Awesome web site to help you think of your business as a business

I hear it all the time when talking to PTs or Doctors about their business, I am frequently told that “Medicine is not like any other business, its different”. The reasons given why medicine ‘is different’ vary (typically the answer is it “just is”). I don’t find this to be true, I don’t think medical practices should be run any different than any other successful business.

We have built our practice by thinking about the services that we sell just like any other business out there. I observe how McDonalds can deliver the same hamburger across the world no matter who cooked it. I model our front desk behavior after what the best hotels are doing. Part of the success of our company comes from learning from what other good companies are doing and emulating it.

I was just turned onto a fantastic website, www.TED.com; Ted is an online community of outstanding individuals that give free 18 minute lectures (a concept similar to what we are building at The PT Project). The quality of content is amazing, it is forward thinking by famous speakers. There is fantastic information about how to run a business on the site – it’s an MBA 18 minutes at a time.

One lecture that I found particular interesting was given by Dan Pink on the science of motivation – we have tried many different financial incentives with our PTs to increase productivity. When we first announced financial incentive for the number of patients seen, productivity when down! Mr. Pink talks about what motivates people more than money.