goals for each role, understanding those desired outcomes and performance expectations for the leadership positions that you have, they’re going to align with the broader organizational objectives in your practice. Also thinking about what are the critical success factors for the role. So if you can identify key factors that drive success in each specific leadership position, you’re going to be able to come up with key performance indicators and metrics that you want to track so that you can see the success. What are the measurable indicators of progress and performance? If you can determine the specific metrics that can effectively measure progress and performance in certain areas. And that means that they’re quantifiable, actionable and relevant to the leadership role, you’re going to get a good sense of what sort of metrics you should be tracking.

 

Maureen Werrbach (00:05:07) – So there are a bunch of common key performance indicators that most group practice owners are tracking. And I’ll go through a few of the most common ones for each of the main leadership roles. Administratively, we’re going to be looking at referral sources, the type of insurance that is being taken, the conversion rates of inquiries to scheduled appointments. Why are people not scheduling appointments, availability preferences for those that call how many people are requesting telehealth versus in-person based capacity and utilization by location? These are just a few administrative metrics that you might want to be tracking from a clinical perspective. You might want to track follow up feedback forms, client feedback forms, clinician retention or attrition session count or note completion. For an integrator. Remember, as we’re talking about the accountability equation, the integrator is the person. They’re the glue that holds the whole practice together and ensures that all the different departments are engaging in their accountabilities and meeting them. But beyond that, they are going to look at revenue and cost data. When we think about the hiring and onboarding person, you might want to be tracking how many clinicians are hired each year, how many applicants are coming in each year.

 

Maureen Werrbach (00:06:31) – So you can see what percentage of applicants are actually being hired. It’ll give you great information as to whether the places that you’re putting out your job offers are good places to actually put them out. You’re going to look at referral acquisition and hiring status and 90 day onboarding. Like how long does it take to successfully onboard new people and do they feel like they are successfully trained once onboarding is complete? And then lastly, HR, you might want to have some sort of tracking system for completion of required employment documentation or trainings, exit interviews, employee benefit data, health care benefits, clinician attrition, retention. These are all important auditing KPIs that every practice should be aware of. So auditing is sort of an adjunct to accountability measures. And if you’re auditing accurately, the data pieces on your dashboard are going to give you a story that lets your leadership team know if the things that they’re accountable for are being met. So I want to end this with talking about what we’re going to be discussing next week, which is the last of the five A’s in the five A’s of accountability, which is action planning.

 

Maureen Werrbach (00:07:50) – I love the action plan section. And so I hope to see you next week. But make sure to also look at going to our Accountability Equation accelerator. It’s our in-person accelerator program: two days, eight hours a day. We’re deep diving into the accountability equation and I’m helping you boots on the ground, build your roles and functions, Matrix your accountability tracker, coming up with questions for interviewing and onboarding new leadership team members, as well as building your dashboards and creating an action plan. So I’ll see you next week where we talk about the last of the five A’s, which is action. Thanks for listening to the group Practice Exchange podcast, like what you heard, give us five stars on whatever platform you’re listening from. 

 

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