Clarity is Kindness: Mastering the Mindset of the Patient Care Coordinator

Andrea Watkins (00:04):
Well, hi there. I am Andrea Watkins, and if you're listening to this while juggling three patient calls, checking in a couple patients, taking a payment, selling skincare, and trying to catch your doctor in between procedures, you might be working in an aesthetic practice.

Blake Lucas (00:18):
And I'm Blake Lucas, and this is Practiceland. This is not your doctor's podcast.

Andrea Watkins (00:24):
Welcome back to Practiceland. Greetings and thanks for listening. Today, we've got front desk expert back with us again today, Alli Petriella. We're going to talk about the patient care coordinator role. When I think about the role as clearly as possible, at the end of the day, after all the things that we have to do, what is the role of the patient care coordinator? Let's just call them a PCC for our conversation stake. My thoughts are really the PCC role is to optimize the surgeon's schedule for quality consultations that are most likely about ready to book and also optimizing their or surgery or treatment schedule. So there's so much that goes into that, but what do you feel are really the key responsibilities for this role?

Alli Petriella (01:11):
The number one most important thing is that you're an educator, you're a teacher. In this type of PCC role, we are not selling a good to someone. We are selling life transformation and life change to another human being. And that doesn't come with just pitching something, hoping that it sticks a little bit of negotiation. That's not what we're doing. We're educating them. We're listening to them and gathering their goals so that we can attach them with the right resources. When they're telling me that they've had six children and they've had three C-sections and they have sagging skin in their abdominal area, I need to know that's not liposuction all the way around the torso. That's a tummy tuck and the tummy tuck entails X, Y, Z, and I'm going to teach them this is the incision that you're going to be getting. This is what the recovery is going to look like. This is how long you're going to need assistance. This is how long you're not really going to feel like yourself. This is what's going to occur. This is what doc is going to do during the operation. So all of that is education and preparing the patient with everything they need. Because when they first call you, they don't know these things. They don't even know which questions to ask you.

Andrea Watkins (02:29):
Most of the time, the only question that we even think to ask is, "Hey, so how much does this cost?"

Alli Petriella (02:35):
Yep, exactly. They don't know what to ask.

Andrea Watkins (02:38):
Right. And so when somebody calls you and they say, "Hey, so yeah, I was just wondering how much is a tummy tuck?" How do we transition that into becoming that educator instead of just throwing out a price but becoming the educator instead of just a transaction?

Alli Petriella (02:55):
Yeah, I mean, you don't want to ignore the question, so acknowledge the question without answering it right away. "Yeah, I'd love to get you that quote. Let's see here. Let me gather a little bit of information from you so that I can get you the right numbers. And then is it okay if I ask a few questions?" Start diving into those questions and so they know you're trying to help them. You can't just, I mean, what I'll hear some PCs say is someone will call in and say, "how much is your tummy tuck?" And they'll be like, "how tall are you and how much do you weigh?" Wait, what? They can't just ask them a question back.

Andrea Watkins (03:31):
What's your BMI? Important in the right context and with the right delivery,

Alli Petriella (03:38):
Yes

Andrea Watkins (03:38):
In the right order,

Alli Petriella (03:39):
But acknowledge them and then just start asking the questions to build a relationship, "a tummy tuck, how exciting, how long have you been considering this? Tell me what's going on." And just get them talking about themselves so that even they know when you're delivering those numbers to them, she knows what she's talking about. So start asking the questions and then start building the value before you just blurt out a number at them. Because especially if you have a higher price point, you can't just drop that on someone because if they're calling your next door neighbor and they're not providing the same tummy tuck that you are providing, all the patient knows is that that's two different price points. They don't know that you're going a lot more in depth and you're including liposuction in your tummy tuck. And this guy is doing it out of a facility that he uses five different facilities, and this is our in-house team and this is our anesthesiologist that our doc has been working with for 10 years. So it's those things you need to tell them so they understand what the price point is, but it's also preparing them to ask the right questions when they do call your neighbor. So when they call and they get that lower price point, they can ask, where is the surgery done? What kind of incision is he using? Because somebody else, you prepared them on their last call.

