Do you want to discover key strategies for expanding your O&P practice? Optimize patient acquisition with targeted marketing insights and measurable growth tactics. Enhance your professional network and patient retention. Read on to learn more about strategic practice development.

Are you SURE you're HIPAA compliant? The stakes are higher than ever for protecting Patient Health Information (PHI). The Department of Justice’s current stance is that it is committed to tackling corporate crime and will continue to investigate and prosecute companies (and responsible individuals) who engage in such misconduct. What does that mean for you?

Do you have concerns about the labor market? Are you having a hard time staffing your practice? Do you think being a good leader is about bossing people around? Think again! Discover the SECRET to true leadership success and employee retention. Here's a hint: It's not about YOU. Dive in now and transform your leadership style!

In today’s rapidly evolving O&P landscape, it's becoming increasingly evident that leading-edge technologies like 3D scanners and CAD software are not merely "nice-to-haves" but vital instruments shaping our profession’s future. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” right?

There are lots of ways to know if your business is profitable and I am sure you have heard all of the jokes, so I will spare you. There is a superficial profitability equation that essentially says revenue minus cost equals profit. Yes, at some level, that is all you need to know. But is it really enough to know only those top-line numbers?

I have talked about incorporating the Gemba walk into your routine to find opportunities to improve. But improve what? And how do you know if it made a difference? I made an assumption, and I’ll bet you did too…that we all agree on the objective. Do we? Does your whole team know what your business objectives are? No really…Not just generic “take care of patients and make money.” Something that vague leaves way too much open to interpretation and you end up in chaos.

We talked about the value and importance of the GEMBA walk and the Weekly WIP meeting. Now, bring the power of data visualization to the meeting, and you will cut the meeting time in half. Or more! Join me this week as we discover how the intuitive WIP: Aim for Success tool, combined with GEMBA insights, can streamline your weekly WIP meeting and transform it into both patient care and financial planning in one!

Do you want to turn the chaos of daily operations into smooth, well-oiled workflows? Last week I talked about the GEMBA walk and this week I will show how combining GEMBA walks with weekly WIP reviews can synergize to not only streamline your practice but also improve the patient experience. Whether it's verifying insurance, ensuring the availability of supplies, or planning for special activities, we'll show you how to be one step ahead, ensuring that each patient visit becomes a meaningful step toward their health goals while still getting paid!

Do you or your team feel like you’re always busy? Do you wish you could do more? We’ve all been there, hustling through the day without getting the time to pause and evaluate how things could be better. This was a topic of discussion several years ago in an OPIE Users discussion and what we learned is that a great tool to use here is the GEMBA walk —turning that sense of frenetic activity into focused, purpose-driven work, all while spurring innovation and best practices.

Over the past month, two of my blogs have focused on decision-making. As you may be aware, I do talk to many people in the field, and I try to find patterns in the stories I hear. A troubling one is re-emerging. Like all things, the profession of O&P seems to be cyclical in nature. History surely repeats itself!

It’s ironic, this blog. Ideas come to me and I can write, but sometimes I suffer from writer’s block. A theme I can get connected to generally emerges and I can go to town. This week I was suffering, that is until we got take-out Chinese food last night! After dinner, we did the obligatory fortune cookie thing, and one “fortune” about decision-making stuck out.

In this blog, since getting paid for what we do is fairly important to most of us, I want to focus a little on a critical, but often overlooked communication opportunity.

In his book “Blink,” Malcolm Gladwell describes how we “think without thinking:” how we make choices in the blink of an eye that really are not as simple as they seem and that are nearly impossible to explain to others. In a similar vein, we are often told to “trust our gut” when making business or even patient care decisions. There is a lot of evidence to support the success of those snap decisions, but there is a major caveat.

Lately, my conversations revolve more and more around personnel issues. From probable scams to personality incompatibility, HR challenges can take their toll. Of course, each case is different, but there are some steps we can take to help mitigate any negative ramifications of what can be emotionally charged challenges. As an employer, you are expected to know certain things and behave in certain ways. As an employer in the health care field, you have Federal and State agencies creating requirements for you. Probably the most important thing you can do is…

The World Health Organization noted that the global prevalence of depression and anxiety increased by 25% in the first year of the COVID pandemic. In March of 2023, KFF reported that 90% of US adults believe the country is facing a mental health crisis. I don’t know about you, but I have not seen 90% of the adult US population agree on anything in a decade or two. We see it every day. Last week I talked about the weariness we see in O&P. I think a lot of this stems from the fallout of the COVID catastrophe. In addition to the obvious issues, so much of our community was torn asunder.

Often, we use those terms interchangeably, but I believe there is a significant distinction. As I talk with owners and managers about the state of the profession, more and more I hear confessions of being tired. I get it. I vividly remember, early in my days of O&P, standing in Kathy Dodson’s doorway at AOPA telling her about my plans for dealing with CMS and how we were going to change the world! She looked at me with a wry smile and said she remembered feeling the same way when she first got started in government affairs for AOPA. She said she admired my confidence but warned me that CMS is a machine “designed to wear you down.” It will tire you out.

For the most part, we are very small businesses. We do not have HR staff or even a single HR expert on our payroll. The owner does it all. We are pushing marbles uphill every day, and it is nearly impossible to keep up with everything. Then something totally unbelievable smacks you right upside the head. In employment law, there are many little things you can say or do that add up to really big consequences. You are probably not even aware that what you are doing is potentially putting your company, and your life’s work, at risk.

I hope you had a great Independence Day celebration when we are reminded of the struggles, we as a nation endured to gain freedom and assert our individual rights. Among those is the right to do stupid stuff. Wait, really?

This weekend I was doing a little extracurricular reading and ran across the name “Cesar Millan.” Cesar is perhaps best known as “The Dog Whisperer.” On his website, there is a tab on “Dog Psychology,” and in that tab is a feature called “10 Principles for Achieving Balance.” Principle 3 is “Know the difference between story and truth.” Imagine my delight when something random ties into something I had just written. Cesar says that “humans tell stories, while dogs tell the truth.”

If you interact with society today, you probably sense that there is discord in the social structure. Without judging right or wrong, it is clear that there are differing world views and those differing world views are often at odds with each other. Our workplaces can be a microcosm of society, so we are probably seeing some signs of that discord at work. Nearly four and half years ago I wrote about how we can positively influence the culture in our workplace so that there is greater harmony and less discord. I think the concepts in that November 2018 blog are worth another read. I hope you do too, and I hope this week’s blog makes you stop and think, even if just a little. Remember, no matter how much we try, we only have power over our own reactions.