The ADA cooked up a promising line-up of practice management sessions designed to 'dare' audiologists and practice managers 'to succeed.' At the upcoming AuDacity 2016, conference participants will have a taste of creative and innovative strategies to address business challenges in today's increasingly competitive and digital health care environment.
"Cookbook" Approach to Management
"Given the landscape of reducing reimbursements and a crowded dispensing field, it is imperative that our practice owners do two things: diversify what they offer and how they provide those products and services, and proactively work on their practices in an organized & knowledgeable way," shared Sheri Weiner, AuD, who will lead the session, "The Practice Kitchen: Clinical Audiology Practice Management."
Running the business side of a private practice has always posed a challenge to audiologists. "Many of us come into this industry ill-prepared to run a practice—what to do when, what the numbers mean, how to read a balance sheet, and how to evaluate the health of our practice," said Dr. Weiner. "Now that I'm no longer actively seeing patients in a clinical setting, I have the opportunity to help other providers do what I did—plan, track, analyze, adjust, and breathe."
"I am commonly asked 'how do you know what to do when?' and 'how do you keep from getting overwhelmed?'" To these queries, Dr. Weiner stressed the importance of hands-on and systematic practice management—a "cookbook method" that is necessary to facilitate multiple tasks.
"I teach that we group practice management oversight into four 'buckets'—Operations, Finance, Marketing and Metrics—and then routinely manage the practice using a repeatable system with consistent tools (reports and forms) and ingredients (formulas and questions) that are straightforward. It's what is done with those ingredients that makes some recipes (practices) shine and others fail," she explained.
Considering the PCAST and NASEM recommendations to make over-the-counter hearing aids available for consumers, and the increasing popularity of hearables, it is evident that audiology practices feel the effects of the shifting hearing health care market. As such, Dr. Weiner encourages audiologist to be proactive. "They need to maximize opportunities, manage efficient operations to reduce waste, and offer an enhanced patient experience."
The Social Media Ingredient
Social media is another ingredient for success that will be highlighted at AuDacity 2016.
"It's no longer an option to pretend like social media is not necessary, especially for private practitioners," said D'Anne Rudden, AuD, who will discuss the power of utilizing social media in the session, "Recipe for Success: Trends, Takeaways and Tools to Grow Your Practice Revenue."
"Social media is such a great tool for clinicians to communicate with patients and their influencers, and also to advance audiology as gatekeepers of hearing health care," she told The Hearing Journal.
While the other speakers in this session will be talking about different practice tools based on their own research, Dr. Rudden will discuss the benefits of social media and offer simple strategies that can be implemented almost immediately.
"My goal is to help inspire enthusiasm and create an easy and achievable social media strategy for all levels of audiology practitioner—whether it's to give them ways to implement it themselves or avenues for them to get help," she expressed.
In this session, the audience can expect to learn how to create effective online conversations with their audience, whether they are local or not. In fact, Dr. Rudden highlighted the potential of social media to enable practitioners to reach a much wider audience in the hearing health space.
Despite the increasing popularity of social media in the health care industry, Dr. Rudden noted the reluctance of some practice owners and managers to venture off their traditional marketing models. "So my hope is to create an excitement and remove the fear and mystery or barriers that they may believe exists, [keeping them from] adding social media to their current marketing strategy," she explained. "It's not something that need to be feared," Dr. Rudden added. "It's a mutually beneficial avenue of communication for all practitioners, whether they are large practices or small private practices."
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