It’s an interesting dilemma that we often see new practice owners face.  That is, they want to keep their expenses low and end up tackling every business-related task that there is, and at the same time want to see as many patients as possible to get cash flowing as rapidly as possible.  What usually happens is that the business-related tasks begin to eat away at time that the provider should be in front of patients.  Patient time = cash flow.  Less patient time = less cash flow.  One hour with patient = more money made than it costs to have someone else perform business-related tasks.

A key challenge to handling business growth is whether you are able, and willing, to give up control and delegate certain business tasks to others who are:

• More skilled at the task
• Able to complete the task at a lower hourly rate than you
• Easily trainable to do the jobs that you dislike or are no good at

Here is a quick down-and-dirty to figure out your own “hourly rate”.

Let’s imagine you want your business to gross $300,000 in 2008. And you plan to work a 40-hour week (good luck if you can get away with this!) for 48 weeks in the year.

Your hourly rate is $300,000 ÷ 48 = $6250, and $6250 ÷ 40 = $156.25. In order to make $300,000 in a year, you need to be bringing about $156 an hour in revenue. That means that when you are answering your own emails, you are costing your business roughly $156 an hour to do so.

In her recent post, Kennealy tells us the four tasks that MUST be delegated to someone else, either in-house or to an outsourced company: 1) Housekeeping, 2) Bookkeeping, 3) Administrative support, and 4) Managing technology.  These are tasks that you can find someone that will cost less than your time to do the same job and perhaps a better, more effecient job.

Kennealy goes on to discuss three things that the owning provider MUST hold on to: 1) Strategy development and business planning, 2) Marketing, and 3) Content creation or program development.  These things are critically linked to the owner’s vision, goals and selling efforts.  This doesn’t mean that outside help can not be employed to assist with these things (i.e. consultants, branding companies), but the provider definitely needs to sacrifice some patient time to focus on these elements…these are the elements that get more patients in the door.