January 2007

How is it possible that the whole year of 2006 could have gone by without touching all of the New Patient Activities that we had planned? The fact is that it did. While I was busy recovering from the theft, patching up and retraining (and training and retraining) the staff, prioritizing cash flow...I somehow let my New Patient Plans slide away. Suddenly now, in the middle of January, I am looking at my plans for this year and see that we are off to the same kind of start with our new business initiatives. I realize that I simply can’t handle it alone, but am confused about who to set to the task. I am going to reach out to figure that one out….

Being the full-time doc right now is lots of fun and very freeing. I love working with the staff and patients. The down side is that I am left with the evening (and late evening) to catch up on all of the administrative things. My administrative assistant is helping me quite a bit, but there are just things that I have to do that are waiting a bit too long. The result is an agitation that I can’t shake. I look forward to having the new doc in place, pulling my hours with patients back a bit, and finding time to do the work that waits. The fact that my feet feel like sandpaper, my hair hasn’t been cut by a pro in a couple of months, my orthodontist hasn’t seen me in 12 weeks, and my body parts are falling closer to the center of the earth (without appropriate counterforces called exercise) are just incidental. I wonder if the patients – or anyone – notices my General State (not too polished). With the little teeny-weeny bit of free time that I have (calculated right now at 9 hours in the week from Monday through Saturday), I simply want to see my girls and my husband, not get a pedicure or a haircut.

Onward