POWERFUL PRACTICES FEATURE ARTICLES

ABCD FORWARD BOOKING STATISTICS
By Dr Malcolm Rudd

Isn’t it true that necessity is the mother of all invention?

This was certainly the case in my own practice when it came to the ever puzzling question, “If I am setting schedules, and if everyone is being booked to that schedule, then why when I look forward a few weeks in the appointment book are there a number of gaps? Is there a leaky bucket with clients falling out the cracks?”

I decided to create an analysis on the practice that would easily demonstrate how effective we were at forward booking our clients. This would then serve as a baseline for future comparison.
I came up with what I call the ABCD Forward Booking Statistics.

The 1st step of this process is to analyse a shift in the practice. This needs to be done at random, without the CAs knowing, and the analysis needs to be done directly after the chosen shift. If you have an office manager, they are the ideal person to perform this statistic.

From that chosen shift, take a look at every client’s future appointment schedule and categorize them according to how many appointments they have future booked:   

Category A- These clients have what would be considered a full schedule of care. They are scheduled in the appointment book up to and including their next Progressive examination (PE) or Comparative examination (CE), or beyond this.

Category B-   These clients have more than one appointment forward scheduled in the appointment book. This may be 2, 3, 4 or more,  though not fully up to the next PE or CE

Category C- These clients have only their next appointment scheduled. 

Category D- These clients have left the practice with no future appointment.

The goal is to have the category A and B as high as possible and to have the category C and especially D as low as possible.

The ABCD Forward Booking Statistic is a measure of three main parts of the Chiropractic scheduling process: 

1. Is the Chiropractor setting a schedule of care?  If the client has no schedule at all, then the statistics will be poor. The CAs are not responsible for the leaky bucket if the Chiropractor is not forward scheduling their clients.
   
   
2. Communication.  If the Chiropractor sets a schedule but that schedule is not communicated clearly to the client and the CAs, then the schedule will not be forward booked. This typically occurs when the recommended schedule is not clearly entered into the file system you use, whether it is a paper file or a paperless system. The current schedule of care must be clear to the Chiropractor, to any associate Chiropractors in the practice who may see the client, and to all of the CAs.
   
   
3. CA Booking.    If the CA is not actively booking the forward appointments, then the statistics will definitely be poor. A system needs to be created to allow this to happen.   For example, the CA asks the client “Is morning or afternoon is better for you? “ then, “Would between 8 and 9 or 9 and 10am be better for you?”  They can then go on to say, “I will make those appointments for you between 9 and 10am up to your next progress examination.  I will print a calendar of those appointments for you and give it to you on your next visit. Then, you can let me know if there are any that need to be altered.”

Bringing these forward booking statistics to the awareness of the team will be practice changing.  A coaching client of mine recently made his team aware of how poorly they were doing. They had 4% in category A and B. By the whole team concentrating on the forward booking, they converted the very next shift to 60% in the category A and B.

Dr Malcolm Rudd  is a Mentor, Coach for The Centre For Powerful Practices, and  is based in Perth, Western Australia . Malcolm has had a career in Chiropractic for over 18 years, and has created a highly successful associate family practice where he continues to practice part time. His passion in life is to lead others to transform their lives and achieve their own Brilliance.