Training your chiropractic staff - now that you have the time.

WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.879 --> 00:00:08.789 Welcome to our first episode of catch up with Cairo touch. I'm one of 2 00:00:08.789 --> 00:00:12.150 your host Dr Tammy Howard. I'm the training manager here at Cairo touch and 3 00:00:12.269 --> 00:00:16.070 I work with our clients to help maximize the use of the HR platform to 4 00:00:16.149 --> 00:00:19.670 make their life easier and get their best return of investment on the software. 5 00:00:20.070 --> 00:00:23.460 I'm excited to start this weekly podcast where we'll talk about not only the car 6 00:00:23.500 --> 00:00:27.780 touch software, but also discuss the current state of our profession and share tips 7 00:00:27.820 --> 00:00:32.500 and tricks to maintain the health of your practice throughout this challenging time. Tune 8 00:00:32.579 --> 00:00:37.289 in every week on spotify, itunes or car touchcom slash podcast to listen to 9 00:00:37.329 --> 00:00:42.329 our latest episodes. In this episode, we're going to be talking about Best 10 00:00:42.369 --> 00:00:47.130 Practices for training staff during these lower times. With patient volume down, now 11 00:00:47.329 --> 00:00:51.039 is a great time to focus on training staff in refining your office procedures. 12 00:00:51.799 --> 00:00:56.039 Some of your procedures may have also recently had to shift to accommodate social distancing, 13 00:00:56.520 --> 00:01:00.240 so training staff on adhering to those new procedures is important to make sure 14 00:01:00.240 --> 00:01:04.469 your entire team is working as a cohesive unit. Joining me today I have 15 00:01:04.510 --> 00:01:10.870 hilary snow, a former chiropractic office manager and currently a car touch training specialist. 16 00:01:11.469 --> 00:01:15.349 In our previous role, Hilary helped to develop office procedures and train new 17 00:01:15.390 --> 00:01:19.420 staff. Hi Hillary, thanks for joining us. Good Morning. So a 18 00:01:19.500 --> 00:01:23.060 while back you and I were talking about a concept that you used in your 19 00:01:23.099 --> 00:01:29.099 office. This to train staff using goose patients. Can you walk us through 20 00:01:29.219 --> 00:01:34.650 that? Sure? Kind of the analogy is like a good sports team or 21 00:01:34.689 --> 00:01:38.250 any professional they do a lot of training before they actually start the game. 22 00:01:40.290 --> 00:01:45.290 So the ghost patient process is getting all of those systems down the flow of 23 00:01:45.409 --> 00:01:49.640 the office. How do we greet our patients? What do we do first? 24 00:01:49.280 --> 00:01:53.079 If they fill out paperwork, how do we gather it from them? 25 00:01:53.040 --> 00:02:00.359 So when offices have downtime or are training new staff members, we in our 26 00:02:00.439 --> 00:02:02.790 office. What we would do is we would act like a patient was physically 27 00:02:02.870 --> 00:02:06.989 walking through the door. We would greet them like we normally did and we 28 00:02:07.069 --> 00:02:10.830 would act as if we had that patient truly in our office. We would 29 00:02:10.830 --> 00:02:15.060 go through every single process just as if we had that life patient with us 30 00:02:15.460 --> 00:02:20.219 in. The doctor also did his part as well, and what it did 31 00:02:20.340 --> 00:02:23.979 is it Gat us kind of the Term As a well oiled machine. We 32 00:02:24.099 --> 00:02:29.939 knew what to expect we knew how long it would take to do certain things. 33 00:02:30.689 --> 00:02:34.569 We also trained in a way where if there was an issue, what 34 00:02:34.650 --> 00:02:38.409 if the client or the patient asked something that was out of the norm? 35 00:02:38.569 --> 00:02:42.689 How do we handle those things? So we didn't always practice the perfect scenario. 36 00:02:42.770 --> 00:02:46.120 A lot of times we always throw in little hiccups if they had an 37 00:02:46.199 --> 00:02:50.879 objection to having x rays in our office or or something along those lines, 38 00:02:51.280 --> 00:02:54.599 and it just helped us to work really well as a team. It's also 39 00:02:54.639 --> 00:03:00.750 a fantastic tool to get a new staff member up to speed. So a 40 00:03:00.870 --> 00:03:07.310 patient would basically you would take like a staff member and act as a patient. 