Practice Success and The Physician’s Role: It’s About Leadership Not Management

I have successfully lead individual medical spas and cosmetic practices with teams of 10 to large multi-site organizations with 37 locations and teams of 1,000.  To be a great leader is very different than being a great manager.  Both are needed within a medical spa or cosmetic practice.   In benchmarking best practices I find that the successful locations have a Medical Director (typically the physician/owner) who embraces their role as the leader of their business.  They drive their business culture and team to success.  In addition, they typically have a great Practice Manager that takes on the day-to-day responsibility running the practice.

The following identifies the difference between managing and leading.

What defines a manager:

• Makes things happen
• Implements policy
• Responsible for the team’s actions
• Insures accountability

What defines a leader

• Influences the team with respected authority
• Provides guidance
• Shows people what it should look
• Inspires the team to want to achieve

Attributes of a Manager vs Leader

Day-to-Day Operations
Manager: Administers
Leader: Develops

Problem Solving
Manager: Focuses on systems & structures
Leader: Focuses on people

Team Management
Manager: Relies on control
Leader: Inspires trust

Planning
Manager: Short range view
Leader: Long range perspective

Strategy
Manage: Asks how & when
Leader: Asks what & why

Business Boosting
Manager: Eye to the bottom line
Leader: Eye on the horizon

Research & Development
Manager: Imitates success stories
Leader: Creates success stories

iPads in Healthcare

This is an interesting news article concerning the use of IPads in healthcare.  Its not about cosmetic medicine but interesting to see what is happening to advance patient care through technology.

We actively promote the use of IPads and tablets in the cosmetic medical environment; starting with displaying before and after photos.

In addition, there are various EMR and medical software systems that allow the medical team to be much more efficient within the practice.  PatientNow is one that is setup to work with tablets even allowing patients to sign their consents directly on the tablet.

iPads in healthcare – Healthcare Global.

Generation X tops baby boomers in cosmetic procedures

Great article posted on the ASAPS website.  The Acara team has seen this for the past few years where there is more demand coming out of the younger generations than the BabyBoomers, like so many assume:

First, who is Generation X? They are adults between the ages of 31 and 45. This is the age of becoming something, otherwise known as living in a pressure cooker. The race is on: get a great job, get married, have babies, buy a house and start saving for retirement. The added caveat is that now you have to do it in a recession economy.

So when this “put upon” generation has a couple of extra dollars, what are they doing with it? According to Fox Business.com, November 21, 2011, the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS) reported that “adults between the ages of 31 and 45 accounted for 43% of all cosmetic procedures in 2010. Baby boomers, aged 51 to 64, who do in fact have more expendable income, accounted for just 28% of such procedures.

Read the full article here: Generation X tops baby boomers in cosmetic procedures.