Hiring a consultant is a frequent consideration for an aesthetic physician. The lure of someone who can either transform your practice from one centered on general dermatology to one centered on cosmetic procedures or who can take your run-of-the-mill cosmetic practice to the next level is alluring, to say the least. But before you jump head-first into hiring someone, there are some things you need to know.
Big Promises
Typical consultants drive the 7 series BMW, dress well and speak a language that we, as physicians, are not accustomed to. The discussions of “patient retention rates”, “internal marketing” and “cost of patient acquisition” are imposing to those of us only educated in medicine.
Frequently, a physician listening to a sales pitch from a consultant is flattered by the potential opportunity offered — to become the leader in his or her area using a methodically crafted plan.
But what are the realities of hiring a consultant? From personal experience as well as from informal surveys of other doctors, results are mixed and depend upon the consultant hired.
In this article, I will discuss some of issues to consider if you are thinking about hiring a consultant as well as what goals you should reasonably expect a consultant to accomplish.
Deciding What You Want
The first thing to consider when contemplating the services of an outside consultant is: What do you want to accomplish? Although this sounds simple, it really is more complex than it first appears.
If you are happy with your practice (loosely defined as looking forward to being at the office each day) and are content with your income level (loosely defined as being content as you drive to your office each day), then you may not want to make many changes and a consultant might not be appropriate for you. However, if you are at a point where you are either emotionally, intellectually or financially stifled and are looking for a change in the way you practice, a consultant might be a good way to get an assessment of what changes to make and how to make them.
You may first want to consider being your own consultant in the beginning and using some of the information available to you through the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) or American Society for Dermatologic Surgery (ASDS) to benchmark your practice against other practices to see where you stand. This will help you to focus on areas that are or are not in need of change and which areas you’d like to consult about with an expert.
If you decide that you want to have an outside party evaluate your practice, your next step is to figure out who that person should be. Unfortunately, there are no board certifications for consultants and no benchmarks for proficiency. There are, however, references that are worth checking. The dermatology community is relatively small, and the aesthetic dermatology community is smaller yet. Ask around to see if there is a particular name that comes up with good references for the particular goals on which you want to focus.
Whenever I hire a consultant, I ask like-minded individuals who they used to accomplish the same goals that are before me. This has been a more fruitful approach than my prior operating procedure of writing checks and just waiting to see what resulted.
Choosing the Right Consultant
Once you have obtained several recommendations, the next step in the process is to interview a consultant. When doing so, don’t be intimidated by the attitude that frequently accompanies an initial discussion. Remember, this person will work for you, not the other way around.
During the interview process, you need to make sure that your personalities fit. If you are the type of person who likes to get your information in written format and the consultant likes one-on-one meetings that will take up your time, this might not be a good match. Conversely, if you are a phone or direct contact person and the consultant is tethered to a Blackberry and prefers
e-mail, it will be a frustrating experience for you.
I like to receive my information via e-mail in short packets that convey the information required without trying to unduly impress me with the latest terminology from “Who Moved My Cheese?” or Dr. Phil. E-mail enables me to convey my thoughts and goals to consultants (and others) in a manner that is on my terms — I do not have to directly interact and am thus freed from temporal constraints. Trying to speak on the phone in between seeing patients is a recipe for failure with me as I am always attempting to truncate the conversation in order to return to work.
It’s important that the consultant can work with you and also with your staff. My own personal preference is to get as much information as possible disseminated to my staff so that they can help make changes suggested. In order to minimize the impact on patient care, I schedule staff training days during days when I am out of the office. I do not let any consultant dictate the dates or times of my meetings with them, as my time is, to me, the most valuable asset.
Determining the Fees
During the interview process, discuss the fees for the practice consultation. These can vary enormously depending on the skill and reputation of the consultant. When hiring someone, call his or her references and bluntly ask whether he or she was worth the money paid.
You may also suggest linking the pay to performance with concrete goals tied to milestone payments. For instance, a consultant who promises to double your Botox income in 6 months may or may not be able to do this and should be compensated based on the fulfillment of this goal.
Expect to pay anywhere from $50 to $100 per hour for most consultants with additional fees for travel expenses. Be aware that like attorneys, the meter is always running and do not let the consultant bill you without your pre-approval for services and time, or you may find yourself with large bills for phone calls, research, lengthy discussions with your employees at restaurants, etc.
Personal Experience
Over the past decade, I have hired and worked with several consultants and worked as a consultant for other practices in various capacities.