41 00:03:07.629 --> 00:03:09.870 Or we have kind of like CASS for the ghost to float through the 42 00:03:09.909 --> 00:03:16.580 office. Great Question. So there's two staff members, then typically one would 43 00:03:16.580 --> 00:03:20.379 act as if they were the patients the other would act as if they were 44 00:03:20.419 --> 00:03:23.300 the staff member, the doctor or the providers acting as if they're the provider. 45 00:03:23.819 --> 00:03:28.650 When it's one staff member, you literally could act like it's a ghost 46 00:03:28.689 --> 00:03:31.930 patient. If you have windows, people that are sitting outside might think that 47 00:03:32.050 --> 00:03:36.569 you guys are a little crazy because you're talking to air, but it is 48 00:03:36.650 --> 00:03:40.560 very effective. It's a little awkward sometimes at the beginning because it just feels 49 00:03:40.680 --> 00:03:45.800 weird. But once you get into the flow of it, it becomes second 50 00:03:45.840 --> 00:03:49.280 nature. So in our office, when we had downtime and we had completed 51 00:03:49.360 --> 00:03:53.479 everything that we needed and we were waiting for our patients, we just would 52 00:03:53.599 --> 00:03:58.430 grab one of our cards and we would just walk through the process and we 53 00:03:58.509 --> 00:04:00.830 would just kind of do it as a surprise. We would just act like 54 00:04:00.949 --> 00:04:03.629 we're greeting someone. If I was the front sea for the day, I 55 00:04:03.669 --> 00:04:06.550 would act like the door opened. I would greed the patient by name and 56 00:04:06.629 --> 00:04:11.539 I would have the information over to our back sea for them to do their 57 00:04:11.699 --> 00:04:15.379 process and they would do the same to me. So it was always we're 58 00:04:15.379 --> 00:04:19.100 always on our toes. We are always ready for that patient to walk through 59 00:04:19.100 --> 00:04:24.649 the door. For Office is also that are trying to see more and more 60 00:04:24.769 --> 00:04:30.250 patients and get more comfortable with that increased flow. Working with ghost patients as 61 00:04:30.290 --> 00:04:33.250 a fantastic way to do that. It creates that muscle memory. How do 62 00:04:33.329 --> 00:04:36.850 you handle it if you have five people walking in the door once? What 63 00:04:38.050 --> 00:04:41.399 is your check in process? How do you handle that? What about during 64 00:04:41.480 --> 00:04:46.879 checkout? So it kind of helps you work through all the potential tinks. 65 00:04:46.959 --> 00:04:49.680 You might end up with in that real life scenario. Yeah, I like 66 00:04:49.839 --> 00:04:56.430 the idea of not always practicing the perfect scenario. I think that it's probably 67 00:04:56.470 --> 00:05:01.430 beneficial to really get your perfect scenario down pat so that when things come up 68 00:05:01.629 --> 00:05:05.470 in there a little bit different than you know what's normal in the office, 69 00:05:05.629 --> 00:05:12.860 that you have had normal to fall back onto, but obviously looking at what 70 00:05:12.980 --> 00:05:15.740 are some of the issues that might come up and how can we think ahead 71 00:05:15.740 --> 00:05:20.689 of those in form some kind of a game plan when those issues exactly yeah, 72 00:05:23.170 --> 00:05:28.529 are there specific types of kind of unperfect scenarios that you guys used to 73 00:05:28.889 --> 00:05:34.170 look at and try to train for? Some of them are in the office 74 00:05:34.250 --> 00:05:38.879 that I was in, we always x rayed patients unless they had something that 75 00:05:38.959 --> 00:05:42.079 they brought in. So when you go and you need to do the initial 76 00:05:42.120 --> 00:05:46.759 report of finance, as the assistant going in to tell them what the cost 77 00:05:46.879 --> 00:05:51.110 will be for the day, we would work in those ghost patients scenarios. 78 00:05:51.310 --> 00:05:56.029 If the patient had objective to cost. How do we handle that? What 79 00:05:56.230 --> 00:05:59.389 is the verbiage that we use? What are the options that we have available 80 00:05:59.509 --> 00:06:01.670 that we can discuss at that point? A lot of times you may not 81 00:06:01.910 --> 00:06:06.779 know, even if you verified benefits what actually will be covered, and it's 82 00:06:06.779 --> 00:06:12.259 always kind of a surprise. So we would work with those scenarios so that 83 00:06:12.379 --> 00:06:15.660 we were as comfortable as possible, because the more comfortable we are in the 84 00:06:15.819 --> 00:06:19.250 process, the more confidence our patients would have in us as a practice. 