Andrea Watkins (04:58):
I loved what you said as well about the building of the value because I think through not just what we're saying, but the experience that we're providing, that right there is an elevated value that a lot of places are not providing if they're just throwing out price ranges when people ask them for it. So when you really dive into creating the relationship with the patient, building rapport, you're building trust with them, you're educating them, and then really differentiating your practice, not again just by what you're saying, but by the experience that you're providing. And early on in that consultative process when you're talking about being on the phone with someone, I think a big key there as well is the preparation, not just of what is the surgery? What is the recovery? What is the pricing? How am I going to pay for this? Do you guys have financing? Because we know that that's a big thing really saying, "I'll walk you through, let's go ahead. I'm going to send you a link to our preferred financing vendor. Let's go ahead and get you pre-approved before you come in so you know what your budget is." So that whole preparation piece on how do we make your dreams become a reality, you become the shepherd that walks the patient through that whole entire process.

Alli Petriella (06:14):
And it starts with building the relationship, like you said, because it will make all those other things that you need to be teaching them easier, especially when we get to the financial conversation, which some people can be really scared of. If you started with a relationship and you're her gal now it's you and her versus the challenge. It's not you versus her, you better be getting your money together so we can get you on the schedule. We're not doing that. It's like, okay, how do me and you make this happen so we can make your dreams come true? What do we need to do? So they're not scared to ask you those questions. They're not scared to overshare. I mean, honestly, a patient oversharing with me, I personally love because it's going to help us get a little bit further. So if we started with just becoming gals, they're going to honestly share their objections with you ahead of time so you can address those before it's too late and it's the end of the consult and you're like, oh, heck, we missed this.

Andrea Watkins (07:12):
And I just want to take a second to credential you as a PCC. And then someone who led a team of PCCs in our practice, Alli knows what she's talking about. So her booking ratio from consultations to procedures booked and completed was about 93% for several years. So for every 10 patients that walked in the door to have a consultation with our doctor, she was booking over nine of them for procedures and helping them reach their goals, helping herself reach her goals and helping our practice reach our goals. So these are all, it's a big job. I don't know that everybody, also, in most practices there are more growing, I think understand how critical this role is to the overall success of a practice. But what kind of personality traits are really useful, do you think, in this role?

Alli Petriella (08:01):
I would say the most important thing is to be a good listener. What? I think it's so easy to step into this role with like, okay, I learned all the things I need to learn. I know all the details of all these procedures. Someone calls you, says, "Hey, tell me about liposuction," and you just want to blurt out everything you know. I know because I'm guilty of it. And I started the same way and I ran myself into a hole of no success until I changed my ways. And I decided to change the approach and just start asking questions and asking those questions to genuinely hear what the person has to say and open-ended questions, asking them questions to explore why they're looking at the procedure that they are, what are their goals of this procedure. And then with the knowledge that you've attained, you can decide, yeah, that is the right procedure for you, or no, it's not the right procedure for you.

(08:57):
I mean, it happens all the time when we're talking to someone about a breast augmentation, we have to ask those questions, "what are you experiencing?" And if the first thing they're saying is, "I'm experiencing a lot of sagging, a lot of deflation, I've breastfed three kids" in your head, you should know right away, this is probably not an implant thing. This is probably an implant with a breast lift. So it's just asking the questions and being able to fully listen and then make the judgment on what information you need to provide to them to prepare them properly. Also being a good problem solver. So as you're going into things, you need to be thinking about your team and you need to be thinking about this patient and you need to think, what is the best possible outcome for my team? What's the best possible outcome for doc?

