Ep. 136: Elevating the Quality of Patient Care

Patient Care Marketing Pros (00:00)
What's going on everybody? Nick here, Michael here for another episode of Walk -Ins Welcome. Before we get rolling today, I want to take a quick plug and invite you to our Facebook community. It's Walk -Ins Welcome. It is a community that we're working to build where you can ask marketing questions, you can ask clinic questions, you can engage with other clinic owners. One thing that I want to promise you is that it's not a place for anybody to pitch you. Nobody, not us, not anybody. I say we're the only non -urgent care in there.

Yeah, but it really is to facilitate the urgent care community. So anyway, go to Facebook .com, do a search for Walk -Ins Welcome, and our group page should pop up. We do protect it. So you'll have to answer a couple of questions. But I did want to start off right out of the gate and invite you to our online community of Walk -Ins Welcome. Absolutely. What's up, Michael? Hey, what's happening? So I think we're continuing our vacation series at this point. Yeah, mine was Colorado. Now we're headed over to Disney World. Disney World. So.

I, my wife and I and my child, Addie, she's four. We went to Disney a week ago, right? And we were there. We did three of the theme parks. We did Magic Kingdom, Epcot and Hollywood Studios. It was a blast. It was hot. It was only downside per se was 103 heat index. And that was a lot. Is that while it was raining or while it wasn't raining? Man, when it rained at Hollywood Studios, it rained on and off all day at Hollywood Studios, but it was like 80 degrees. It was...

nice. Yes, 80 but 100 % humidity. Well, it was funny because the first day of Magic Kingdom, I drank a gallon and a half of water. Like I kind of kept up with it and I drank that much water just to stay and I felt fine. I was just, you know, hot and sweaty, but a gallon and a half. When I got to Hollywood, I drank like two bottles, like nothing. Right. Because the temp was so much more tolerable. But when we had a blast, absolutely loved it.

That's the first time I've been in Disney World in at least 20 years. Okay. So the only thing I remember was Hollywood Studios. Cause I remember the last time I went, like I did Tower of Terror. yeah. You know, we didn't do that this time cause we were a four year old, but it's probably one of my top two, three favorite rides. Really? Yeah. I need to go back and do it next time. I just didn't because it was our last day. We were tired and I was like, Addy's not going to do this. I know Courtney won't do it. So.

I'm happy to skip. But that was great. And you know, Addie, that's a pretty magical age. For those out there who have a four -year -old and you're thinking about going to Disney, I highly recommend it because everything was real to her. Every single thing. Like every character we met, after she's done being the character, she said, I can't believe I met the real Elsa, the real Anna, the real Stitch. And she was convinced. There's a lot of funny stories. One of them was we did Spaceship Earth.

which is inside of Epcot. And it takes you through the history of the Earth and the future of the Earth. But you pretend that you go through space. Now, was it one big ploy to get you to recycle or that we're killing the planet? Or was it like a legit spaceship Earth where? It was. Because you remember when we went to Las Vegas. Yeah. And it was just one big, you should hate yourself. So no, not so. So it was very historic. A lot of this is where, according to Disney, this is how the history of the world went.

Right. And so like, you know, the accuracy is what it is. What is 100 billion years old? No, that's a good side note. They kept saying 30 ,000 years and I was super fascinated by that. That makes a lot more sense, actually. But that's another story. That's not for here. That's not for here. But I was actually I even told you I can't believe it's 30 ,000 years. I'm shocked. Anyway, but like they and they never did like exact like there were exact names on things. So when it became the the.

60s and 70s where the microprocessor and putting a computer in every home came up. It's because of people in their garage doing stuff. They never said Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, but the character that was molded out like a mesh of the two, more Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, but Steve Gates kind of, it was pretty funny. It was pretty great. But anyway, at some point you go into space and you come back out and, and then Addie got off the ride. She's like, I can't believe I went to space.

You know, like she was in space. She was convinced. So it was fantastic. So it's like plugged to Disney World. If you're thinking about it, go do it. It's a blast. It's a lot. It's a little overwhelming. Not going to lie. You wouldn't consider that a vacation. It was an adventure. So I got to ask you and you'll probably figure out where I stand on this later, but like, how were the Disney adults there? You know what I'm talking about? They never grew up. No, no, no. There were lots like it was.