85 00:06:19.329 --> 00:06:25.730 Yeah, that makes sense, and especially some of those things around financial questions. 86 00:06:25.850 --> 00:06:29.410 You know, obviously those are some of those conversations that people are a 87 00:06:29.490 --> 00:06:33.079 little bit more sensitive to. So starting to think through what are some of 88 00:06:33.199 --> 00:06:36.439 those things that might come up and how we can get ahead of those in 89 00:06:36.600 --> 00:06:42.000 terms of what are the objections we're going to see and how can we think 90 00:06:42.000 --> 00:06:47.470 about responding to those objections ahead of time exactly so if we've done them in 91 00:06:47.750 --> 00:06:53.029 our ghost patients scenarios, when they happen in real life, because there's a 92 00:06:53.149 --> 00:06:56.350 good chance they will happen at some point. The more patients that you see, 93 00:06:56.870 --> 00:07:01.139 we're already somewhat prepared for that experience. So we know what we hand 94 00:07:01.220 --> 00:07:06.500 and cannot say what is appropriate at this point in time right and with the 95 00:07:06.579 --> 00:07:12.259 way things have changed recently in practices, a lot of practices or instituting new 96 00:07:12.379 --> 00:07:16.730 policies. A lot of people are doing things with like a virtual waiting room 97 00:07:16.769 --> 00:07:20.810 or they've changed the number of people that are allowed into the office at any 98 00:07:20.850 --> 00:07:25.529 given time, and so you know, that's something that occurs. To me, 99 00:07:25.730 --> 00:07:31.680 is that being able to practice in whatever that new scenario is is probably 100 00:07:31.759 --> 00:07:36.399 pretty important as well, where there's times when you guys were in your practice, 101 00:07:36.600 --> 00:07:41.120 where you would kind of go back to this idea of practicing when you 102 00:07:41.319 --> 00:07:46.629 made a shift in some type of policy or procedure. Absolutely anytime there was 103 00:07:46.790 --> 00:07:51.269 anything that we change, no matter how small and minute, we would work 104 00:07:51.389 --> 00:07:56.709 through practice patients and we would work through more and more ghost patients as possible. 105 00:07:56.709 --> 00:07:59.819 We had a goal that we would set every day. How many patients 106 00:07:59.860 --> 00:08:01.060 do we want to see today? How many people do we want to serve? 107 00:08:01.819 --> 00:08:07.139 And then we would look at what we have scheduled, knowing that our 108 00:08:07.259 --> 00:08:09.540 office at least had a good amount of walk in, will say, okay, 109 00:08:09.579 --> 00:08:11.620 well, how many people at the end of the day do we want 110 00:08:11.620 --> 00:08:15.370 to serve? Right, okay, so we came up with our number. 111 00:08:15.370 --> 00:08:18.569 We would write it down so as we're working through the day, we're working 112 00:08:18.689 --> 00:08:24.250 on ghost patients so that we're able to meet that number, so that we're 113 00:08:24.449 --> 00:08:28.879 used to seeing that number of patient. So any tiny little shift in our 114 00:08:28.959 --> 00:08:33.440 processes or procedures we wanted to get comfortable with as quickly as possible. So 115 00:08:33.600 --> 00:08:39.000 we would start practicing immediately, whether it was even the slightest change in how 116 00:08:39.279 --> 00:08:46.070 we address the financials or if we changed our documentation process, had different paperwork 117 00:08:46.789 --> 00:08:50.389 because we had anything different that we did, or we would put it into 118 00:08:50.429 --> 00:08:54.629 practice right away. Right. Yeah, and I know with the recent changes 119 00:08:54.350 --> 00:08:58.620 that a lot of offices have instituted having like some type of a screening process 120 00:08:58.740 --> 00:09:03.419 for patients, so that part of that might be that they need to then 121 00:09:05.100 --> 00:09:09.529 take some of that information and also plug it into their h our system. 