MGMA Podcasts

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Patient experience, leadership development, staffing turnover, service standards, patient feedback, automation, cross-training, team motivation, visibility and presence, patient satisfaction, operational efficiency, decompression zone, transparency, brand promise, healthcare culture.
SPEAKERS
Kris Baird, Daniel Williams

Daniel Williams 00:02
Well, hi everyone. I'm Daniel Williams, senior editor at MGMA and host of the MGMA podcast network today. We're we've got a returning guest, someone who's been on the show before, show before, and always brings great insight. And that's Kristen Baird, for those of you who know Kristen, you're lucky, because she has a wealth of information. If you don't, Kristen is the CEO of the Baird group and a nationally recognized expert on patient experience, leadership and culture in healthcare. She spent her career helping organizations create service driven cultures and improve the patient and employee experience. Kristen, it's good to see you again. Great

Kris Baird 00:48
to see you too. Dan, thanks for having me back on. Oh

Daniel Williams 00:52
yeah. So you had reached out to me because we had emailed back and forth a little bit all the way back in June of 2024, I mean, it kind of sneaked up on us there, but let's talk about it. What has been going on in your world, I guess, since June, since we last connected. What have you been up to? Oh, I've been

Kris Baird 01:14
doing a lot of training and consulting, a lot of our leadership development classes and things. Busy time, busy time. Glad that I could be doing my be the leader. Nobody wants to leave course, partially, virtually, so that's been good.

Daniel Williams 01:34
Oh, that's good. That's good. As far as when you're working with practices over this past year or so. Are there any trends that are standing out to you, that practices are coming to you and there seems to be common threads there of friction points and challenges? What would those be?

Kris Baird 01:58
Yeah, you know, unfortunately, staffing turnover continues to be a major issue, especially with your front desk people, your front office and your medical assistants. That continues to be an issue, and it's hard, I think, for the practice leaders to keep up with a consistently positive patient experience when you're constantly onboarding folks, and it's hard for the staff when they're constantly helping to onboard peers. And you know, oftentimes we think about that turnover in terms of what it costs in dollars, but it's it's hard, it's hard on the team. Mm, hmm.

Daniel Williams 02:45
Now, when you and I connected, we were going, Well, gosh, we have a lot of things we could talk about, and we may even spread this out over several episodes, if, if you know, we can find the time to connect here and talk about different topics, but one of the things you said you really wanted to talk about was maintaining service standards, no matter the volume, the staffing levels, no matter what it might be. It was something you were saying that every practice leader struggles with. So let's look at that. What's the biggest challenge you say when it comes to keeping those service that service quality high, when everything else is stretched as well, when people

Kris Baird 03:29
are stretched, this is a challenge. I mean, I won't mince any words, when people are are working short or having to constantly onboarding, having that consistency in the standards is tough, but let me say, first they have to have standards right. And I'm still running into practices that have not set any kind of service standards. They might give instructions, they might have their mission, vision values posted, but they haven't really articulated standards. And what I want to emphasize with leaders is that if you have not articulated the standards, then service might be seen as a suggestion, right? Yeah, this is how we do things here, you know, this is the insert name way, right. So it's important that leaders have to they have to be the constant. They have to be the true north in setting and upholding the standards, you know, and one of the main things in achieving that, I think, with leaders, the ones who really get it done are visible and present. They're out there walking the practice. They're interacting throughout the day. A they're looking to see. Are things what they should be? They're getting out there and they're talking to patients, maybe on their way out, how did things go? Maybe they're they're doing rounds in the waiting room, thanking people for their patience. But they the the leader is visible and present.

Daniel Williams 05:22
Okay, now, one of the other, I mean, real issues that is underpinning everything else is the staffing shortages. So as we know that can put a real strain on the patient experience. Basically every practice leader I talk to is dealing with some level of staffing shortages. So it's a true problem in healthcare right now. What are some strategies then that you've seen work for, keeping staff engaged, keeping them motivated when they are just trying to keep their head above water? How does that what's what's working out there,

