Maureen Werrbach 00:00:00  Hey there and welcome back to the Group Practice Exchange podcast. Today I’m diving into something that can feel overwhelming for so many group practice owners, and that’s tracking the right numbers in your business and actually using them to make better decisions in your group practice. This episode is based on this month’s masterclass Inside the Exchange membership, where we break down exactly how to run a system and an audit and create meaningful KPIs that can help you grow your practice without all the guesswork. So if you’ve ever felt unsure about what you should be tracking, how to track it, or how to make those numbers actually work for you, this one’s for you. We’ll talk about the common mistakes practice owners make, how to set up systems for success, and how to create KPIs that actually drive results. So grab a coffee and let’s get into it. 

Maureen Werrbach 00:00:50  Welcome to The Group Practice Exchange Podcast, where we talk about all things related to group practice ownership. I’m your host, Maureen Werrbach. This episode is sponsored by Therapy Notes. Therapy Notes is my favorite EHR, and it’s one that I’ve been using in my own group practice since 2014. They’ve got everything you need to be successful in your group practice, and they’re constantly making updates and have live support. If you want two free months of therapy notes, go to Therapynotes.com/r/thegrouppracticeexchange.com. 

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Maureen Werrbach 00:01:11  Green Oak is set apart from the rest by their deep industry knowledge and top notch advisory and CFO services. Plus they offer traditional accounting services like bookkeeping, tax prep, valuations and so much more. Here’s what’s in it for you: peace of mind, financial clarity, and the potential to significantly grow your practice and profits. In fact, Green Oak has the most impact with practices looking for financial guidance when leveling up thanks to their CFO services. And they’re not just about crunching numbers. They also offer a mix of resources like the therapy for Your Money podcast, The Profit First for therapists book, and self-guided courses to keep you informed and empowered and growing your practice. Ready to transform your practices financial health visit greenoakaccounting.com/tgpe to explore all that they have to offer. Green Oak Accounting, your partner in financial prosperity. 

So let’s start by talking about why this is such a pain point for a lot of group practice owners. One big issue is it’s unclear with accountabilities if your roles and responsibilities aren’t well defined. You end up having a having a lot of finger pointing or worse. Nothing’s getting done at all. For example, let’s say you want to track your inquiry to intake conversion rate. If no one’s clearly responsible for following up on inquiries, that metric isn’t going to improve because nobody’s job is fixing it, right? We see this a lot with practices that don’t have really well defined roles and responsibilities, where there are a lot of gaps in what needs to be done, or there isn’t a very clear handoff between one part of the process and to the other. Another common struggle is that we’re tracking the wrong data, or no data at all. Maybe you’re looking at things like session count, but not profitability, or you’re relying on your gut instinct instead of real numbers to make real decisions.

Maureen Werrbach 00:03:49  It’s easy to get overwhelmed and just stop tracking altogether when you’re not sure what matters. And then the last thing is goal setting. And this is a is a big one. I see a lot of practice owners that set goals that are way too vague, like I want more clients or we need to increase revenue or profitability. And the problem is that these goals don’t give you a clear path forward. Without specifics, you don’t know where to focus or how to measure progress. And so one of the really important pieces, beyond making sure that you have clearly defined roles and responsibilities, which means accountabilities that cover all aspects of your business, is making sure that the goals that you’re setting are reasonable. That makes sense for the vision of your practice and that are meaningful. So does this sound familiar? And if this does, then you’re not alone. But it doesn’t have to be this complicated. So before you dive into tracking KPIs, you need to make sure that your systems themselves are solid. A system audit is the first step.

Maureen Werrbach 00:04:52  And it’s all about creating clarity and accountability in your business. And so here’s a simple way that you can do this. First is make sure that the rules in your practice are clear. This is where a lot of practice owners get stuck. You need to know who’s responsible for what. So, for example, who’s in charge of following up with inquiries and not just those initial calls or emails that come in, but those that kind of drop off, right. Who’s responsible for tracking and reporting those revenue metrics? If those rules aren’t clear, your KPIs will always feel messy and incomplete and like they might not actually be accurate. The second thing is identifying process gaps. So taking a look at your systems. Are there steps that are missing in your intake process for example? Are you losing potential clients because follow ups aren’t happening fast enough? Like what is your process for how quickly between someone making an inquiry and then actually getting scheduled? Do you expect what is that expectation? What is that measurable goal for your intake team? What about billing? Are there redundancies that are slowing you down from receiving your income.