You stood out if you weren't themed. Like my whole family when we went. Because we don't do that. Yeah, and then Courtney, she themed, not a full theme, but every shirt I wear every day was something Disney. It's like the day that we went to Magic Kingdom and Addie did the boobity boobity boo boutique. You know, she dresses up an actual princess. They take you to the castle, do all the fun stuff. So I had a shirt that said Princess Security. And I had like aviators with the castle and the.

Silhouette in it. So like that's the type stuff we would have fun with either way like yeah the the the adults in quotes like there were some ones that you could tell and I'm not gonna lie I did not expect the level of Wedding proposals at Magic Kingdoms fireworks. I mean where else are you gonna do it? Where else are you gonna propose? So we're like Magic so like, you know, we're sitting there 30 minutes before the fireworks and we

me look over and have like four or five times over and over again. I was like, this is kind of crazy. But I know Heather and I, when we went, we went during COVID. But that was nice. 25 % capacity. Everything was easy. And wouldn't go straight to that. They were Nazis about wearing masks. yeah. And that's fine. Whatever. But when people would like do proposals, they would pull their masks down to kiss or something and they would like Mickey Mouse with that.

You got to put your mask on. We're all going to die. So anyway, so I love the trip. A lot of fun. Do it again for Courtney. It like fix some childhood memories that she had from her. So like there were some not great childhood memories she had from Disney and this corrected it, which was great as well. But why are we talking Disney? So I think it's safe to say that people would people would agree.

that Disney World is a top company in customer service experience. They have like a whole training program for other companies to go learn it. So they're all about customer experience. They're all about making the magic happen. And it's true. Like there was a lot of magical things going on there for sure. We had the magic bands, which were super convenient. Highly recommend those things. You don't have to even technically you don't have to do any. You don't have to bring a phone. You don't have to bring a wallet.

You just tap everything's on your band and as long as you have that band you can kind of do whatever you want And it was great. So we appreciate that there's some magic there, especially when you're walking to the park. It's our magic self. That's don't suck your wallet It's a magic Washington credit card bill, but But like when you're walking to the park, you know Your magic man would buzz and it would want you to go over to a statue and then the statue would talk to you Like that was pretty cool stuff like

So all I think is that like we can all agree Disney World or Disney as in general has a very strong customer experience training program, all the things. So the reason why this episode comes out, there was one thing they really, they didn't really mess up on, but severely lacked on. And it was their dining plan. And I'm going to explain it for those who don't know, but, and I want to put in context here. So I was going through Disney World, a couple of things I noticed was,

vast majority of their cast members, which is what they call their employees at Disney World, are probably in their 20s. Vast majority. Probably just out of college, or to a student currently. Very few are over 30. We had one lady, she was our waitress at the 50s prime time. She had been there for 26 years. Same restaurant, same position for 26 years. She must love what she does. And then we asked her, like 26, that's a long, she said, I love what I do, and I love this company. I'm like, there you go.

can argue that. And she was like from New Jersey, but she moved down to Orlando and she hadn't ever left. I thought that was amazing. That says something to Disney, right? Like if you're having people like a waitress job for 26 years, something's good. Something's good. They're doing something right. Yeah. So all it means, I'm putting some context around that, right? So the dining plan. So what's the dining plan? Dining plan is an opportunity to pre -buy your food essentially where

you buy a plan that has credits tied to it. And the credits represent different types of food service you get. And you get them all at once and you can burn them all in a day or you can spread them out over the parks. You know, that's what we do is spread them out. And they're broken into sit down, quick service and snack. Okay. Sounds pretty straightforward, but it wasn't. So here's, and here's where this all comes together.

multiple times, not saying about almost every single time with the exception of the obvious snack, the cast member did not have a clear answer what the dining plan could do, period. Okay. So what does that mean? So like, I would go, we would like basic, like first example of the gate, I was going into the Via Italian restaurant, lovely food, great experience. The guy in, in,

be a Disney. What they do is like if we're an Epcot and you're in Italy, all the cast members are from Italy, generally speaking. Like English is not their first language. Right. So very authentic experience. Right. And so he comes up, he's super nice, great, great waiter. But he's in the first question out of all their mouths is, are you on a dining plan? Right. Yeah, we're on a dining plan. OK. All right. So that and they points to the menu. You can only pick from here.

