Blog #41 - Graduate Performance at the 6 month mark
You have reached the 6 month mark in private practice.
How do you feel you are going?
You should be very clear about your performance at this stage as you should have set milestones from your employer to meet expectations. You should be ticking them off the list and enjoying gathering all the feedback you possibly can whether good or bad. Feedback can come from your peers, supervisor, employer and most importantly your patients.
At this point in your career you should have met some milestones that will indicate you are on the correct path for success in private practice:
1. You have met your practice KPI expectations or you are improving constantly to meet and exceed these performance reference points. Striving for quality and always approaching each patient with a client focused service of care will be reflected in the numbers. Most graduates with mentorship and development will meet these KPI's very early on in their career. If you are struggling at this point, you need to approach your employer and ask for their support to improve in this area.
2. You have mastered and understand the policies, processes, procedures and culture of the business you are working in. It is very important that graduates align themselves with the way the practice does things. It will be new and it might not be how you would do it, but you are working in someone else's business and you must follow their procedures. To ignore these requirements and do it your way, is like walking into someone else's house and putting your feet up on the coffee table, because that's what you do in your own home.
3. By now you should be searching for a great course to complete to fill your mind with more valuable clinical skills. You may or may not have completed a clinical course to date and that is perfectly fine, you are not behind. It is best to take the first 6 months to consolidate the skills you have acquired at university before attempting to add more confusion with a course that may be useless without the basics understood first.
4. You should be attempting to create your ideal caseload by networking, marketing to target groups on social media through the business channels, visiting GP's and local sporting groups or community groups to gain exposure for yourself as the 'Go-To' physio. No longer can we sit in our 4 room cubicle waiting for patients to come to us. We have to get out there and show them who the injury specialists are.
It is hard to compare apples with apples when each practice is very different with their caseload and billing rate, but this is an indicator based on a graduate in our own business that is on track for 2019.
