The summer slowdown isn't random — it's predictable

Andrea (00:01):
Again, this is not your doctor's podcast, but everybody's worst nightmare is a surgeon that's not in the OR.

 

Alli (00:05):
It's the worst.

 

Andrea (00:06):
It's the worst. 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.

 

Alli (00:24):
And I'm Blake Lucas, and this is PracticeLand. This is not your doctor's podcast.

 

Andrea (00:31):
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to PracticeLand. This is Andrea Watkins, and I'm here with Alli. We are partying in the Casa de Watkins today in Denver, Colorado. Super excited to be together in the same room. Our energies are a little bit crazy sometimes. But on this episode specifically, it's summer. We're looking out the windows. It's going to be 85 degrees outside. There's not a cloud anywhere that we can see in sight. And that brings up something that a lot of us struggle with in practices. We just hear the summer slowdown. Summer hits, the schedule kind of gets soft, and people start wondering what happened. And then things get kind of better in the fall, depending on the practice, and then the holidays hit, and then it's new year. And so we kind of have this cyclical thing that's happening.

 

(01:18):
And I just want to say just upfront, slow seasons, they're not unpredictable. And so I think what we want to talk about today, because it is something that a lot of my clients, and I think you've shared in the summer down in Texas, it's kind of similar where we kind of go through some of these ebbs and flows. So we want to talk about that.

 

Alli (01:40):
Yeah.

 

Andrea (01:42):
Let's start out with how to determine that. So what should we be doing in each of our practices where we're being proactive to be able to then have a strategy towards these times? So what do you think? Where should we start?

 

Alli (01:56):
I think step one would be extracting historical data and looking back in your schedule for the past, not even the past year, but the past several years and starting to really get a firm grip on what are the trends? Where do we tend to have holes? So tracking surgery hour utilization as well as revenue and just seeing where the ebbs and flows occur. And you will see a trend. I can almost guarantee there's no practice where every single year the ebb is in a different place. It will start to usually trend depending on your demographic of patients, their lifestyle, and then also where you're at. If you are in somewhere where skiing is really popular versus somewhere where boating is really popular. So patients will behave with those lifestyle trends. And so you can start to identify summer's a really slow time for us. Winter, November through January is a really popular time for us.

 

(02:51):
And just understanding that. Would you have any other tips on how to get an understanding of it?

 

Andrea (02:56):
Definitely looking at your, I think going back to what you said as far as looking at your OR utilization time. And again, we're talking primarily about surgery, but the same thing can be said for non-surgical. And if you're not already tracking that guys, that is one of the most important key performance indicators that you can be tracking in your practice ever, which is you have to know how many hours do I have available and how many hours are being used? So if I have a hundred hours available in a month and 94 of them are being used, that's easy math. It's 94% utilization. If you have a hundred hours that are available and you're using 62 hours, that means that you have a huge gap. You've got 38 hours that you're not using. If you times that by $5,000 an hour, that's a ton of money. So utilization rate is absolutely critical.

 

(03:49):
Track that. And then to your point, your revenue as well, which if you haven't been tracking OR utilization and you're going to start today because you're hearing us talk about it, then that's great. Then go back and look at your revenue and say, are there big dips? One thing to keep in mind, and this always happened for us during the summer as well when we were in practice together, is our surgeon would go on a three-week trip every either June or July. So you also have to keep in mind, are those dips caused by your providers being gone or are they caused because we weren't utilizing the time that we had available?

 

Alli (04:20):
Yep.

 

Andrea (04:21):
So just keep that in mind when you're looking at those numbers as well. Also, another thing to keep in mind is where you are in the world matters. And this is just something that has come to my attention in the past couple years when I started working with all of these practices that are very diverse is if you're in Southern California, you've got great weather all the time. And so the weather might not be what determines your ebbs and flows and your schedule. It might be the industries in which the people work and which you serve. If they are off like the TV and movie industry apparently in LA, one of my clients down there, they were just sharing with me a couple weeks ago, the summer is when they all take off. And so this is when they actually skyrocket. So their volume has been higher.