Kris Baird 06:00
yeah, yeah. First of all, when leaders start talking about, you know, maintaining a standard or maintaining this level of excellence, it's important for them to articulate too, that delivering great service isn't about doing more work, okay? It's about how you're doing the work that you're doing, right? So you have to register somebody, okay, so the technical abilities of getting that person in the system, you know, registered is pretty constant, right? How you do it is up to you. Are you going to greet that person you know with a smile, welcoming, or you're going to have a scowl on your face? Because that's free, and it's not going to take you any more time. But it's hard when you're stressed, when you're feeling like, you know, I'm just trying to keep my head above water. I'm trying to do the best I can. We're all stretched thin, so I like to break it down into three buckets. Okay, so when I think about it, how do you keep that standard? Let's talk about people, process and place. Okay, so the first bucket people, what's the leader's role? The leader is definitely the encourager, the cheerleader, the coach, and like I said, to be present, you know, is really important, you know. So, making rounds, lending a hand where you can without completely abandoning your leadership duties, because I see that a lot where the leader is trying so hard to pitch in because they see the team is stretched, and yet, at the end of the day, who's doing their work, right? So it's, it's, it's juggling, right? But that leader being visible and present, as I said, having a rock solid recognition system in place, I mean, and system sounds like it's, it's very highly evolved, even just getting out there and saying, Hey, Dan, you did a great job today. Thank you so much. I watched you juggle these three things at the same time, and you really kept your cool. I'm in total awe of you. You know, something like that would build your team member up, right? So be generous with your recognition. I always talk about it should be the three P's. It should be personal, prompt and plentiful. All right, so I want to address you individually and say, I see you right, and it should be close after the event, because, you know, Dan's out there working really hard. He's juggling 20 things at once. It's going to mean a lot to you if, if you know I see you all right. Recognition is another people issue. Cross training is another people issue that as we're I mean, I know that's operational. Cross training can really help and already stretch staff, if they know that there are the various roles where they can pitch in, it also helps build a stronger sense of team, and then making sure the staff are educated on the services that you offer, so that they feel like they can step in and take action as needed, rather than having to go and get somebody else. And that kind of goes hand in glove with the cross training. Those are the people elements process. You know, when it comes down to processes, automate wherever possible, and it. It seems, it seems odd that I'd be saying, you know, even things like appointment confirmations, people are still not relinquishing that to automation. And it's not that hard to do, and many of their systems have the capabilities, but they just haven't tapped into it. So the other thing I say, if you want to have more time and and head space for service, automate where you can AI, there's, there are things we can do with AI. I know people are probably sick of hearing about AI. I was one of the resistors, I'll tell you, I was resistant until somebody said to me, think about it as another staff member that they're taking on some of these duties that you know, and AI is not going to take their jobs, right, but it might make them easier, right, right? Right? Those can be and those solutions can be built that that you know, can relieve people of some administrative burden, even improve the revenue, right? They send a text to pre register. Hey, do you want to pre register? They're gathering that information before the patient gets there, so when they get there, you know, you've got that information. You can say, oh, and thank you. Thank you, Mr. Williams, for registering online. And you know, I I hope that was convenient for you. You can manage the co pays in advance when you do those things, so remember, you want to lighten that administrative burden as much as you possibly can. So that's people, that's process. And now place. When I talk about place, I'm talking about environment, setting up the workspace so it's as efficient as possible. And I think back to when I was running multiple primary care practices, and one of the complaints was from the medical assistance is I'm trying to do the visit summary with them, and I have to walk down the hall to the printer to get things off the printer. And so we thought, oh my gosh, printers are cheap enough, you know, if we put them in the exam rooms and we could print off the the information it saves how many steps in the course of the day, right? I even recommend doing a spaghetti diagram, if you know what I'm talking about, where you track steps, if you've got a footprint of your practice, you know, have your people track their steps in the spaghetti diagram to show where might there be waste, where might there be opportunity To to cut down on some of their steps, right? The other thing about the environment is is have a decompression zone. I call it that. It might just be a break room, but make sure it's sacred, that if people are taking a break, that they're not hearing the overhead pages, that they're not, you know, being bombarded with all sorts of information that they can't hear. You know, you know, the phones ringing and things make it truly a space where they can have a break. And that's going to be important, and then making sure that is that break room fun. Make it fun. I've read in some where they have coloring, you know, coloring books, or a mural that people write on the wall. And honestly, what a stress buster that can be.

Daniel Williams 13:55
Yeah, oh, that is awesome. So I want to switch gears a little bit. So let's, let's talk about we've all had those bad days as human beings, for staff, for patients, anybody, we're human. So there are days when things can just not go our way, or seem in our minds to not go our way. So how can leaders help build a culture where service excellence is just the standard, no matter takeout who has the black cloud following them on a given day, that the team just knows that they will rise above. They will pull together. They'll make things happen. So talk about that. How do you make that work within an organization,