(09:45):
What's the best possible outcome for this patient and how do I make all those things be the same thing? So you are that middleman that understands what everybody needs because nobody else is having that conversation with the patient that you are. And also being a team player. You can't just be a successful PCC on your own and living in your own world. Again, you need to understand the needs and desires and what everybody on your team does really well and understand that your goal is to help doc meet his goal and to help your OR team meet their goal. You can't just be looking at these patient conversations as what is the highest price tag that's going to give me the best paycheck and putting it on the schedule as soon as possible. We can't do that. There's been times where maybe we'll talk to someone and they are doing something that's risky for surgery, they're smoking cigarettes, but they're telling us, "I've got the money and I can book tomorrow if you have an opening," it's really easy as a salesy PCC to be like, "let's go, get 'em on the schedule. Let's go." You're meeting your numerical goals now and you're hitting your quota, but that's not going to help doc in the long run. It's not going to help your practice. It might end in a really bad review because you just gave someone exactly what they asked for without it really being something optimal.

Andrea Watkins (11:08):
So in the PCC role, you kind of already spoke about meeting your quota. What are the metrics that are really helpful to measure success in the PCC role?

Alli Petriella (11:20):
Yeah, so there's the main data points. How many leads are you getting? Of those leads, how many are you booking consultations? And then how many are you successfully having consultations and getting surgery scheduled and then surgery completed? So tracking your conversion rates and also looking at how many returning patients are you generating that you had built a relationship with the first time around and you're seeing them again?

Andrea Watkins (11:46):
Or referrals.

Alli Petriella (11:47):
Exactly, yes. But I would challenge that question. And what I was doing in the role is I had two main points in my process that were kind of my metrics to gauge myself on a daily basis to see how well I performed with each patient. And those two moments were in the doctor consultation right after doc stops talking, what happened? Did the patient have a bunch of questions? And if they did, that's honestly falling on me because I did not prepare them and give them the right information ahead of time. If doc talked to them about a surgery that her and I did not already talk about, I must have missed something in my discovery with her where I could have identified the proposal of a different procedure and just making sure that in the front end you're telling them all possible outcomes and what all of those would entail.

(12:40):
So that's the number one test. And then the second test and self metric I would use is at the very end of the consultation, when your quote is in their hands across the table, what do they say? If they have an objection, and it's typically something that you could have debunked on your initial call with them, that's a performance uhoh in my mind. If they're saying, "okay, well let me look into the financing." Oh no, I have royally messed this up. We need to be, "what do you mean didn't we talk about this?" We need to be connecting them with the resources and showing them how PatientFi works on that initial call and giving them all the options right up front. And if they're saying, "okay, let me go home and talk to my husband," once again, that's on me. I should have asked on that initial call, "who's going to be your caregiver?

(13:32):
Who's another person that's an important piece of this decision, and what does his schedule look like and can he join you for the consultation? And if not, can I connect with him and can we have a three-way conversation before then so we can make sure he knows what we're going to be talking about?" So those two moments when doc stops talking, what do they have to ask? And when the paper is across the table, how are they feeling? If you are clean, then you have had a successful patient intake. Checking in as a PCC. I would say if you're really wanting to increase your conversions or do a lot better, start checking in with yourself in those two moments and you'll start to identify just how you're going about your process and where you need to make your own adjustments without someone even having to tell you how you're doing.

Andrea Watkins (14:20):
And this advice will get you so that you're really, really optimizing your in-person time with your patients. Because if you're doing that self-reflection, identifying, providing the feedback to yourself and then starting to implement these other strategies earlier in the stage, it's just going to save you time on the backend. This is a benefit for you that then you're not going to have to follow up for days and weeks and months after a consultation because people will be ready to book on the spot. Again, huge job. PCC is a giant job and a lot of different things that the PCC is really responsible for. What would you say are definitely not some aspects of the PCC role?