 

(05:10):
They're scheduling several months in advance. They have more inquiries than they had back in January and February. Whereas clients that I have in Boston, they have shitty weather from November until April, May. And so once the sun comes out, nobody wants to be recovering from surgery. And so their summer, literally just the interest, the intent of the buyers, all of those things, it changes because people are at the Cape, they're out in Nantucket, they're doing things outside. Same with New York City. Those folks, they leave the city. They're like, "Deuces, we're going out to the Hamptons." And so everything kind of plummets. It's regional, but to Allie's point, what you need to do is look at your historical data, look and see what's happening for our practice in our area with our patient demographic over time, year over year, over year, over year.

 

Alli (06:05):
And in line with that also, because that always changes as time goes on, things evolve. So have that stuff in your pocket, but also compare that to what you're hearing from patients every single day on the phone and in the practice. When you're asking what's your timeframe? It should be, what's your timeframe and why? Because if you're just like, "What's your timeframe?" They're like October, you're like, "Great, let's book it." Understand why they're favoring that timeframe. Is it them specifically or are you hearing from multiple people that they're going to be on the boat all summer and then they want to be healed by the holidays, so this is a hot time? So just always have the data to back your thoughts up, but also be comparing it to what's happening right now in this second and what your patients are demanding and formulate kind of, "Okay, I can actually predict that I have not heard anybody talk about November in a long time, so we need to prepare for something."

 

Andrea (06:59):
Exactly, exactly. So let's take a step back for a second. Let's first just talk about what's it feel like? What's the vibe when it's slow? What's this mean to you when you're in your practice or when we were together, we're doing all these different things?

 

Alli (07:14):
As a patient care coordinator, I think as you've done it long enough, it stinks and it stings, but you know that, okay, we're about to speed back up guys. Don't worry. I'm talking to patients. I know. Take a pill. Yeah. But all everybody else sees, you got to think about that, isn't the open hours on the surgery schedule. And they're like, things are slowing down. Things are not looking good. So there is -

 

Andrea (07:37):
We got bills to pay. We got mouths to feed.

 

Alli (07:39):
Yeah. And so there's pressure in you and to avoid that, trying to get ahead of it. And also in your weekly meetings or your daily meetings or however often your team's meeting, keep them informed. Hey guys, just so you know, I have a total firm understanding that we have 12 hours open in the month of July right now. I'm trying to work my booty off to fill those, but here's the trends with the patients. Let everybody know that you know what's going on and they know what's going on with the patient.

 

Andrea (08:07):
But just like, yeah, it's summer, it's slow. What do you think is wrong with that type of framing when you're just like, well, it is what it is.

 

Alli (08:17):
Yeah. I think that stresses your team out more because they are relying on you to fill the hours. That is your job. And so if they see that type of kind of outlook on it, they're going to be like, is this the right person for the job? Should we be worried?

 

Andrea (08:33):
Or it sets them up to also have that attitude, which is very just like laissez-faire, this is life. Doesn't matter. Life just happens to me and I just show up. And I mean, that's kind of like a mindset thing anyway.

 

Alli (08:47):
So the attitude to have, I think is I have awareness of this. This is not a surprise to me, but everything's okay. And still being positive and still being optimistic. There's some stuff in the funnel guys that I'm working on right now, but I'm going to warn you, there are a few openings right now. And so if you guys hear of anybody in your post-ops that's wanting a new surgery, just get everybody's. Because a lot of those nurses are going in with those old patients. And Dr. Camp's office specifically, most of his patients are lifelong patients. And so they'll talk about a surgery and we'll be like, okay, let's turn it around and try to get them in for their next case. So just let the team know.

 

Andrea (09:24):
And you know they're a great surgery or great patient.

 

Alli (09:26):
Or a great patient

 

Andrea (09:27):
And they're healthy for surgery and all that too. Yeah.

 

Alli (09:29):
So let the whole team know, help me out where you can, but work my tail off for y'all.

 

Andrea (09:34):
Right, right. Well, and I think this also comes to a point, and not to name drop lead loop or whatever that I use with my clients, but this also is where having a CRM, having a lead management platform is a game changer. It's an absolute game changer for when there are slower times because you have people in your pipeline and you know you can go to exact stages where it's like future follow-up before they even came in for consult or future follow-up after they had a consult but they weren't ready to schedule.