The first consultant I hired was a billing consultant who was highly recommended. She was also pricey and told me most of what I already knew — that I should try to document more and thereby increase my revenue. She was not a particularly gifted consultant.
The next consultant I hired was to help me manage my growth. In the early years of my practice, my practice doubled yearly, and I had no idea how to manage the billing, the staff, whether to market, to hire another physician, etc. I looked to this consultant to help me with these questions. She partially answered some of them, but more importantly, she helped me frame the questions that I needed answered. This exercise was as helpful as any answer could have been. The fact that this consultant forced me to sit down and look at my practice numbers was well worth the time and effort spent.
This was a turning point for me professionally because until then, I had no idea about the business of being a physician. From this point on, I began to read more and began to attend seminars about the business end of cosmetic dermatology.
Consultants I’ve hired from that day to this are now people I rely upon for specific projects and no longer look to for all the answers. I hire a billing consultant from time to time to audit some charts, I retain a risk management consultant to ensure that my staff is doing everything possible to maintain high degrees of patient safety, and I rely upon the data provided by my practice consultant to compare my practice with other similar practices as well as for trending my practice parameters. Another type of consultant who may worth hiring is a cosmetic practice consultant who may be able to help develop a marketing program and cosmetic identity for a practice.
The Benefits
The best consultants I have worked with understand my practice, my goals for the practice and my temperament. Annually, they benchmark my practice by evaluating the financial health of the practice, they recommend opportunities for growth, they warn about threats to the practice, and they act as counselors.
For anyone interested in retaining the services of a consultant, I would be happy to recommend a few to retain and a few to avoid.
Hiring a consultant is a frequent consideration for an aesthetic physician. The lure of someone who can either transform your practice from one centered on general dermatology to one centered on cosmetic procedures or who can take your run-of-the-mill cosmetic practice to the next level is alluring, to say the least. But before you jump head-first into hiring someone, there are some things you need to know.
Big Promises
Typical consultants drive the 7 series BMW, dress well and speak a language that we, as physicians, are not accustomed to. The discussions of “patient retention rates”, “internal marketing” and “cost of patient acquisition” are imposing to those of us only educated in medicine.
Frequently, a physician listening to a sales pitch from a consultant is flattered by the potential opportunity offered — to become the leader in his or her area using a methodically crafted plan.
But what are the realities of hiring a consultant? From personal experience as well as from informal surveys of other doctors, results are mixed and depend upon the consultant hired.
In this article, I will discuss some of issues to consider if you are thinking about hiring a consultant as well as what goals you should reasonably expect a consultant to accomplish.
Deciding What You Want
The first thing to consider when contemplating the services of an outside consultant is: What do you want to accomplish? Although this sounds simple, it really is more complex than it first appears.
If you are happy with your practice (loosely defined as looking forward to being at the office each day) and are content with your income level (loosely defined as being content as you drive to your office each day), then you may not want to make many changes and a consultant might not be appropriate for you. However, if you are at a point where you are either emotionally, intellectually or financially stifled and are looking for a change in the way you practice, a consultant might be a good way to get an assessment of what changes to make and how to make them.
You may first want to consider being your own consultant in the beginning and using some of the information available to you through the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) or American Society for Dermatologic Surgery (ASDS) to benchmark your practice against other practices to see where you stand. This will help you to focus on areas that are or are not in need of change and which areas you’d like to consult about with an expert.
If you decide that you want to have an outside party evaluate your practice, your next step is to figure out who that person should be. Unfortunately, there are no board certifications for consultants and no benchmarks for proficiency. There are, however, references that are worth checking. The dermatology community is relatively small, and the aesthetic dermatology community is smaller yet. Ask around to see if there is a particular name that comes up with good references for the particular goals on which you want to focus.
Whenever I hire a consultant, I ask like-minded individuals who they used to accomplish the same goals that are before me. This has been a more fruitful approach than my prior operating procedure of writing checks and just waiting to see what resulted.
Choosing the Right Consultant
Once you have obtained several recommendations, the next step in the process is to interview a consultant. When doing so, don’t be intimidated by the attitude that frequently accompanies an initial discussion. Remember, this person will work for you, not the other way around.
During the interview process, you need to make sure that your personalities fit. If you are the type of person who likes to get your information in written format and the consultant likes one-on-one meetings that will take up your time, this might not be a good match. Conversely, if you are a phone or direct contact person and the consultant is tethered to a Blackberry and prefers
e-mail, it will be a frustrating experience for you.