122 00:09:09.649 --> 00:09:15.169 So all oftentimes we'll see, recently it's coming up a lot, is that 123 00:09:16.370 --> 00:09:20.450 they may have like a cea that's doing a screening of a patient, but 124 00:09:20.889 --> 00:09:24.639 maybe what they're doing inside of Cairo touch is actually setting an alert to remind 125 00:09:24.879 --> 00:09:28.080 this yea's you know, these are the questions that you need to ask, 126 00:09:28.279 --> 00:09:31.600 these are the steps that you need to take, so when a patient does 127 00:09:31.679 --> 00:09:37.080 check in, it kind of pops up and reminds the staff do these tasks 128 00:09:37.600 --> 00:09:41.629 using like those carro touch alerts, or when they bring the patient back to 129 00:09:41.669 --> 00:09:45.269 the provider, of going in a documenting in the provider all in one. 130 00:09:45.830 --> 00:09:50.070 This is the these are the questions that we ask the patient terms of screening 131 00:09:50.070 --> 00:09:54.940 them before their care, but most likely needing to kind of practice that a 132 00:09:54.019 --> 00:09:58.779 little bit right, because this is all really new for office. Is Needing 133 00:09:58.820 --> 00:10:01.620 to take some of these screening measures and, you know, document all of 134 00:10:01.740 --> 00:10:07.409 those pieces as well. Absolutely. Yes. Another saying, like you're mentioning, 135 00:10:07.490 --> 00:10:11.210 with the alerts, if your office is taking advantage of our self check 136 00:10:11.330 --> 00:10:16.129 in process, you have the ability to set up a group alert for every 137 00:10:16.250 --> 00:10:20.759 patient that uses a self check in to notify you maybe of any symptoms that 138 00:10:20.840 --> 00:10:24.159 they may be having outside of the normal ones they would come into your office 139 00:10:24.240 --> 00:10:30.120 for, or anything that could potentially be an issue, especially right now. 140 00:10:30.320 --> 00:10:35.750 Right. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I think that training staff, especially 141 00:10:37.149 --> 00:10:41.509 while things are slow and as things shift, it's really important for offices to 142 00:10:41.870 --> 00:10:48.149 get back to some form of kind of standard operating procedure. We've all had 143 00:10:48.230 --> 00:10:50.980 to shift a little bit in the way that we do business or the way 144 00:10:50.019 --> 00:10:54.019 we take care of patients, so the way that we process patients, and 145 00:10:54.220 --> 00:10:58.779 so practicing that through with this idea of a ghost patient. I really love 146 00:10:58.899 --> 00:11:01.980 that idea and, you know, seeing where they're getting caught up. You 147 00:11:03.059 --> 00:11:05.370 know, is the staff asking the right questions of the patient when they walk 148 00:11:05.450 --> 00:11:09.529 in? Are The providers getting in and documenting in their notes what they need 149 00:11:09.730 --> 00:11:16.529 to say about the efforts that they've taken to ensure safety in the office? 150 00:11:18.169 --> 00:11:22.519 So I think that this idea of ghost patients is incredibly relevant right now for 151 00:11:22.639 --> 00:11:24.960 making sure that we train on new procedures, but then also, like you 152 00:11:26.080 --> 00:11:30.720 were saying earlier, as we're kind of like slower, just getting that kind 153 00:11:30.720 --> 00:11:35.909 of groundwork, that foundation laid for this is what a normal perfect scenario looks 154 00:11:35.950 --> 00:11:41.149 like, right with there's injections, there's no issues going on, and then 155 00:11:41.590 --> 00:11:43.950 then kind of taking that up and nottion saying well, how can we think 156 00:11:43.990 --> 00:11:48.379 through and plan it advanced for the things that might come up where we might 157 00:11:48.419 --> 00:11:54.259 have objections to care or finances? So, yeah, this is all really 158 00:11:54.340 --> 00:11:58.779 great information. The others. Thank you. Think that it occurs to me 159 00:11:58.940 --> 00:12:03.690 that might be really beneficial as people are changing things in the office, especially 160 00:12:03.889 --> 00:12:07.850 is you and I talked a while back about this idea of this like pre 161 00:12:07.049 --> 00:12:13.090 fright, excuse me, this pre flight checklist. And so yeah, talk 162 00:12:13.129 --> 00:12:16.159 to me a little bit. Talked to our listeners about that preflight checklist. 