Alli Petriella (15:03):
I would say you're definitely not the doctor. You're not an MD, so don't be answering the clinical questions. We are preparing them with information that is across the board on our initial phone call with them. Like "our tummy tuck consists of this incision line, this is what's occurring in the surgery. This is the type of anesthesia we use. This is what your recovery will look like." But if they are specifically asking you clinical questions about their own medical history or we're in the consultation and they're lifting up their shirt, no, we should not be doing that. We should not be looking at their body. We should not be touching their body and we should not be making recommendations. That is something that should be occurring between them and doc. And you should have prepared everything for that communication to go as smoothly as possible so that that's all they need to focus on. So just being careful not to overstep the line because as PCCs, we learn so much and we feel like we can answer those questions.

Andrea Watkins (16:01):
You can just do surgery.

Alli Petriella (16:02):
It's cool. Yes. So you feel like you talk to someone, you're like, I know exactly what the surgical plan is going to be, but you can't say that. Well, let's see what doc has to say, but "these are the two outcomes that I foresee could potentially happen when you meet him. And so here's everything you need to know about option A and option B." And then when they meet doc, it's just a determination of, yeah, it's option B, and they're like,

Andrea Watkins (16:26):
From his physical evaluation or her and they will make the surgical recommendation ultimately. Got it.

Alli Petriella (16:33):
Absolutely.

Andrea Watkins (16:34):
Okay. We talked about this with the front desk role, and so I want to talk about it a little bit with the PCC role as well. What would you look for so that when it's time to ask for more help and have another coordinator, and we went through this in the practice too, where we needed to add on because our volume continued to increase and increase. So for you in the role you're experiencing the role on a daily basis, what are you experiencing when you go to your boss or your doctor and you can say, bro, somebody help me, throw me a life raft.

Alli Petriella (17:05):
Yeah, such a great question because I think some people like to answer that with numerical benchmarks of like, we're booked out until this date, we need some help, or we have X amount of leads and X amount of surgeons, we need help. Not necessarily how I see it. I see. How are you serving your clients right now and how are you talking to these new leads? Are people waiting for a full day for you to respond to something? You need help. Are your new leads waiting more than two hours to be contacted? You need help. Our analytics outline that those patients want to be contacted within an hour, and so if we're losing out on that hot hour of when they contacted us, we might be losing so much opportunity. So we need to be able to contact these patients and all of our PCCs need to have the bandwidth to step away from their flow to contact a new lead right away. And if they do not have that bandwidth because they are genuinely too busy, we need more personnel to assist with that. But I wouldn't say there's a specific number of, you can only have this many leads in your pipeline or we can only be booked out x amount of time.

Andrea Watkins (18:17):
And I would also add that if as a PCC you're not able to do a comprehensive follow-up process to be able to connect with patients, and we're just taking the low hanging fruit, things happen. People get sick, they go out on maternity leave, somebody quits, their husband gets a job and they have to move across the country. So we're in a hiring flux. Those things are going to happen. But as a PCC, if you're not able to follow up, at least you need an average of five follow-ups. 80% of our inquiries, we know they require an average of five follow-ups. If you cannot do the follow-ups, you can't call, you can't text, you can't email, you can't have this process. Your practice is losing out on so much opportunity to be able to connect with patients because what I always really think is important to remind people of is that if you put yourself into the mindset of the patient, so patient wants some elective procedure, most of our patients are maybe high twenties to late fifties, early sixties, depending if you're body or facial plastics, whatever, think about women that are that age group, that's me, that's all of my friends, that's almost everyone I work with. We get a bright idea and we're like, I really need to fix my face. It's falling off of my face right now. I might call, put in an inquiry, but then what happens is then my kid needs something, then my husband needs something, then I've got to go to work. Then my mom needs something, I've got to take the dog to the groomer. You become less and less of the priority as a 20 something to 50 something year old woman. Everyone needs us for everything. And so as a PCC, you're not bothering people. And really when we talk about mindset, I think that's something we need to put on the back burner is you're not bothering people.

(20:14):
You're reaching out to them about something that they inquired about. And when people have lives, which we all do and we're busy, the things that we need get put on the back burner. So as a PCC, if you're not able to do those follow-ups and try and ping them on different days at different times and really try and connect with people, that's a huge red flag that I need more help because I can't actually do my job and follow up with these people and try and get in contact with patients when it's convenient for them.