I like to receive my information via e-mail in short packets that convey the information required without trying to unduly impress me with the latest terminology from “Who Moved My Cheese?” or Dr. Phil. E-mail enables me to convey my thoughts and goals to consultants (and others) in a manner that is on my terms — I do not have to directly interact and am thus freed from temporal constraints. Trying to speak on the phone in between seeing patients is a recipe for failure with me as I am always attempting to truncate the conversation in order to return to work.
It’s important that the consultant can work with you and also with your staff. My own personal preference is to get as much information as possible disseminated to my staff so that they can help make changes suggested. In order to minimize the impact on patient care, I schedule staff training days during days when I am out of the office. I do not let any consultant dictate the dates or times of my meetings with them, as my time is, to me, the most valuable asset.
Determining the Fees
During the interview process, discuss the fees for the practice consultation. These can vary enormously depending on the skill and reputation of the consultant. When hiring someone, call his or her references and bluntly ask whether he or she was worth the money paid.
You may also suggest linking the pay to performance with concrete goals tied to milestone payments. For instance, a consultant who promises to double your Botox income in 6 months may or may not be able to do this and should be compensated based on the fulfillment of this goal.
Expect to pay anywhere from $50 to $100 per hour for most consultants with additional fees for travel expenses. Be aware that like attorneys, the meter is always running and do not let the consultant bill you without your pre-approval for services and time, or you may find yourself with large bills for phone calls, research, lengthy discussions with your employees at restaurants, etc.
Personal Experience
Over the past decade, I have hired and worked with several consultants and worked as a consultant for other practices in various capacities.
The first consultant I hired was a billing consultant who was highly recommended. She was also pricey and told me most of what I already knew — that I should try to document more and thereby increase my revenue. She was not a particularly gifted consultant.
The next consultant I hired was to help me manage my growth. In the early years of my practice, my practice doubled yearly, and I had no idea how to manage the billing, the staff, whether to market, to hire another physician, etc. I looked to this consultant to help me with these questions. She partially answered some of them, but more importantly, she helped me frame the questions that I needed answered. This exercise was as helpful as any answer could have been. The fact that this consultant forced me to sit down and look at my practice numbers was well worth the time and effort spent.
This was a turning point for me professionally because until then, I had no idea about the business of being a physician. From this point on, I began to read more and began to attend seminars about the business end of cosmetic dermatology.
Consultants I’ve hired from that day to this are now people I rely upon for specific projects and no longer look to for all the answers. I hire a billing consultant from time to time to audit some charts, I retain a risk management consultant to ensure that my staff is doing everything possible to maintain high degrees of patient safety, and I rely upon the data provided by my practice consultant to compare my practice with other similar practices as well as for trending my practice parameters. Another type of consultant who may worth hiring is a cosmetic practice consultant who may be able to help develop a marketing program and cosmetic identity for a practice.
The Benefits
The best consultants I have worked with understand my practice, my goals for the practice and my temperament. Annually, they benchmark my practice by evaluating the financial health of the practice, they recommend opportunities for growth, they warn about threats to the practice, and they act as counselors.
For anyone interested in retaining the services of a consultant, I would be happy to recommend a few to retain and a few to avoid.
Hiring a consultant is a frequent consideration for an aesthetic physician. The lure of someone who can either transform your practice from one centered on general dermatology to one centered on cosmetic procedures or who can take your run-of-the-mill cosmetic practice to the next level is alluring, to say the least. But before you jump head-first into hiring someone, there are some things you need to know.
Big Promises
Typical consultants drive the 7 series BMW, dress well and speak a language that we, as physicians, are not accustomed to. The discussions of “patient retention rates”, “internal marketing” and “cost of patient acquisition” are imposing to those of us only educated in medicine.
Frequently, a physician listening to a sales pitch from a consultant is flattered by the potential opportunity offered — to become the leader in his or her area using a methodically crafted plan.
But what are the realities of hiring a consultant? From personal experience as well as from informal surveys of other doctors, results are mixed and depend upon the consultant hired.
In this article, I will discuss some of issues to consider if you are thinking about hiring a consultant as well as what goals you should reasonably expect a consultant to accomplish.
Deciding What You Want
The first thing to consider when contemplating the services of an outside consultant is: What do you want to accomplish? Although this sounds simple, it really is more complex than it first appears.
If you are happy with your practice (loosely defined as looking forward to being at the office each day) and are content with your income level (loosely defined as being content as you drive to your office each day), then you may not want to make many changes and a consultant might not be appropriate for you. However, if you are at a point where you are either emotionally, intellectually or financially stifled and are looking for a change in the way you practice, a consultant might be a good way to get an assessment of what changes to make and how to make them.