163 00:12:16.200 --> 00:12:22.919 Sure, so you know this. Again, the analogy is any good pilot 164 00:12:24.039 --> 00:12:28.759 goes through the preflight checklist, no matter how many times they've flown, because 165 00:12:28.799 --> 00:12:33.269 it helps you catch things that you may otherwise take for granted. So in 166 00:12:33.350 --> 00:12:35.549 our office, what we had is we had a front office, a front 167 00:12:35.629 --> 00:12:41.309 sea and a BACKSCA checklist in each one had separate duties and they would initial 168 00:12:41.389 --> 00:12:46.179 them as they went throughout their day. And not only does it hold staff 169 00:12:46.220 --> 00:12:52.259 accountable for completing certain task, it's also a good reminder because we get distracted 170 00:12:52.299 --> 00:12:54.500 a patient walks in and more in the middle of trying to do something, 171 00:12:54.580 --> 00:12:58.450 and so it helps keep us on track to make sure that we're doing the 172 00:12:58.570 --> 00:13:03.289 right things right to keep our practice focused and moving in the right direction. 173 00:13:03.529 --> 00:13:07.850 Water fall. Yeah, I love that idea. Just keeping track of what 174 00:13:09.009 --> 00:13:13.799 we're doing, especially when things are changing and even when things are remaining the 175 00:13:13.840 --> 00:13:18.559 same. Just good to have those reminders. Sometimes it's easy to let something 176 00:13:18.720 --> 00:13:22.240 slip through the cracks if we don't have the guideline set out for those so 177 00:13:22.720 --> 00:13:28.870 right and we had daily like am and PM duties. We would have weekly, 178 00:13:28.350 --> 00:13:33.789 Bi weekly and monthly. So certain things were done and we had a 179 00:13:33.870 --> 00:13:37.669 schedule for everything basically, so we always knew when to expect certain things were 180 00:13:37.710 --> 00:13:41.740 completed and again, we're always signing off on what we've done. Yeah, 181 00:13:41.740 --> 00:13:48.100 especially the the monthly. I feel like when I in my conversations with practices 182 00:13:48.340 --> 00:13:52.700 that oftentimes I'll find that they've got it down when it comes to the daily 183 00:13:52.779 --> 00:13:56.009 tasks right and then as we kind of move up in our time frame, 184 00:13:56.169 --> 00:13:58.409 this is where things start to slip. Or when I get to the weekly, 185 00:13:58.610 --> 00:14:03.490 in the monthly things like. I'll have conversations with practices like when was 186 00:14:03.529 --> 00:14:07.090 last time you ran your aar and check that over. It's like what's an 187 00:14:07.090 --> 00:14:11.279 are and so it seems good try to slip a little bit further as we 188 00:14:11.399 --> 00:14:13.440 go down that process. So I like that. You know, you're kind 189 00:14:13.440 --> 00:14:16.200 of looking at that, not only at the daily level, but looking at 190 00:14:16.279 --> 00:14:20.480 that the weekly level, looking at that the week the monthly level. Maybe 191 00:14:20.559 --> 00:14:24.629 perhaps something that needs to be done on a quarterly basis, but making sure 192 00:14:24.629 --> 00:14:28.110 that there's some accountability that those have been taking care of so that everybody is 193 00:14:30.309 --> 00:14:33.309 holding to what they're supposed to be doing so right. It's very easy to 194 00:14:33.389 --> 00:14:37.549 forget things, especially if you're not doing it daily. Like you mentioned the 195 00:14:37.620 --> 00:14:41.059 you know, Bi weekly, the quarterly, the monthly items. You don't 196 00:14:41.059 --> 00:14:45.460 do them every day, so it's really easy for them not to be right 197 00:14:46.379 --> 00:14:48.179 at the top of your, you know, list of things to do because 198 00:14:48.179 --> 00:14:52.740 you're not used to doing them every day. Yeah, absolutely well. Thank 199 00:14:52.779 --> 00:14:56.529 you so much, Hillary, for these wonderful tips and tricks to helping our 200 00:14:56.049 --> 00:15:01.370 users and our listeners manage their practice during these unprecedented times, and thank you 201 00:15:01.450 --> 00:15:05.049 all for catching up with Cairo touch on our first episode this week. Next 202 00:15:05.049 --> 00:15:09.759 week we're going to be having Dr Brian Blast and Dr Kelly McClure on to 203 00:15:09.879 --> 00:15:15.639 share guidelines on how to ste fit while staying home and recommendations of tools to 204 00:15:15.799 --> 00:15:18.639 help you stay connected with your patients. Have a great week.