He like scanned it and said, dotting plan only goes with this, this, and this. Like, okay, that's fine. I mean, that kind of, that's like 75 % of what the menu is. And then he's like, then I can only get you a drink up to $20 each. And I said, what about this drink that's $22? He said, I can't actually give it to you. I can't pay the difference. No. Okay.

So it's 20 or less or you're paying full price or you're not doing dining plan. Okay mindset and that and that's what he thought and he wasn't even I used to be honest. I'm not entirely sure how the dining plan works and that was the common Mindset every time he went somewhere with a dining plan with the exception of the snacks mostly And the 26 year old veteran that's been doing it because she said because they're out around dining plan. Yes, cool. I

You can pick whatever you want. And then this, this, and that. And there was another limit on drinks. I think they're trying to limit you from not getting the most expensive alcoholic drink. Right. You can't get that Jose Cuervo top shell. But you still get alcohol. Just here's your limit. Anyway, all that being said, they just weren't sure. And I thought that was amazing. I mean, because the dining room is a huge piece of the puzzle to Disney World. That reminds me of one of my favorite.

quotes from Dave Ramsey is to be unclear is to be unkind. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's just like the absolute opposite of what Disney's about. Yeah. But kindness. Yeah. And so, and you know, they were all cool about it, but at the same time, they didn't really know. So like the, for example, the Italian thing. And then when it, and it was funny because when we finished and, and he hands me the check and he's like, here's the check. I just need you to sign it. And then.

We'll be good to go. And I said, well, how do I tip you? He's because it says right here, dining plan does not include tip. He's like, I don't know. Like, OK. And then he's I'll find out. And I'm like, why is this hard? You don't know what you don't know. Yeah. And then he clearly haven't trained on that because I was going to just hand him a card to tip him. And then he came back. He said, well, I can charge it to your room in the car. That's on the room like, well, OK, let me give you a tip in that way. And it was fine. But it was like a.

Why was that complicated? It wasn't a big deal, but like, it shouldn't have been that hard. And then it happened again where we were at the Woody's Toy Box, I guess it's called. It was the little restaurant in the Toy Story world. And it was like considered a quick service. And this is where it gets kind of funny because quick service and snack, while appear similar, are very different. Quick service is a full meal. Yeah, it's a hamburger, French fries, and a Coke. And they have those lines that kind of f -

Little and you're like, it felt like a cafeteria style. Yeah. Where you walk up pay and then you keep walking three more steps and hand you your food. I had to go and credit. I was amazed at the speed that the food came out was not like that during Kevin. so, so the via Italian restaurant to sit down. Like we'd, I did spaghetti meatballs, added butter noodles with the sauce on the side. And then Courtney did like a manicotti something. So I love manicotti. Anyway,

It came out in like eight minutes and it was good. Now you're experiencing it. Food sucks. that's okay. I mean, we still had a great time, but food was amazing. I'd say at least 50 % of the restaurants were closed. And so staff was a big issue. Staff. People weren't wanting to work at that time. And then on top of that, like if half of them are closed, even at 25 % funneling all of that into a handful of restaurants.

Yeah, it was slow and not the case here. I mean, we. I know I think our total wait time for each sit down restaurant was probably 15 minutes max, like it was very quick. That's good. Yeah, like borderline so quick. How much was this pre -made mindset like it was so quick, but it's whatever it's the taste of really great. But all I mean said so. So we're at the toy, the Woody's toy box and.

I'm is our last full day. And so I'm looking at my credit. So I'm like, OK, I got to burn an extra credit here. I didn't burn on Monday because it realized I needed to. And so I'm like going. So I go to the latest. I look, I got an extra credit here, but I'm out of credits on this. But I was like a quick I had an extra quick service credit I should have used. But I need to order three meals. Can I use one quick credit and then pay for the other? And the lady said, yeah, sure.

Five minutes later, she's just sitting there tapping the screen. And I was like, is there an issue? She said, well, I thought I could just do that. You would think, right? And we're all like saying, you would think that I could just split the payment and just apply credit, let that fall off the receipt, and then you charge for him the rest. She's like, I guess I can't. And so the lady in the end that was the head of food, she said, hey, this is your food. Are you ready? I was like, actually, no.

