April 2006

Wow. We got our production numbers for the first three months of the year, and they are good. Really good. We have been growing in a couple of departments over the last eight months, but it only really shows throughout the whole group now that we have a more complete staff. With one critical staff member down it was very hard to get the whole business looking productive. It is a relief to have the physical therapy department back; both from the business standpoint and from the clinical standpoint. It’s taken a while for the referrals to pick back up – for patients to take us seriously again.

We are finally starting to take in the cash from the last few months, too. It is always hard to plan for the first two or three months of the year when people have to pay their deductibles for insurance. The cash that comes into the business is less, particularly in February and the beginning of March. Even though the same amount of people have problems, our visit count is less! It is part of the business cycle that is difficult no matter what we seem to do. Thankfully, we are at the end of that part of the year. Now I have to figure out how to dance through it better next year.

New Patient activities are increasing. Our speaking engagements are growing, and we are initiating in house activities that are very satisfying. The staff turmoil is not over, and we are still having turnaround (seeking the right people for the right positions) despite some recent hires. So, that makes the new patient activities a little less exciting. (I am acutely aware that once the new patients are in the door something can go wrong to turn off a new patient. It happened last week!)