Podiatrists everywhere, in every walk of life, are all wondering how to succeed in the challenging environment they now face. Author Eric Hoffman summed up the simple answer in my favorite quote: “In times of change, the learners will inherit the earth, while the knowers remain beautifully prepared for a world that no longer exists.” This wonderfully reflects the situation in which all podiatric professionals now find themselves. Medicine is changing dramatically, and there are really only two ways to approach it: to become a learner and adapt to thrive, or to remain a knower and find yourself left behind.
You Didn’t Sign Up for This
Here’s the big problem—you’re forced to deal with things that you didn’t sign up for when you got into medicine. You didn’t sign up for all the paperwork. You didn’t sign up to learn the increasingly difficult “second language” that is medical coding. You didn’t sign up for the government, insurance companies, hospitals, drug companies, and a whole list of other players in the medical community making your life difficult and miserable. You, doctor, went into podiatric medicine to help people and make them well again. This is what you were trained to do.
The hard truth is that the world in which you find yourself in right now is not the world you signed up for. Forms, government interference, and insurance challenges are here to stay, making it much harder for you to succeed and thrive in your practice. This is what we call the Great Disabling Distracter.
When you go to national conventions, attend state meetings, or strike up conversations with any player in the medical world, this is the focus. Everyone talks about how bad medicine has become. Their main focus is on the negatives, discussing the tragedies of practicing in today’s world. The problem is that when you do this, you allow these changes to become your Great Disabling Distracter. If you focus on what’s negative about your chosen profession, then what you’ll get is more of the same. You grow paralyzed and feel like there’s no way to have the practice you want.
To Spite the Great Disabling Distracter
At the same time, there are other doctors who didn’t sign up for this either and are still succeeding in a challenging environment. They’ve made the active decision not to focus on the negatives; instead, they’ve chosen to focus on their goals for patient outcomes and profitability. They are pursuing, and achieving, success in spite of the Great Disabling Distracter.
How are they doing this? The short answer is that they’ve discovered the difference between learners and knowers.
See, in the past, doctors were given a professional “pass” in practice management and marketing that let them succeed without much effort. You didn’t need to manage your practice efficiently, or market yourself effectively, to still be successful and make a good living. That is no longer the case. Now you have to be a good manager and an excellent marketer in order to be able to have the kind of practice that you want. This is what makes the difference in spite of all the changes and hardships of medicine. These things don’t come naturally to doctors, who simply weren’t trained for it. That’s where being a learner comes into play.
Becoming Number One
Our goal at Top Practices is for you to become Number One in your market and succeed in spite of today’s challenging environment. We want you to move from just surviving in your profession, limited by the Great Disabling Distracter, to truly thriving and living the life you want to live. This means, of course, accepting that some things are going to have to change. You can’t do medicine the way you used to. You can no longer glide over your practice management protocols or hope that a few newspaper ads or an old website will be enough to sustain your marketing.
The good news is that success is always simple. This doesn’t mean, of course, that you don’t need to work at it. What it does mean is that the right strategies, systems, and protocols can completely transform your practice. The Top Practices Mastermind group is dedicated to helping podiatrists learn and share the procedures that have allowed them to succeed, as well as brainstorm new ideas to meet upcoming challenges. Remember, you’re not alone in this. All doctors face these changes. If you’re interested in pursuing success in spite of today’s environment, ask us for more information. You can reach us by calling (717) 725-2679 or by e-mailing [email protected].