I can't pay you right now. She's like, okay, well, we'll just leave it here. I'm like, okay. She's like, hang on, let me call my manager. So the manager, five, 10 minutes later comes around and he's like, yeah, sorry, this system isn't very intuitive. Actually, if you have only a credit that pays for partial meal, you have to just run each item separately and then total out that way. And like, I was like, okay, we'll take that one and apply that credit and we'll take those. Like, okay, yeah, we're going to do that. I was like, okay, fine. And he fixed it.

But it took a manager to come over, which you could tell he was busy because he was moving. It seemed like he was like the food manager of Toy Story Land. That's what he appeared to be. So he was at all the restaurants in the Toy Story space. Yeah, because he just came from another restaurant and was walking over with his little headset. He's like just, you could tell he was busy. And he fixed it. It wasn't a big deal. But he understood it. But none of his employees understood the process. So to me, there's a breakdown. And I think all this being said,

how can this be applied to an urgent care? Well, we've had, like we're all waiting buddy, let's go. I'm trying to connect the dots. No, you're doing a good job. So, so how do we connect all this? So we've had multiple meetings with lots of urgent care owners. The doc and some are doctors actually in urgent care. Some are just kind of the owner management side. But one of the things that we hear from time to time, my staff never fully, you know, maximizes the expense, the patient exam.

where they have an opportunity to do this, this and this, and they choose not to, because they don't understand. So if you remember one of our urgent care workers we met with a couple of months ago, he had mentioned where, because it goes back to patient satisfactory, why didn't you go ahead and give that extra a test to that person? Well, because it was an expensive test. Like, that doesn't matter. I was going to say, they're not going to pay for it. Their insurance will. Insurance is going to pay. It's all worked into the system. And so all that being said,

There are lots of opportunity. I can tell you right now, every single urgent care is listening right now. I guarantee you there is money left on the table. Every time. Every single time a patient comes to the door because there's a missed training opportunity where it sounds like there's a disconnect in what the understanding of the insurance coverage and what you can actually do. Well, and even explaining what's going on better to a patient. Like, because I don't know about you, but,

A lot of times I go to a doctor and there's an insurance question. They don't always have the answer. Like, at the doctor's office. Yeah. I'd argue they almost never have the answer. Right. And, and, or they give you misinformation where, I cause like right now I'm actually experienced that at this very moment. So like I've talked to before on this podcast about my back issues. So, and it's getting better, but I'm at this moment where my spine surgeon said,

things look pretty good, but I want to get another CT scan and some extra x -rays just kind of check your progress and then we can make an evaluation like August like, okay, cool. Well, they told me in that last thing, hey, go, you're going to get an x -ray at this place and we'll get the CT set up. Cool. So I get in the mail, well, they told me the x -ray just show up and they'll do your x -ray, no appointment necessary. Okay. Yeah. And that worked. That worked fine. We'll show it up. And they said, yeah. All right, come on back. We'll do your x -ray. It was super convenient.

But I asked him, I was like, what about my CT scan? We don't have that in here. What do you mean? you need to call your spine surgeon and get them to schedule that. I said, well, they didn't tell me that. And then it became, now it's becoming a situation where, because you get that thing from Blue Cross or CareLong, whatever you call it, and said, hey, you've now been approved for a CT scan because you've had 12 sessions of physical therapy. Okay, but you only have a month to get it.

Man, that's a tight window in the medical world. Yeah. And so, and I thought I was going to get it last week. And now it's like, well, I got it. And I just reminded myself, I got to call them and say, when can I get this done? Because apparently I only got two and a half weeks left. Right. And I'm sorry, we can't get you in for three and a half weeks. We'll get you the day after. you're going to have to do 12 more sessions. Yeah, exactly. So all that being said, there's patients who always have questions.

they're never going to, the patient will have an assumption. And if your staff isn't properly trained, you, that staff may agree to that assumption that's wrong, or it may create an experience that while the whole experience could have been great, there may have been something done wrong because of misinformation. You know, it'd be cool. This is just hypothetically speaking. So I, you may or may not know this. I have been funneling every standard operating procedure, every

one of our handbook pages, everything into chat GPT. yeah. And I've been creating a custom GPT so that you as a team member can go directly to chat GPT and go, what is our vacation policy? It's a live manual. How do we run Facebook ads? When do I start? Month three. Should I have started month three? You know what I'm saying though? Like all of our everything.