 

(10:03):
You can go straight to those stages and say, those are the people that I want to call. Here's what I know. You know everything about them because it's in their communications record. You can pick up the phone, you can send them a text, Hey, let's hop on. I've got this great opportunity, whatever it is. So I think that just utilizing your tools, but also I love what you said about just being very forthright or forthcoming about it with the team when you have your huddles, when you have your meetings with your team. It's just, yeah guys, I know that that time is there. It's not being ignored. Here's the three people that I have in my funnel that I'm really, really working on. And if you guys have anybody else that I can reach out to that is an existing patient, let's do it. So I think that's really, really sound advice.

 

Alli (10:49):
Just a little note on that. Having that surgery availability sheet that we mentioned is very, very helpful in that. I'll print that out before our meetings and I'll just walk right in with it and just be like, here's the open hours. I'll highlight it on there. So this is what's coming up. And that also just helps with overall office flow too, because it's like I'm not filling the surgery spot in a week and a half. So if we want to have an in-service or a team meeting on that day, we can.

 

Andrea (11:13):
Yeah. I think this also, again, another side tangent, but this shows also how a patient care coordinator, you're not just a leader for the patients, you're a leader in your practice. And you really just have to go into those communications with your teams and have the materials and say, "Hey guys, this is what's going on. This is what we're doing to work on it." And just having that mindset too where we don't have to shy away from it. And just that also brings you together as a team and makes everybody just feel much more comfortable with each other as far as, "Hey, this is what's going on and this is what we're doing. Do you guys have anything? Do you have anything?" And working together really helps that camaraderie as a team as well. What do you think for practices that don't see significant slowdowns throughout the seasons, what do you think they're doing a little bit differently or better that maybe the practices that say, oh, July always just stinks, this always stinks and they just accept it?

 

Alli (12:15):
Yeah. I would say having as a patient care coordinator, just reasons of why those months that you know usually slow down rule to have surgery. Why -

 

Andrea (12:28):
So the adverse.

 

Alli (12:29):
Yeah. I think just picking every month and just having a few dots in your head for, okay, January is a great time because the holidays are over, all your family's out of town, it's cold outside. November is a great time because you'll be healed up by Christmas. Having just reasons why every month is a really good month. Because there are some patients that call in with a very specific timeframe of when they need to have surgery, but there is also patients that are like, "I don't know, what's your availability looking like?" And using as leverage, those times, those week times for those people that don't really have a timeframe is immensely helpful because those other times will automatically fill up because you know they're popular times. But for these people that don't have a timeframe, you know what? October is actually going to be so good for you because X, Y, Z. How do you feel about that?

 

Andrea (13:22):
It's getting colder. You're not going to be uncomfortable in your garments. You're going to be healed up before New Year so you can look great in your dress, whatever the case may be.

 

Alli (13:30):
So know your schedule and know your patients so well that you can speak to every single timeframe. Whether they're telling you, I don't have a timeframe or I do have a timeframe, you should be responding to that with some sort of commentary on like, oh yeah, hot time of the year for plastic surgery because, or, oh yeah, that's a really good time to do it. Or, oh, I recommend this time because with your lifestyle, it's going to be good to keel up before the kids go back to school and sports get busy and whatever.

 

Andrea (13:56):
Yeah. Oh, I love that. And again, it all falls back on asking the right questions to really understand your patients so that you can use all of that information to help guide them to obviously get into their after body or face and reach their goals and do all the things, but also do it in a timeframe and manner that's really going to help you as a patient care coordinator and practice administrator, whoever it is, that's trying to make sure that we're optimizing our doctor's time. So that utilization rate is 90% or above all the time, always. And another thing that we've done too is during these slower times, historically slower in different practices, is we've brought a new partner into the practice, whether it's a new associate surgeon or it's a new financing partner, PatientFi. I've done this several times with clients. Take that information of what we now have as a new tool in our toolbox and put that into your communications that you're sending out.You can even, like in Lead Loop, we can sort by anybody that was interested in breast augmentation that was lost due to price.

 

Alli (15:08):
So nice.

 

Andrea (15:09):
I can pull that list of just those people and I can say, "We have this new breast aug doctor that's doing this technique and we actually just brought in PatientFi as a new financing partner. Under a payment plan, you could be as little as $320 a month." And you would not believe the amount of people that we've had respond to that type of messaging because we know they were interested at one point. We do.

