New Year’s Resolutions for Your Practice: Tips for a Prosperous 2023

Every January, people make New Year’s resolutions. These include personal goals like getting fit or breaking a bad habit. January can also be a good time to make practice resolutions. Modern Aesthetics® magazine asked three practice management pros to share their tips for making 2023 your most productive and profitable year yet.

SOCIAL MEDIA AGREEMENTS WITH EMPLOYEES

Allyson Avila, JD

Out with the old, in with the new, as the saying goes. But, in this case, what your practice should be doing in 2023 is really what your practice should have been doing from the start, namely understanding the workplace and protecting yourself and your practice.

It may seem obvious, but generally, most practices simply hire staff without having any contract in place or any provisions to outline what the practice expects from staff. Many practices give pertinent information to their staff—passwords, social media account access, photographs, keys, and patient lists, to name a few. Yet, the practice fails to have any agreement in place as to who owns the rights to the information/photographs or what happens upon termination.

All practices moving forward must have a social media agreement in place that all employees must sign regardless of their position. The social media agreement should include such items as the following.

No. 1: The practice’s expectation of how an employee will conduct themselves on social media. Wording in the agreement should state that the employee must always be fair and courteous to staff members, clients, vendors, suppliers, or people who work on behalf of the company. Inappropriate postings that may include discriminatory remarks, harassment, retaliation, and threats of violence or similar inappropriate or unlawful conduct will not be tolerated.

No. 2: The employee is required always to be truthful and accurate when posting information or news. If a mistake is made in the content, it should be corrected quickly. Be open about any previous posts you have altered. Use privacy settings when appropriate. Remember that the internet archives almost everything; therefore, even deleted postings can be searched.

No. 3: The employee must agree to maintain the confidentiality of company trade secrets and proprietary or confidential information. Trade secrets may include information regarding the development of systems, processes, products, know-how, and technology.

No. 4: The employee must get permission before posting any content.

No. 5: The employee cannot create a link from their own blog, website, or other social networking site to the Company’s website without identifying themselves as a Company employee. Upon termination of employment, all social media accounts set up for the employee will be deactivated by the Company.

No. 6: The Company owns all rights to the content and photos that are posted. This is known as a work made for hire, and the employee gives over all of their rights to that photo.

PROTECT YOUR PRACTICE FROM INTERNAL THREATS

Jay A. Shorr, BA, MBM-C, CAC XIV

With another challenging year behind us, it is time to put processes in place to protect your practice and brand from internal threats.

Update Human Resources Policies and Protocols

When was the last time you checked to see if your employee policy and procedure manual was up to date? Does it detail your current paid time off and vacation allowances, jury duty, and bereavement policies? It should also include individual retirement accounts and 401(k) match benefits, health insurance allowances, uniform allowances, and any other allowances you may have for employees.

Put Enhanced Theft Prevention Practices in Place

Most theft prevention measures are not foolproof, and your staff knows this. Do you check for inventory variances weekly? If you wait a month or more, then it is too late to find out where shortages have occurred. Ensure that you have more than one person verifying your saleable and nonsaleable inventory.

Review Vendor Contracts

Make sure you have a list of all of your vendor contracts detailing the expiration dates and the true term for cancellation or automatic renewal. If you do not stay on top of this, the contract may self-renew, and this can cost thousands of dollars.

Audit Your Online Presence

Wendy Lewis

Given looming recession warnings, fears of a downturn in consumer spending, and concerns about a US government shutdown, it is time to tick the most important boxes to set yourself up for success when promoting your practice in 2023.

Set up a Zoom meeting with your web team to do a full audit of your online presence. This should include a detailed search engine optimization plan, sound Google strategy, diversified lead sources, keyword research, and reputation management.

Hire a freelancer or have staff trained to take your social media to the next level on the channels that matter to your practice—namely, Meta, TikTok, YouTube, Google, and LinkedIn. Keep up with social trends, including short-form video, voice-only content, user-generated content (from real people), and social audio (think podcasts and audio events). Also take advantage of social commerce to sell more products and packages online.

If you do not have one, enlist a reputable business consultant experienced in medical practices to do a detailed audit of your practice to determine where you can cut costs. For example, exchange outdated equipment and products that are not being used or are not profitable for something that will bring more patients in the door.

Finally, force yourself to get comfortable with the concept of AI by adding a customized chatbot to respond to as many common (nonmedical) patient queries as possible 24/7 to save staff time.