Like what's our best practices for hashtags on social media base, whatever it is, right. And it'll spit back an answer to you. How cool would it be if a doctor's office had every single plan that they accept loaded into a custom GPT where literally if the, if the patient asks you a question, you go, hold on your plan covers this. Why? Yeah.

I mean, how cool would that be? Yeah, because if you ever noticed that at most clinics, there's a dedicated insurance person. I mean, we'll do all of this for you. Yeah. And, you know, part of the insurance that their game is that they got to go get you pre approved for certain things beyond the standard, you know, in -house items. But no, like I agree, because like there's so many questions there. But at the end of the day, because a lot of our clinics was like we're in summer hours, right. Summertime and.

There's a lot of misinformation about what summer means to urgent care, which we recently figured out. But I mean, that data doesn't line up. No. So like our general impression from our clients is that summers are a slower time. The end also the data bears that out. Yeah. And when we look at actual patient data, it's pretty accurate. The interwebs say summer times are booming times for 17 to 21 % increase in patient volume over the summer. And I'm going no. And we're like, that's wrong. So I want to hear from you.

Hello, Basic Care Marketing friends. Is your clinic up in the summer or down? Because our data doesn't line up with the search. Well, yeah, our general understanding is like, yeah, it's not like summers are a tougher time. All that being said, so but a lot of our urgent care is to complement the urgent care services are introducing new things. And we've talked about it, weight loss, IV therapy, all the items. Well, if you don't have a properly trained person on those new offerings,

they're never going to mention them in the exam for sure. And if someone had a question about it, if they fumbled the answer, you've lost the sale. Right. Generally speaking. Now Disney has an advantage because you're locked in. You don't have an option. It's like you're either going to pay with a credit or a credit card. You're going to pay with your room number or your credit card or a dining plan. Like you're just out at that point. But in the urgent care world, if they come in and they have

headache or they're sick, whatever. And if the person's properly trained, your nurse practitioner, whoever the check in person is, are properly trained and they asked the right questions, there may be an opportunity to upsell them, which and not in a negative way, but like, well, you mentioned you're always tired. You know, we have this new IV therapy thing. And I'll let me explain to you why we offer it. And this is what it does. So like we were being explained by one of our clients is kicking off IV therapy again.

And like she had a great analogy of where it's, you know, your standard like vitamins are only get 30 % absorbed. And so what we give you in IV therapy, you get 100 % absorbed is equivalent to like a month's worth of vitamins. Just here we go. It makes a huge difference for you. And so like, it's like taking an opportunity to do that because I think because we know this too, from a sales point, a good salesperson listens to the problems and applies the right solutions to the problem.

and not to sell them, but to give them a resolution to the problem that they're having. Because that's a good salesperson. And I think doctors miss that, honestly. They look strictly at what's in front of them. They don't always look at what could they help also with. We experience that a lot. Like with Courtney, she has heart issues. And so it's amazing how many doctors it takes to get to an answer. Like a lot of steps to being skipped. To go like, can we just move over to this point?

It was so funny because she had a little episode last week. And so she had to have a telehealth with her cardiologist. It was like a three minute call. And like this could have been an email. I think we have a candle. It smells just like it could have been an email. Yeah, it's gonna be an email or I know you just took your copay for telling us for three minutes.

going to do. Hey, listen, I don't fault people like doctors for that. No, I don't either. But I get it. It's just part of the practice. Malpractice insurance is expensive. We get it. You got to check the boxes, right? But anyway, all that being said, like there's, if we get, for those who are experiencing slow summer times, double down on your training, right? Making sure the, when people, it sounds terrible, maximizing your patient that comes in the door, not just from a experience standpoint, but.

making sure that your staff is fully caught up on what's being offered by your company. Because I think a lot of people miss that. They just simply don't, they make the assumption, because I think you do the same thing too, right? Like you're in the most, you're going to have the most knowledge about our services that we offer and which service is the best fit for a company because you are the owner. Probably. Right? And you're going to have the most enthusiasm behind it. Yes. Yeah.

