By Jim Plymale

 | FEBRUARY 15, 2013 http://www.clinicient.com/

How Well Are You Selling Your Therapist’s Time in Your Physical Therapy Practice?

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Don’t Be Afraid of the “S” Word:  We’re all in Sales 

I was talking with@Jerry_DurhamPT at the APTA Combined Sections meeting in San Diego, CA in January and we were discussing the fact that most physical therapists wouldn’t see themselves as salespeople. Jerry recommended a book to me by Daniel Pink called To Sell is Human, which I just started reading. The basic premise of the book is (pretty evident from the title) that we all spend a significant amount of our time “moving or persuading” people. In other words, we are all in sales. In fact, the studies in the book indicate that we spend as much as 60% of our time “selling” even if we aren’t in sales.

I think the word “selling” gets a bum rap, especially in physical therapy businesses. When we think about sales we often think of the pushy, annoying salesperson who forces their way into our lives offering a product or service of no apparent benefit to us, just to benefit themselves. However, if we change our viewpoint slightly, we might recognize the need and the value of selling as an essential part of what we do to improve our patients’ lives and to improve our businesses.

In what way is a physical therapy practice in sales? We are selling the benefits of the services we provide. We are selling referring physicians on the value of sending their patients our way to help them achieve their goals. We are selling therapist’s time. We are selling patients on the necessity of coming in, often multiple times a week—and we all know how much harder this has become with the increasing shift of costs to the patient. We are selling patients on complying with their home exercise programs.

It’s important to think about the importance of having a “selling” or “persuading” mindset as you approach your relationship with your staff, your patients and your referral sources. Think about how much you believe in the value of the services you provide. The value of every therapist’s time. The value of your patient’s time. The value of a referring physician’s time and the confidence they place in you when they send you a referral.

How Well Are You Selling Your Therapist’s Time?

With that in mind, what are you doing to make the most of time? I’d like to suggest two metrics that we’d like every practice owner, therapist and front desk person to track as key performance indicators (KPIs) of how we’re managing therapist’s time and your referrals.

• Vacancy Rate – this measures the amount of “unsold” time on a therapist’s schedule as a percentage of the total time available. Both the therapist and the front desk need to be thinking about “selling” this available time.
• Average Scheduled Frequency – this measures the average number of days per week an active referral is scheduled for appointments. Each referral has a “capacity” for visits each week that is documented in your plan of care. Are you getting your patients scheduled and attending? This is key not only to your patient’s improvement and achievement of goals, but also to your relationship with the physician who refers patients to you. They are looking to you to keep the patients compliant with the plan of care.

Why are these important? What gets measured, gets managed. Once you start tracking these metrics, make  a plan to improve these key metrics. As you can see, they are linked. If you have empty space in your schedule, you can fill it with patients who aren’t at full capacity. You’ll also notice patients that have gone “missing in action.” Once you’re doing that and your patients are enjoying the benefits of faster achievement of their goals, you’ll want to communicate the results you’re seeing to your referring physicians. As a result, you’ll start to notice more referrals coming your way, which will further increase your capacity to fill your therapist’s schedules. When a patient cancels, your front desk will have the mindset of “filling the vacancy”.  When you get a referral, you’ll be focused on scheduling the patient in advance and making sure they’re tracking to the frequency dictated by the plan of care.

A good friend of mine once told me “the culture lives in the conversations”.  Try consciously talking to your staff about selling the most valuable asset you have: your therapist’s time. These subtle shifts can go a long way in improving not only your clinical results, but the bottom line for your physical therapy business.