Kris Baird 14:42
again, that leader has to has to be mindful of that. Has to be present, observing, see when somebody's having a bad day, maybe giving them break, right? You know, it's hectic, but here's the thing I. At no point does the consumer, the patient, say, hey, everybody's busy, you know, I don't care, you know, if they're rude to me or I don't care if they're really short tempered with me. No, the consumer expectation is going to remain high. It's going to remain high, and we aren't going to put up a billboard that says we put the patient at the center of everything we do with an asterisk with a disclaimer saying, except for when we're busy. Nobody's going to say that. Nobody's going to post their mission vision values with an asterisk and a disclaimer saying, except we were really busy, right? We put out a promise. You know, when people hang out their shingle, when they become a medical practice, the consumer should be able to expect high quality. You know, clinically and service wide, you know, quality all the way around, they should be able to expect that. So again, talking to your people about this, this is the expectation, right? If you need a break, let me know. You know, I'll do the best I can to help you, but that visibility and presence from the manager actually communicates more than 100 emails, right? Wow. Okay, you know, people say, I want to know my my leaders got my back, right, and when they see you, you know, and they walk by you and you're on a tough call, and they put their hand on your shoulder like I hear you, yeah, I'm here for you. That is worth its weight in gold. Is it easy? No, it's not. Because a lot of these leaders they have, they are multitasking all day long. But honestly, let's start with, you know, let's prioritize what, what about your role could be delegated, right? So that you can be out among your people. The other thing is transparency. You know, when a leader can be fully transparent with the team, you know, and talk to them about, look, we we put out the ad for the staff. You know, we're trying to get new staff in here. They don't want to hear we're trying give specifics, yeah, you know, we put the ad out two weeks ago. We've had 20 people apply, apply. We're through the first level of interviews, and we're hoping to make an offer by such and such a date. So give them specifics when you can. The other thing that's really helpful is reminding people of their past, right? Reminding them that we have been through really tough times. Remember back when we had to do this, this and this, and man, we rally. We are a team. We we can't be beaten when it comes to these things. So remind them of the past. You know, there's something to be said for any of us that are going through a stressful time that can look back and say, Okay, relax. You've been through this before, right? So going backwards a little bit could be good, but also storytelling, okay? If, if the manager can be out there among patients asking them how things went today, and they tell you a great story about, oh boy. Jenny was so good today. She was so patient. Go back and tell that to the team. You know, you may be feeling really busy today, team, but here's what our patients are saying, which tells me that you're all rock stars, right?

Daniel Williams 19:11
Yeah, we got time for, I think, one or two more questions. So want to, want to get these in with you right now. One of these things is we were talking about it from the leader talking to the team, but another great tool that you talk about is patient feedback. So talk about the patient feedback processes, how they can look in a practice and be really successful. Any storytelling you might want to share with us about some of these successes. Please do so, yeah,

Kris Baird 19:45
really, the big thing is to not, not weaponize your patient satisfaction survey scores or patients. What do you

Daniel Williams 19:59
mean by weaponize? What's that? What does that mean? Oh, a lot of organizations

Kris Baird 20:02
put such pressure on their people that we're only in the 10th percentile here, and we gotta get up to the 90th percentile. And everybody's at, you know, and and they put this pressure on them without giving them real solutions, right, right? So I talked about one of the things, make sure you have standards, and those standards should be linked to the values and the values, you know, because this is basically it. You want to live the values, right? So you got to have the standard in in place, making sure that if you're you're going to share the patient scores with them, that you always give hope, right? You don't want to beat them up with it, but, but talk about concrete things. Has everybody been trained? You know, once you have the standards, do they know what to do? Do they know how to do it, and do they understand the why? Right? Don't assume they have a bad attitude. Maybe it's that they haven't had proper training.

Daniel Williams 21:13
Good. Okay, that is wonderful. So last question then, Kristen, if you had one big takeaway today, I mean, we've covered a lot of bases here, but if there's one thing practice, leaders can start doing today to create a culture of service excellence, no matter what those circumstances are, what would that be? I

Kris Baird 21:34
think to be visible and present. I've said that in a couple of different ways, but you know three things, remember, patient expectations are not going to drop because you're stretched, right? So you need to set and uphold those standards. Secondly, you know that visibility and presence speaks volumes to your team, that you see them, you see how hard they're working, and then make sure that you're training everybody to ensure that consistency in living the brand promise.

Daniel Williams 22:09
Okay, well, Kristen, it is always great having you on the show, and hope we can get you back here and maybe develop a series on culture within the organizations. But for right now, just thank you for being here today. Thank

Kris Baird 22:22
you for having me. And I'd love to talk to you more on culture. I love

Daniel Williams 22:27
it. I love it. All right, everybody. Well, this has been Kristen Baird. You can check out more information from Kristen through the Baird group, and you'll find that at Baird dash group.com, and I'll also put that direct link in the episode show notes. And I wanted to remind everybody we have been developing articles as well that have a lot of additional information in there, and those will be housed on mgma.com so all of that the episode show notes, this episode itself, and then the article will be available for you all to consume. So as always, thanks for tuning in to MGMA insights, and if you like what you've heard, be sure to subscribe. Leave us a rating. Let us know what topics you want us to cover next. So until then, I'm Daniel Williams and we'll catch you next time you.