Alli Petriella (20:45):
And we really realistically to get in that mindset of it's not a no until they literally tell you no because, so just because they don't respond that first time or the second time, keep trying. Like you said, people are busy and they're deprioritizing themselves and they need to hear your voice say, "Hey, I know you're interested in this. This is still a priority to me, so let's reprioritize it and get chatting about it."

Andrea Watkins (21:11):
So how does the PCC support the other roles in the practice? You kind of touched on it a little bit as far as front desk and the clinic team, of course supporting doc, but where do you find that as most significant?

Alli Petriella (21:28):
I would say the warm introductions and handoffs. It is not just a matter of telling people what they're going to experience. It is a matter of telling them who they are going to experience it with. So in my consultative process, what I loved doing was I'm telling them about the day of surgery, but I'm telling them everyone they're going to meet that day and how long those people have been with doc, you're going to arrive on the day of surgery. Jessica's going to come get you from your car. She's been working with doc for 10 years and she's done X amount of surgeries with him. And then you're going to go into the OR and this is your surgical team and name them off. This is Jake, this is Jack, this is doc, this is Jen. And you're going to tell them all the names of those people and what their role is in that person's surgery.

(22:15):
And so they know, oh, this person that I've built a relationship with, your PCC knows all of these people. I feel good. So I got a little thumbs up. Yeah, I feel good too. So warmly introducing whether it's in the moment of the handoff, you're bringing them back to the front desk like we talked about earlier, and you're introducing this person or it's just forward thinking and preparing them. So when they meet that person, there'd be so many little interactions that I would overhear when the patient would come back for their pre-op appointment and the nurse would introduce themselves to the patients and they're, Alli told me about you. Yes, and maybe they know a little fun fact about that. They're like, didn't you just get back from Mount Bierstadt last weekend and now we already set them up for success? So

Andrea Watkins (23:04):
Exactly. That's the value, right? There's always a value prop and building the value of the team and the experience that the patient's going to have. And to put it simply, I really think is just at the front desk, in the front desk role, you are the hype girl for the PCC for new patients. I'm so excited for you to talk to Alli. She's going to be able to ask you all about your goals and then answer every single question and give you all the information that you need. And then you as the PCC, you're the hype girl for the clinic team and for the doctor and for the next people that are going to be down that line for them. So really taking a lot of pride. Hopefully you love your team listeners and there's not too much internal drama, but really just showcasing the relationships and the value that they're going to have as they continue their journey with your practice.

Alli Petriella (23:56):
On the backend of that behind the patients back when they're not there. It is that internal communication with everybody and you are gathering so much information in that consultative process that's important to everyone. Don't keep it to yourself. You're not just gathering that so you can put together a heckin' quote for them. You want to get the information into the right hands. Go talk to your clinic nurse after you schedule that pre-op and say, "Hey, deathly afraid of needles because when they were six years old," tell them those insights so that the nurse can make a note for herself and she can have a successful experience with them. There's just little personality things that you can tell the front desk so that they're prepared when that person's walking in or doing the due diligence of telling doc everything that is going to be important before he walks in the room so he doesn't have to double ask that question to the patient. He can walk in and say, Hey, Alli already told me about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they're like, oh, okay. These people are listening to me. They actually know how to communicate here, and that feels good for the patient. It feels good for doc. He feels like he's on top of the world. He just gathered and spit out this information at them and he feels good. So make sure everybody knows everything that's going on and everything is a warm handoff.

Andrea Watkins (25:10):
And one pointer that I would give specifically for the PCCs and the clinical team that we implemented when we were in practice was a weekly meeting between the PCCs and the nursing team who booked surgery and what are those little idiosyncrasies of the patients so that we could really prepare. It was all written, and then they would have just a really brief meeting to go over these things so that we could make sure that handoff was as seamless as possible. Once the patient, now they're booked, then they're going to be coming in for their preoperative appointment. Here's the little things. Yes, they're on paper and ask me any questions so that you're really prepared for that next interaction with the patient. So those PCC to clinic handoff meetings and little summaries and debriefs were really, really helpful for our team as well.