Maureen Werrbach 00:05:59  Write down all those processes. Step by step and look for gaps or inefficiencies. Step three is making sure that you’re having regular audits being a part of your routine. So this isn’t a one time thing. You have to set up a schedule, whether it’s quarterly or monthly. It’s totally up to you. But check in on those systems that you have. It’s not about perfection. It’s about making sure that the things in your business are running as smoothly as possible and tweaking where needed. Because you’ll notice that as you grow your business systems that worked for you when you were smaller, when you had different team members or different people in leadership, might not necessarily make sense. As you grow and become a larger practice. And so those systems need tweaking. So for example, one group practice that I worked with. Notice that there are no show rates were climbing. And when we did a quick audit we found that appointment reminders weren’t actually going out consistently. Very simple fix. So once that was fixed there, no show rate dropped significantly and small changes like that can have a big impact.

Maureen Werrbach 00:07:03  And oftentimes we don’t see small gaps or things that aren’t working in our favor that can easily be changed. A quick change like this. So in thinking about these first few steps of starting with a system audit, one of the areas that we can be helpful is if you look at the accountability equation. So that’s a book that I’ve written. And if you’re needing more support with how to make sure that your roles and accountabilities are clear, this is a great first step for getting that set up. So then we shift into creating smart KPIs. So once your systems are in place and you feel like you’ve figured out where gaps are or where redundancies are, the next step is creating KPIs or key performance indicators that are actually useful for you and your practice. And for that, you need to have a framework. So I So I want to talk about one that’s pretty common, which is called the smart framework. And that stands for specific measurable achievable relevant and Time Bound. So I’ll break that down for you.

Maureen Werrbach 00:08:05  Let’s say you want to improve profitability right. This is a very common goal for practice owners right now. A vague goal would be I want to increase profitability or make more revenue, but a smart KPI would look like I want to increase profit margins from 12% to 15% in the next six months. So if we look at why this is better when it’s specific, we’re talking about profit margins. It’s measurable. So you can actually track the progress or lack of progress towards the goal. It’s achievable because it’s a 3% increase right from 12 to 15%. That’s really realistic. It’s relevant because it’s tied directly to your business goals. And it’s time bound because you’ve set a six month deadline. Another example could be around clinician retention. So instead of saying, I want to keep my clinicians longer. A smart KPI would be I want to reduce clinician turnover by 20% over the next year. By improving onboarding and providing more professional development opportunities. You’ll see here that it is specific. It’s measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound.

Maureen Werrbach 00:09:15  So the key is to focus on KPIs that actually move the needle forward. You don’t need to track 100 things, just the ones that matter most to your goals right now. Then we want to start analyzing and adjusting those KPIs. So tracking your KPIs is one thing, but what happens when the numbers aren’t where you want them to be? This is where analyzing and adjusting comes in. So start by identifying trends. For example, if your revenue is flat, look deeper. Are your expenses creeping up? Are your clinicians not seeing the agreed upon caseload? Or maybe you’re getting a lot of inquiries, but they’re not converting into intakes. Once you know where the problem is. Focus on small, actionable change. So let’s go back to the example of a high no-show rate that I talked about earlier. Maybe your reminders aren’t working or your scheduling process is too clunky. Fix one thing at a time, like automating appointment reminders, and then measure the impact. Because what I see is practice owners who find a problem.

Maureen Werrbach 00:10:15  They throw 100 things at the wall to try and fix the problem, when they won’t be able to see which specific thing is actually working at fixing the issue. And if you’re anything like me, you want to remove redundancies. You want to remove wasteful time spent doing things that aren’t actually helping. And so if you start to do multiple things to fix one problem, you’re not going to be able to see which of those things is actually providing that improvement. Another tip is to make sure that your team is involved. Using regular team meetings to review KPI progress is really important. Making sure that you celebrate wins and have open conversations about what’s not working, can create a sense of ownership and keep everyone on the same page. All right, so that’s it for today’s episode. We’ve covered why group practice owners struggle with KPIs and how to fix your system, setting Smart goals and actually using KPIs to drive your growth. If you’re feeling like this piece of your practice has been missing, you don’t have to figure it out on your own.

Maureen Werrbach 00:11:17  This episode is just a preview of what we’re covering this month in the masterclass Inside the Exchange. If you’re not yet a member, now’s the time to join. You’ll get access to this masterclass, along with hundreds of others, all designed to help group practice owners like you grow your business with confidence. You can head to members at the Group Practice exchange to sign up, and I’ll see you in the next episode. Thanks for listening. Give us five stars on whatever podcast streaming service you use. And I’ll see you next week.