We’ve all heard the jokes about folks who are blessed (or cursed) with excessive thrift. He’s so thrifty he takes off his glasses when he isn’t looking at something……She’s so thrifty she shuts off the burner when she turns the bacon….etc., etc. While these jokes may be fun, there really is a limit to how thrifty a business owner should be.
• Thrift is great when limiting the percentages that salaries and bonuses go up as the years go by, but excessive thrift in the wrong places can be a problem. When staff members work hard every day and do everything asked of them, raises are in order as the company makes good profits. The doctors who refuse to give these appropriate raises and bonuses frequently find themselves settling for the employees no one else wants to hire…..after dealing with years of extra-high turnover.
• Thrift is great when we’re careful with ordering, compare prices and always keep about one month’s supply of all products available, but not so great when we may have to reschedule a patient because we’ve run out of an essential product. When this happens, either the patient is inconvenienced or we have to implore our merchandise associate for an emergency supply…. immediately. We are very fortunate here in Colorado to have some of the best merchandise associates in the country, but even the best can answer only so many emergencies.
• Thrift is great when we get a good deal for supplies on-line, but counterproductive if it means we lose our relationships with the folks who also repair our equipment ASAP when it goes down.
• Thrift is great when we carefully watch our insurance and patient write-offs, but not so great if we stubbornly refuse to do legitimate write-offs when appropriate. This just alienates patients and spreads a bad reputation about the practice.
• Thrift is also great when we carefully watch our incoming bills and make sure we pay only those that are appropriate. Everyone makes mistakes and we certainly want to be sure we’re only paying what we should, but when we get so thrifty that we try to argue/cajole our way out of legitimate bills, we seriously limit the number of vendors willing to work with us……and extend us credit for larger purchases.
Finally, as many of you know, we here at Mosaic are some of the THRIFTIEST individuals you will ever find, but we also know that sometimes too much thrift could hurt our business…or your practice.