Alli Petriella (25:59):
Absolutely.

Andrea Watkins (26:00):
PCC career path, what do you think is available to someone who is in a PCC role?

Alli Petriella (26:07):
So many things, and I wish somebody would've told me this when I was offered the PCC role because Andrea knows more than anyone in the world that I honestly pushed back on it. I was like, no, I'm comfy where I am. Thank you. I went to school leadership.

Andrea Watkins (26:25):
No, you are so, you are going to do incredible at this. And you were like, "ehh."

Alli Petriella (26:29):
Yes. You don't know. It just looks like a sales role, but that's not what it is. So it opens so many doors and it teaches you so much about the highest level of service and so much about yourself as well and how to better communicate. So you could become a leader of PCCs. You could again decide aesthetics maybe isn't for you. You could go into another industry and now you have a skillset that is invaluable. You know how to sell a really high level of something that those skills are going to help you in any industry, in anything that you're trying to sell. It's also just going to open the door to so many things in aesthetics because learning about different procedures, you're learning about different technologies. You're building relationships with vendors that are coming in and teaching you guys about products or new implants or whatever that is.

(27:19):
So maybe you want to go work for one of those vendors one day. Great. You're setting yourself up with the education you need to be able to step into something like that, or you're just getting to know the practice again well and the patient experience so well. So if you're like, I don't really necessarily want to be patient facing anymore, but I love this practice, and if you do want to move into something operational or managerial, fantastic. You now know everything that's going on and you know what those PCCs are going through every day. So you're setting yourself up to lead them extremely well. There's seriously so many places that you can go with it, and I wish I knew that sooner.

Andrea Watkins (27:57):
Or you could be a PCC and love it and love the interaction and the strategy that's needed and everything that you're doing in that role and just thrive and be fed through the patient interactions and helping people change their lives every day. So I think also something that we didn't really touch on with this role that I think is a little underrated, but so critically important in the PCC role is being strategic. Because I started out when we started talking about the PCC role. It's really ultimately your job to make the most of the time of your surgeon in consultations and in the OR. So being strategic and optimizing your doctor's time, yes, all of that comes with patient relationships and great consultations and all of these things that we have to do in the role every day. But ultimately, what are we doing to optimize and get the highest and best use of our doctor's time from the business perspective and the relationships and consultations all feed into that so that we can look at schedules and really make sure that there's no one's worst enemy than a board doctor or a doctor or surgeon that does not have a patient in front of them.

(29:08):
That's literally everyone's worst nightmare.

Alli Petriella (29:09):
Nobody wants that.

Andrea Watkins (29:11):
Nobody wants that, and we shouldn't because they've studied so hard and they've done, I mean, decades worth of studying and practicing. The last thing that we want to do is have them have idle time with idle hands, and an idle mind is not doing anybody any favors. So we have to be strategic and how do we optimize their time in the clinic and in the OR so we're really getting the best of all of everybody's time.

Alli Petriella (29:35):
And as far as compensation for the PCC role specifically, I know it can be so tough and so tough to talk about because I think from practice to practice, it does vary greatly. And I think depending on the volume you're seeing and how many PCCs you've got, there's going to be different recommendations on how to build that structure. Is there a straightforward structure that you typically recommend or how do you approach that conversation?

Andrea Watkins (30:01):
Yeah, so with the PCC role, like you said, it can be tricky. It really depends on the practice, it depends on the people that are in those roles because in this environment, the last thing that we want to do is have people only helping those that they can make money off of. If you're a PCC, and I've seen lots of different cultures, lots of different practices, it can work where PCCs are individually incentivized based upon the patients that they can consult with and book procedures for. In other practices, it needs to be more of a group incentive because people will try cherry picking leads or they won't get back to the leads that they think just are not going to ever book or whatever instead of just really doing the job. So I would say it depends. That said, what I see typically working well, and this is across the nation of course going to be a little bit different, is a base salary that's usually somewhere between 55 to maybe $75,000 for a base salary and then an incentive based upon the number or the amount of revenue that's being generated by the PCC or by the PCC group.