You may first want to consider being your own consultant in the beginning and using some of the information available to you through the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) or American Society for Dermatologic Surgery (ASDS) to benchmark your practice against other practices to see where you stand. This will help you to focus on areas that are or are not in need of change and which areas you’d like to consult about with an expert.
If you decide that you want to have an outside party evaluate your practice, your next step is to figure out who that person should be. Unfortunately, there are no board certifications for consultants and no benchmarks for proficiency. There are, however, references that are worth checking. The dermatology community is relatively small, and the aesthetic dermatology community is smaller yet. Ask around to see if there is a particular name that comes up with good references for the particular goals on which you want to focus.
Whenever I hire a consultant, I ask like-minded individuals who they used to accomplish the same goals that are before me. This has been a more fruitful approach than my prior operating procedure of writing checks and just waiting to see what resulted.
Choosing the Right Consultant
Once you have obtained several recommendations, the next step in the process is to interview a consultant. When doing so, don’t be intimidated by the attitude that frequently accompanies an initial discussion. Remember, this person will work for you, not the other way around.
During the interview process, you need to make sure that your personalities fit. If you are the type of person who likes to get your information in written format and the consultant likes one-on-one meetings that will take up your time, this might not be a good match. Conversely, if you are a phone or direct contact person and the consultant is tethered to a Blackberry and prefers
e-mail, it will be a frustrating experience for you.
I like to receive my information via e-mail in short packets that convey the information required without trying to unduly impress me with the latest terminology from “Who Moved My Cheese?” or Dr. Phil. E-mail enables me to convey my thoughts and goals to consultants (and others) in a manner that is on my terms — I do not have to directly interact and am thus freed from temporal constraints. Trying to speak on the phone in between seeing patients is a recipe for failure with me as I am always attempting to truncate the conversation in order to return to work.
It’s important that the consultant can work with you and also with your staff. My own personal preference is to get as much information as possible disseminated to my staff so that they can help make changes suggested. In order to minimize the impact on patient care, I schedule staff training days during days when I am out of the office. I do not let any consultant dictate the dates or times of my meetings with them, as my time is, to me, the most valuable asset.
Determining the Fees
During the interview process, discuss the fees for the practice consultation. These can vary enormously depending on the skill and reputation of the consultant. When hiring someone, call his or her references and bluntly ask whether he or she was worth the money paid.
You may also suggest linking the pay to performance with concrete goals tied to milestone payments. For instance, a consultant who promises to double your Botox income in 6 months may or may not be able to do this and should be compensated based on the fulfillment of this goal.
Expect to pay anywhere from $50 to $100 per hour for most consultants with additional fees for travel expenses. Be aware that like attorneys, the meter is always running and do not let the consultant bill you without your pre-approval for services and time, or you may find yourself with large bills for phone calls, research, lengthy discussions with your employees at restaurants, etc.
Personal Experience
Over the past decade, I have hired and worked with several consultants and worked as a consultant for other practices in various capacities.
The first consultant I hired was a billing consultant who was highly recommended. She was also pricey and told me most of what I already knew — that I should try to document more and thereby increase my revenue. She was not a particularly gifted consultant.
The next consultant I hired was to help me manage my growth. In the early years of my practice, my practice doubled yearly, and I had no idea how to manage the billing, the staff, whether to market, to hire another physician, etc. I looked to this consultant to help me with these questions. She partially answered some of them, but more importantly, she helped me frame the questions that I needed answered. This exercise was as helpful as any answer could have been. The fact that this consultant forced me to sit down and look at my practice numbers was well worth the time and effort spent.
This was a turning point for me professionally because until then, I had no idea about the business of being a physician. From this point on, I began to read more and began to attend seminars about the business end of cosmetic dermatology.
Consultants I’ve hired from that day to this are now people I rely upon for specific projects and no longer look to for all the answers. I hire a billing consultant from time to time to audit some charts, I retain a risk management consultant to ensure that my staff is doing everything possible to maintain high degrees of patient safety, and I rely upon the data provided by my practice consultant to compare my practice with other similar practices as well as for trending my practice parameters. Another type of consultant who may worth hiring is a cosmetic practice consultant who may be able to help develop a marketing program and cosmetic identity for a practice.
The Benefits
The best consultants I have worked with understand my practice, my goals for the practice and my temperament. Annually, they benchmark my practice by evaluating the financial health of the practice, they recommend opportunities for growth, they warn about threats to the practice, and they act as counselors.
For anyone interested in retaining the services of a consultant, I would be happy to recommend a few to retain and a few to avoid.