Same thing. I have the largest vested interest for mutual success. Yeah. We have lots of clients we talk to who are the owners and they are like gung ho about this new service they're offering. And then three weeks later, hey, we just have a provider that says that they don't want to do this anymore. And like, OK, well, we need to adjust our advertising now. But like you have these opportunities where you're you're all bought in. You got to get your team bought in and you got to get them excited about it and you got to get them well trained on it.

And because at the end of the day, if there's like, I don't have a good answer for you, the experience starts to go down. And then, then you come onto a podcast and talk about how awesome Disney world is except for one thing. So like, right, right. And this whole podcast is around that one thing. Yeah. So instead of the amazing experience. Yeah. And I love Disney. Like I had a blast. I'll go back. But if I was going to say something bad about Disney, that was it. It's not really a huge thing, but it is a thing. And if I experienced it,

So did the other 50 ,000 people that were there. That hour. Yeah, right. It was still even with Lightning Lane. It blew my mind because we were at Hollywood Studios and Rise of Resistance was broken. And it was such a big deal that when we got there at like 830, 30 minutes from the parking because we're on resort, there was a lady at the front. Shoot, I'm glad they did this. At the very front of Hollywood Studios with a

microphone. Rise of resistance is closed until further notice. Just kept saying that every like 10 seconds, like because they knew people beeline it to the back of the park to rise. Because it's the most furthest ride back there. And we're like, sweet, we're going to go now because ain't nobody going to be there. And that's right. And nobody was there. And we got the fun pictures that we had sent you. Best pictures ever. Yeah, because nobody was there. So it's like an empty park back there.

But I still had lightning in it and it opened up like at two o 'clock that afternoon and we went straight on in the middle of the storm. It was a good time for it. It was great. You weren't in the storm, you were in space. Yeah, exactly. And Courtney Haddie said, well, you had to take the shuttle. Yeah, I got attacked. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, you got boarded. That was such a good experience. It's like two rides in one. It really was. I didn't expect that many layers. And then they pull you into the hallway and they interrogate you. Yeah, yeah.

And then they blasted the door with the lightsaber stuff. Yeah, that was cool. Anyway, all about that experience. It is. And it really was a wonderful experience. But like at the end of the day, I guarantee you there's probably if you had if you're sending out patient survey questions on patient satisfactory, I bet that you rarely get a perfect score. If people are being honest, there's probably one or two things they wish you could improve on. Right. And 90 percent of the time.

it's a training opportunity to make a change, either training or process change or a person change. Sometimes your key people aren't doing their job and you don't have a chance to look at that. So it's just that encouragement to give you for sure. Well, speaking of which we need to know how we're doing. How do you like that segue? There? Yeah. Leave us a review. Let us know. Let us know how we're doing. If you listen to this on anchor or Spotify or Apple podcasts, which I think it was where most of the people consume us.

even if it's on YouTube, like subscribe to the channel and let us know what you're thinking. Thumbs up the video. Yeah. We'd love to get some feedback for sure. Cause I mean, we have quite a lot of listeners now, but we don't hear from you. Yeah. We'd love to. We'd love just to see what's going on. We always like we had a John Medan on, with his whole team and with mercy on it like two episodes ago. And, he,

He came up to, I'm your number five subscriber. I've been listening to you for two years. Like we had no idea, John. That's right. That's right. You could have told us like, hi. No, that feedback is crucial for us. We want to put the best programming that we can together. I know it's summer for y 'all. It's summer for us. And we're just trying to bring some fun things to the table. I think I have a good episode coming up of how to grow your urgent care during the summer that I'm working on. So stay tuned for that and just how to market to specific types of ailments that happen during the summer. Like, I don't know, heat stroke.

Yeah, right. And if you don't want to talk to us about our podcast, send us what's your favorite Disney World ride? Love it. Yeah. I love it. Let's get some feedback. But all right, guys. Well, thank you all for taking a listen to another vacation episode, but it is summer, so we're having fun with it. But we'll catch you on the next one. Have a great week.