(31:25):
Again, sometimes you have full-time PCCs, sometimes you have three part-time PCCs, and so then they all really do have to help each other out. And so individual incentives wouldn't really work. So again, we want to make sure that people are motivated to generate revenue because obviously that's how we stay in business and how we pay the bills. But also in this environment, we're not selling cars. We're not out there slinging ribs. This is life-changing and it needs to come from a consultative approach, not a transactional approach, just based on what lead do I want to follow up with because I can make the biggest incentive because that doesn't actually help the practice in the long run.

Alli Petriella (32:07):
Yes, and I also agree that it is so situational. I think just in one practice, there was a time where having individual incentives made a ton of sense, and then there was another time where that honestly did not make any sense and made the whole PCC team consider leaving because it was kind of pinning us against each other because we had too many PCCs, not enough leads, and most importantly, not enough surgical time. So if doc is not having enough time for those PCCs to be able to put opportunities on the schedule, we're going to start pinning against each other and feeling anxious because we need to pay our bills and we want to get our own surgeries on, but we shouldn't want to do that. We should just want to fill it as a team. And when we're all trying to accomplish the same goal, we're going to have the most success. And that compensation structure just makes a lot more sense in a situation like that. So I love that it's kind of twofold and kind of depends where you're at at any time and what your team looks like.

Andrea Watkins (33:07):
It's really about having great people. I think that's where it starts is have great people that have great intentions and want to do a great job because that's who they are as humans, and then we figure out the way that it's going to best serve the entire patient's practice and the PCC too. So to the single catchphrase or the mantra for the mindset of a PCC, what do you think that would be?

Alli Petriella (33:34):
I think on the PCC end, I'd probably say clarity is kindness. Heard that from Andrea. But I think just in this role, we need to be leading with education, and we need to understand that the more we're preparing our patients and the more we're giving them information, the more helpful we're being. It's not annoying, it's not overbearing. We're preparing them to make a huge decision. And the best thing we can do is educate.

Andrea Watkins (34:09):
Clarity is kindness. There are no truer words. I love it. Alright, well thank you so much for joining me today. I adore you and I've learned so much from you. I think it's a reciprocal relationship and you've changed the lives of literally hundreds and hundreds of patients and really help to optimize internal systems and process to make sure everybody has better days and that we really enjoy and see the value in what we're doing. Before I let you go, I do want to ask you, as you're well aware, we do a segment here called She Did What? And it could be a patient story, a colleague story, it could be anything but just something that surprised you, good, bad or indifferent. What do you got for me, Alli?

Alli Petriella (34:56):
I think working in this industry, we can all say, our initial response to this is like, "oh my gosh, I have so many. How do I pick one?" Because it is so weird the things we run into, but I think just to keep it relatable, I had a PCC one time that ended up not working out, but when she was learning the role, we were giving her all the information on the different procedures and she had hopped on a consultation phone call with a patient, and we had these scripts that were not intended to be read word for word. It was intended to share how you could deliver a message. But when we share these scripts and we're teaching people, we're like, "do not read this word for word. This is something to study up on."

Andrea Watkins (35:43):
"This is to be conversational for you to learn." Right. Okay, got it. Yes. I hate the word script, but it's so necessary to just have a good flow. But okay, go ahead.