 

Alli (15:37):
And that specified targeted marketing that you're able to do when you have something like Leadloop is immensely helpful. It's incredible. They can just buy price. There's other people that live too far away or their BMI is too high. You don't want to be just blasting that email to everyone that you've lost before. You want to be specifying these are the people that could benefit from this information and curating your marketing information that you're going to push to this specified group of people.

 

Andrea (16:05):
Well, and then it makes the role of the PCC so much more streamlined because then when they do reach out and they're like, oh wow, so I saw this email about X, Y, and Z or this text message and you know exactly, you could pick it up, you could pull up their record, what's going on with them. So you can help guide them to those places where we know we do have the natural slowdowns or whatever.

 

Alli (16:26):
Yeah, exactly.

 

Andrea (16:27):
So having those strategies of guiding people to the times that we know are going to be a little bit slower, which again starts with the fact you have to know what those times are for your practice.

 

Alli (16:37):
Yes.

 

Andrea (16:38):
I think something that a lot of people fall into, and I see it all the time, is my job is to answer questions and to be here when the phone rings.

 

Alli (16:49):
Your job is not to respond. It's really not. Your job is to take full ownership and full control over things and take the reins and say, "This is where we're going. Follow me."

 

Andrea (17:01):
Yes, 100%. It's being intentional, not being passive.

 

Alli (17:05):
Yep, exactly.

 

Andrea (17:05):
And that comes with your strategy of getting patients in the door. It also comes with the strategies of re-engaging patients and filling those times that we know are going to be slower. If you could just tell me one thing that you think would make the biggest impact for people that say, "Oh, it's just this time of year," what would be the one thing that you would say, "This is where you need to start?"

 

Alli (17:29):
I would make a list of every single month of the year and say, "These are three reasons why you should have plastic surgery in this month." Not to solicit to people, but have that handy. Because if you are trying to direct people and knowing, okay, October is looking really bad, look at those three reasons and start talking about those reasons when you're talking with patients.

 

Andrea (17:48):
And then if a practice owner or a coordinator or a practice manager, anybody who this concerns on a daily basis, if they're going to walk away believing one thing that they hear in this episode about slow seasons, what would you want them to walk away with?

 

Alli (18:07):
If you are strategic, you do not have to have slow seasons. There does not have to be seasonality if you're doing things properly. But also actually there's two things. If you do have a slow month, don't get yourself down, especially if it is that time of the year that you guys sometimes have a slow month. Start really doing everything you can to work further ahead so that it doesn't happen again, but don't sulk in it, don't sit in it, and don't just be like, "Okay, we're going into the shitter."

 

Andrea (18:37):
Yeah. Well, it's going to really, I just think of E-or Where it's just like, "Well, this is just the way it is." It's not random. It's predictable. And with the right strategies in place, you can help prevent maybe you had 12 hours, maybe now you're only going to have three or four. Even if it's not perfect, you can do better with some strategic planning and really trying. So thank you so much. I absolutely love these strategies and then any tool we can put in our listeners' hands to help. I think we can go back to the beginning of this episode where, again, this is not your doctor's podcast, but everybody's worst nightmare is a surgeon that's not in the OR.

 

Alli (19:21):
It's the worst.

 

Andrea (19:22):
It's the worst. We know that. And we love you guys and we are here to support you. That's what we do. But we all know that's the worst thing that we could do.

 

Alli (19:30):
Yeah. And they probably agree majority. By some people, maybe not, but a majority of the time they're like, "I don't want to be up here right now. Get me downstairs."

 

Andrea (19:38):
Exactly. Get me in the OR. That's the whole goal of what our job is. So if any of these strategies, or if you have more and you want to hand them over, let us know and we'll include them in our subsequent episodes. But thank you guys so much for listening. Really hope that this was helpful for you today. Alli and I are stoked to be able to share all of our experience and things that we learned from other people with anybody that's listening. So hope to see you back here. Not even see you. I hope that you come back next Tuesday so that we can share more of our tips to help you tame the chaos, get shit done, and just really have a good time while you're doing work. So thank you so much and we'll see you guys soon.

 

Alli (20:18):
Bye.

 

Andrea (20:19):
Bye.

 

Blake (20:21):
Got a wild customer service story or a sticky patient situation? Send us a message or voicemail. If your tail 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 (20:33):
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.