Alli Petriella (35:52):
Yeah, a good conversation flow. If it's a conversation you've ever had, you don't really know where to go with it. So I'm listening back to one of her calls, we're not getting a great conversion rate, so I'm like, I'm going to start digging in. So I hopped in to LeadLoop and I started listening to one of her calls and there was, I'm listening and "okay, let me get my script out for that." After the person told her what the procedure was, and she starts reading this script word for word and you could tell, because she first of all said, "let me get my script out." Then you hear the little piece of paper and then you hear that she's clearly, yeah, she's clearly reciting something. And then she reads something and she's like, "oh no, that's not what that says." And then I'm listening, I remember, this is so funny, I'm dying.

(36:38):
And she's reading the wrong script as well. The person is asking about a rhinoplasty and she's reading about a breast augmentation and begins talking about implants. And I'm like, okay, this is bad. But moral of the story is, let's lead with knowing that there is another human being on the other end of this conversation. And we need to be relationship forward and we need to be conversational. And I know that we've got so much knowledge as PCCs that, again, I've said this a few times now I feel like I'm being really repetitive. But don't just spew out the information that you think they care about. Let's listen to them, let them tell their story. This might be the only time all year that somebody's asking them questions about something that's vulnerable to them. So give them a few minutes to just talk and you listen and then you provide the right resources. Don't just take it as a, okay, this is everything I need to provide you with. We're not setting them up on an insurance policy. We are scheduling them for life change.

Andrea Watkins (37:44):
Alright, so we are going to do a fun little rapid fire for the PCC role. We're in the mindset of the PCC. What are the really important qualities for the mindset of the PCC role? Alli, you get to go first.

Alli Petriella (37:59):
Good listener,

Andrea Watkins (38:01):
Inquisitive,

Alli Petriella (38:03):
Problem solver.

Andrea Watkins (38:05):
Strategic.

Alli Petriella (38:06):
A team player,

Andrea Watkins (38:09):
Educator.

Alli Petriella (38:10):
Curious,

Andrea Watkins (38:12):
Compassionate,

Alli Petriella (38:13):
Authentic,

Andrea Watkins (38:15):
Empathetic, knowledgeable, organized, directive. Oh, that's my word. That's what I say all the time. Oh, you got it from me. Leader,

Alli Petriella (38:29):
Educational,

Andrea Watkins (38:31):
Confident,

Alli Petriella (38:35):
Kind,

Andrea Watkins (38:37):
Welcoming.

Alli Petriella (38:39):
Resilient.

Andrea Watkins (38:41):
Resilient. That's a really good one. Persistent.

Alli Petriella (38:44):
That's a good one as well.

Andrea Watkins (38:46):
Tough skinned

Alli Petriella (38:47):
Impervious.

Andrea Watkins (38:48):
Alright, listeners. So we need some extra words. If you have words, adjectives, anything that you think would be descriptive of the PCC mindset, please send them to us and we can add 'em to our library. Wonderful. Well thank you so much for joining me today. Alli is definitely going to be back for future episodes. We're going to talk about sales, we're going to talk about lead management, we're consultation phone calls, in person consults. How do all of those processes actually get us the very best result, which is all best practice databased. And we're really, really excited to share that with you coming from people who have done it and also those, we work with practices across the nation and look at data in our technology and all of that. So if you have any resources that you want to share or helpful people to follow on Instagram, please make sure that you share that with us.

(39:41):
And then if you also have a wild customer service story or a sticky patient situation like Alli just shared with one of her previous teammates, please just send us a message or leave us a voicemail at practicelandpodcast.com because we really want to start sharing these with you guys because we're all in this together. And if your tale makes it into our sheeted what segment, we're definitely going to send you a thank you gift that you're actually going to love. I sent out about 20 of these packages this weekend and it's some pretty cool swag. So the links in the details are in the show notes and we are excited to have you guys join us later.

Blake Lucas (40:18):
Got a wild customer service story or a sticky patient situation? Send us a message or voicemail. If your tale makes it into our She Did What? segment, we'll send a thank you gift you'll actually love. Promise no cheap swag here.

Andrea Watkins (40:30):
Are you one of us? Subscribe for new episode notifications and more at practicelandpodcast.com. New episodes drop weekly on YouTube and everywhere you can listen to podcasts.